Bicycling Georgia,
South Carolina and North Carolina
October, 2006

Hartwell, GA to Wilmington NC

October 17, 2006
Distance 360 Miles via U-Haul Truck

Last night ½ inch of rain fell on Hartwell. This is the remains of the storm that dumped up to 17 inches of rain on parts of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Today we are supposed to receive up to 1 inch of rain. In addition, our planned route takes us through Rockingham NC where they are having a Drag Race meet and every motel is already full within 20 miles of Rockingham.

To get around these problems, we rented a U-Haul van, traveling in the van from Hartwell to Wilmington. The only problem was that the truck cab only had room for 4 individuals and there are 6 of us. Jim and George traveled in the fifth class seats, in the back of the truck with the bicycles and the rest of the luggage. Whenever the truck stopped, someone would come and open the door at the back of the truck and we would get to see just how hard it was raining. We traveled for 9 hours in the U-Haul truck and it never stopped raining. Boy, were we ever glad that we had not decided to ride in the rain.

After checking into a motel, we went to a nearby restaurant and ate supper. Next we returned to our motel and retired to await another day but fate interrupted our plans. The motel allowed us to use their washers and dryers to wash our dirty laundry. So at 10:00 PM the ladies began to do laundry. It was close to midnight before we were able to go to bed.