We were headed to the welcome centre of Virginia, essentially the 'state line' photo and rest stop. About 15 minutes later, an acrid smell started coming from the A/C vents, followed soon after by wisps of smoke. Doc pulled over to the side of the highway and we all got out. We sat on the grass while Doc called the head of fleet management for the state of Carolina. We were in a Dodge Ram Caravan people mover which Doc was able to get being a state employee (she's a professor at University of South Carolina) and all calls for the car had to go through the fleet manager. Being Sunday, and Father's Day in the US, he was in church and we had to wait for him to get back to her.
We had to temporarily move while the road crew mowed our patch of grass, but that was ok. After awhile, the fleet manager (let's call him Bob for ease of simplicity) said to drive to the nearest town to get off the highway. So we drove to Ladysmith and pulled up at a service station. Since it was lunch time we went in to get food. We were standing there debating the menu, when Bernie apologised to the lady behind the counter since we were taking so long. She said 'its ok, I'm just listening to y'all talk'. She even guessed correctly that we were Aussies, since we've been incorrectly identified as British or Irish. We had lunch and waited for Bob to call.
He called to say that we should drive to the nearest Firestone workshop, about a 20 minute drive away. We plugged the address into the GPS and set off. The Firestone guy said it was a blower motor for the A/C and we should be ok to keep driving. He did caution us that should we start to smell a sweetish smell it may be freon, which could cause us to pass out as it settles in the lungs, should that happen, stand the person on their head. Thankfully, we didn't need to do that!!
We resumed our trip, stopping at the North Carolina state line for photos and the biggest truck stop I've ever seen for a pit stop. Once we crossed the South Carolina state line, it was again time for a photo. We decided to eat at Quinceys Steakhouse for dinner.....cue the restaurant review below....
Quinceys offered a buffet dinner, so we opted for that. The lady taking orders poured our drinks, then the people's behind us, without taking our food order. She then explained that she was the only one on the front line... We grabbed our plates and headed for the buffet. Nothing looked particularly great, and nothing had names, so it was a bit of a mystery meal. I got some orange stuff with meat and sat down. First forkful I picked up contained a fly. Cooked into the food. I called someone over and they got the manager. The manager came over, went to the food, stirred it (!!!) and offered to refund my money. Andrew warned someone about to serve himself some of it that I had found a fly and the manager left the food there!! We asked our waitress to remove the food - whilst it may have only been one fly, it was still tainted. The food was pretty average, in fact, the salad was the best thing there. Going for desert, they had salads in the same Bain Marie as the deserts, and sauces with no labels. Bernie thought he was putting custard on his place for desert, it turned out to be a mustard dressing. Overall, we ate enough to sustain us but the quality was pretty poor.
After dinner it was a non-stop trip back to the hotel. The drive home was supposed to be about 8 hours, it ended up taking us 13. But that was ok, because it was a van of laughs and conversation and nothing makes a road trip more than a great bunch of people to spend it with!!
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