Hello! Well, I thought it was about time to update the website, it seems so long ago now that we were in Nova Scotia. After heading back to Montreal to drop off the car we got a bus to Boston, and stayed there for 6 nights in some pretty crusty student accommodation again. Went to Salem to see the witch museum (where Mike said I should feel at home), and saw the not-so-impressive Plymouth Rock (although we nearly didn't get there because Mike asked the train ticket man for a ticket to Portsmouth!) After Boston we headed to Washington DC, only to find that the B & B I had booked online was in the dodgiest part of town! The taxi driver actually begged us not to stay there and it did look a bit ghetto with bars on all the windows, even for Lewisham residents like us. Anyway we stayed at the backpackers hostel instead, and had some very heated discussions with the B & B owner on how much he should charge to our card. We picked up our car, a dinky little Toyota Matrix, and drove down to North Carolina, stopping for a night in Virginia Beach where we stayed in a bit of a minging hostel (18 bed dorm, 2 girls including me and 16 men - it stank). Got to Hatteras Island the next day though, and that was really beautiful, all sand dunes. Unfortunately for Mike it was billed as the "sea fishing capital of the world" and he didn't have a sea fishing rod so had to watch! Apart from the tent nearly blowing away in gale force winds (it's a prime hurricane spot), we had a good time there. Next stop was Charleston, South Carolina. Here we camped again, and Mike tried his hand at fishing in a lake with some alligators swimming around in it. He also got chased out of a field by a cow. We did a ghost walk of the local jail which was my cup of tea - didn't see any ghosts though (apart from my own reflection, I still have no tan to speak of)!! We drove on to Charlotte, North Carolina and went to the Speedway to see some stock car racing. Some of the drivers were as young as 8 and it was good to see as they all take it so seriously - they even say a prayer before the race and sing the US national anthem. Good night out for 5 bucks though. So after that we headed for the Smoky Mountains, staying one night in Cherokee on a weird little hillybilly campsite and waking up to find the tent covered in slugs (eughh). The Smokies were breathtaking though, definitely everything they are cracked up to be. We did some hiking and fishing, and Mike caught a rainbow trout (although he has no photos to prove it as I was asleep in the car!) After the Smokies we stopped briefly in Knoxville, Tennessee, then Cumberland Falls, Kentucky where we met some crazy kids that were catching lizards with their bare hands (one of them later ended up getting stung in the eye by a bee). Next Stop Lexington, Kentucky, where we stayed with my friends Margaret and John and lived in luxury for 5 days! Whilst there we visited the Louisville Slugger museum to see them making the professional baseball bats, a Shaker village, the Kentucky horse park and a drive-in movie. Mike fell in love with Margaret's son's pitbull Chico (it was the loveliest pitbull in the world). Mike also managed to get pulled over by the police for doing 80 mph in a 50 mph zone. Unlike me he somehow managed to get away with it!!!!! Jammy git! The cop just looked at his licence and said he didn't know what to do with it, but if Mike had been going 1mph more he would have slung him in jail and then "you really would get to see America". After we left we camped at Mammoth Cave (the longest cave in the world at 360 miles). Mike wanted to go fishing as usual so we trekked down to the nearest river only to find a muddy slope to the shore, well after hiking to get there I said something along the lines of Mike had better fish or else (only less polite), so he tried to get down and slipped. Then I tried to get down to help and went @rse over you-know-what and got COVERED in mud and it wasn't very funny. Since then we have been to the Corvette plant to see them being made, stayed a night in Nashville where we saw some live country music, and now we're in Memphis. Beale Street is really lively here and they do "big ass beer to go" in all the bars so that you can just walk up and down the street drink in hand. Unsurprisingly Mike likes it here. Especially as to get here we drove through a few counties where he was having trouble getting his usual 10 pack of beers a day - and then found out to his disgust that it was a "dry" county where no alcohol is served!!!! (I did laugh). Oh well, that's the news, off to Graceland this afternoon and then to New Orleans on sunday... Love Claire x