I went looking for a cart, and I was told that the bell hops would come and bring our stuff down. I’m not crazy about being forced to accept their services, and it wasn’t that much luggage, so we carried it down ourselves.
At the desk, the clerk asked how we enjoyed our stay, and I told her about the same as I mentioned in the Saturday blog: the location was the best, the room was fine, but I could get a room equal to or better than the one we had for better than half the price just about anywhere. Even that wasn’t too big a deal, as we knew what the cost of the room would be when we reserved it. What I wasn’t happy about were the extra charges for the “nothings.” They charged us $10 a night per motorcycle per day ($40 if you don’t want to do the math), and we had to park our own, and we parked them in one space! I told her that, anywhere else (except the Hilton), Internet access was included. While the concierge was helpful, I could have walked out to the girl at the curb and signed up for the carriage tour; the concierge actually made a call to talk to someone less than 100 feet away.
I told her that I wasn’t as much complaining as wanting to get my misgivings on the record. Companies should know that their customers resent the hidden charges and such. I wasn’t angry, I was just giving her my opinion. The next thing I knew, she had whacked $100 from the bill, leaving it cheaper than the original daily charge. I tried to explain that it wasn’t my intent to get her to do that, but she insisted that she wanted to be sure I was satisfied with our stay, and would come back.
We got on the road for home around 10:15, and were quickly in South Carolina, where the first things I saw were a fireworks stand and a nudie bar – great gateway sites for our state! We had plenty of time, nowhere to be, so we agreed to stay off the Interstate if we could. What a great decision that was!
The skies were a bit overcast in the morning, but quickly gave way to white fluffy clouds and beautiful blue sky before noon. We cruised along, traveling up Highway 17, the miles rolling under our wheels smoothly. We crossed over I-95 once, then had to get on it for a few miles, then got back off and headed towards Charleston.
Traffic was light as we passed through The Holy City (Charleston – named for the many church steeples visible in the skyline), and we were soon crossing the tall bridge into Mount Pleasant, The USS Yorktown standing proudly at Patriot Point.
Mount Pleasant was the most un-pleasant part of the ride, as it had the trifecta of items to ruin a road trip: traffic, construction and lots of red lights. I think we hit one green light for every 4 red lights through there. Finally we turned onto Highway 41 and headed towards Andrews. I didn’t realize just how far it was up that highway, but there was no traffic, and we had beautiful scenery to keep us interested. We stopped for gas in Jamestown, where we found some older (older than us!) bikers that were interested in our bikes. We chatted with them as we had something to drink, then it was back on the road.
The towns flew by: Andrews, Hemingway, Johnsonville, Kingsburg, and we were on Old River Road, the last leg of the journey. Nice curvy road, sun filtered through the trees, speed limit 55, and no traffic. It doesn’t get much better!
We were hungry by then, so we turned up on 327 and headed toward Red Bone Alley for an early dinner before heading home and jumping in the pool to try and cool off the sunburn.
All in all, the ride home was an additional 50 miles, and about 2 extra hours. But it was a much better ride, on a much better day, and truly worth the detour.
Our next scheduled adventure is over the 4th of July weekend, when we’re riding to Charlotte for the weekend, where we’ll go to the Verizon Amphitheater to see Zac Brown. Can’t wait!
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