After a final photo with Howard we headed south.

The next part of our trip would have us retracing some of the territory we covered on our bike in 2009. We decided to stay on the major roads to start with as we have a lot of miles to cover if we hope to do all the things we would like to do.

We avoided the large cities of Trenton, Philadelphia and Washington and had a reasonably good run with light traffic. We stopped a couple of times for a breaks at thoroughly forgetable spots. We finally decided that Lexington, Virginia would be our destination for the night - about 600km from where we started, glad we were not on the bike!


Lexington turned out to be a gem of a stopping spot. Great accommodation at a Best Western for the right price, delicious food for dinner and a delightful town to explore. Lexington is the location of the Virginia Military Institute. After our visit to West Point Military Academy earlier in the trip, this University was a stark contrast. There was no security checks and the size of the campus was massive. The buildings were a mix of modern and historic, all very beautiful. We moved from one area to the next stopping and taking photos wherever we wanted without anyone questioning us.


The Virginia Military Institute was established in 1839 and is the oldest such institute in the USA, it is also known as the West Point of the South. It is a public military college and caters for 1653 students, most who appeared to be involved in outdoor physical activites while we were there. Believe it or not, the mascot for this Academy is Moe - a kangaroo! All students participate in ROTC , Reserve Officer Training Corps, and graduate after 4 years. They can then decide to persue a military career or return to civilian life. Strict military discipline is enforced during the 4 years of study. We had no idea this Institute was in Lexington until we drove in to town to find a place for dinner - what a great find!

We once again set the GPS for south. Another ordinary travel day until we got to our destination Cherokee, North Carolina. We took a couple of happy snaps of the scenery and stopped at the North Carolina Welcome Centre - the flashest we have ever seen! We did drive through Asheville hoping to stop to check out the Biltmore Estate but it was bucketing down so we kept going after a quick photo.

Cherokee is a pretty town dominated by its casino. It started out as a bingo hall in the 1990's and is now massive. As our hotel was just across the road the casino was the obvious place for dinner. We sat at the bar in the Italian restaurant and had a lovely conversation with an older couple who were visiting from South Carolina; Skip Ryan was 79 and had just retired from the automobile industry and Evelyn was the life of the party who wanted to chat non stop - a very pleasant end to an otherwise ordinary day.