This entry was posted on 6/26/2009 8:46 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
Today, Mary and I hit the road from GRG HQ to Greensboro, North Carolina, for the very last Southeast Regional (Region VIII) Toastmasters Conference to ever be held.
Just before we left, I decided to dub this the "TRC Roadtrip of 2009", TRC being
Toastmasters, Roads, and Counties.Just before crossing into North Carolina on I-85, we decided to stop by the famous "big butt peach" water tower in Gaffney, South Carolina and get a few photos such as this one...
The first time I ever saw this particular water tower from I-85, I had dubbed it "The Biggest Butt In South Carolina" and even dedicated a
webpage to it. Since this page has been up, it has apparently resulted in a lot of web hits for terms such as "big butt". Gee, I wonder why.
Besides paying homage to "the big butt peach", we decided to stop at
Abbott Farms and buy a small bag of peaches for the trip, plus a couple of bottles of their peach cola. Both the peaches and the cola were great, and I definitely recommend y'all stop by and get some when you're in the area. Oh yeah, and "the big butt peach" has its own little park complete with picnic tables.
Roadgeekwise, here's what I've added to my ongoing collection of Interstates driven...
- I-485's northwestern section from I-85 to I-77 in Charlotte.
- I-77 from I-485 in Charlotte to I-40 in Statesville.
- I-40 from I-77 in Statesville to NC 68 (Exit 210) in Greensboro"Clinched" 3 more North Carolina counties:
Iredell, Rowan, and Forsyth. This now gives me 27 out of 100 NC counties.
Traffic on I-77 northbound from Charlotte was extremely heavy and did not really start moving smoothly until we got just past Lake Norman. Part of the reason had to be a wreck that we encountered in the median just north of Lake Norman, but given the time of day we were through there (5:45 - 6 PM), I wonder if it isn't typical Charlotte rush hour. IIRC, someone had coined the term "Charlanta" due to the growth and the traffic that Charlotte is experiencing. Does seem sort of like Atlanta.
As for I-485, the ride was quite a smooth one, but I wonder what it will be like about 5-10 years from now. From what I understand, the southern part of I-485 is already suffering from its share of congestion woes. Read all about it at a website called "
485 Sucks", plus read North Carolina's own Adam Prince's
blog about the current status of the ongoing "I-485 saga".
That's it for now. Tomorrow, Mary and I hit the conference and catch up with several of our old "Toastmaster buddies". Thanks for reading and please come back again.
