One mile for every day of the year! My longest stretch yet! Holy mother of sweet Jesus is it nice to not have to be in the car for five hours at a time for a few days.

So, yeah, yesterday was a long drive. So long that by the time I got to Charleston, all I wanted to do was check in to my hotel, find some food, and vegetate in front of the TV. Which is exactly what I did. (Which is why this entry is late. Desire to veg trumps blog-updating responsibilities every time.)
In the food finding process though, I did take the opportunity of not being in the car to get out and walk around for a little bit. I’m technically in downtown I guess, but really a mile and a half or so from the city center. So I drove to as close to the middle of the city n order to wander around a bit and find a bite to eat.

Which didn’t really work out so well.

I don’t know if it was because it was a Sunday at 7:30 pm, but man – that was one dead town. There was some vehicular traffic and a very small handful of other pedestrians, but it really felt like I’d wandered on to the set of some post-apocalyptic movie. At one point, some guy across the street yelled “Hey!!!!! Do you know if mrffgrrrhsgfstshgdggfffm is open?” I stammered out a ‘no’ and hurried on. There were a few blocks where I honestly couldn’t tell if I’d wandered in to a shady area or a non shady area of businesses who normally just shutter up for the weekend. There were no people to give me context. Context is everything.

The best I could do for dinner was Captain D’s Seafood, which I guess is like the Burger King to Long John Silver’s McDonald’s. It was ok, but probably more because I was starving than for actual taste reasons.

Today is day 1 in Charleston and technically my schedule is wide open. I do have two irons in the fire though, so we’ll see if they pan out.