Palmetto Pride, Heeeey!

So, there I was barreling down (up!) 85 north toward Charlotte today on the Palmetto Pride. I cannot believe they have the chutzpah to put Palmetto and Pride in the same neighborhood, let alone on the same sign denoting the name of the highway!


Have you seen the palmetto bug? Have you????

They're just giant cockroaches. That's all. Why would you be PROUD of them, South and North Carolina?? Why??? It gives me the huzz.

Particularly as I've got a gruesome little tale about palmetto bugs in my childhood. I won't share it now but you just ask me about it sometime... buy me a couple shots of whiskey first.

The upside of driving for work is that I'm free to set my own schedule and stop as I please. The downside is that I get no miles and I'm the pilot... without the groovy hat.

So Atlanta to Charlotte, no big deal: 4 hours. Hit about 45 minutes of bumper-to-bumper in Atlanta. Of course. The rest was pretty smooth sailing. All except for the slow jerks. You know who I'm talking about. It's a 4-lane "highway" from ATL to N.C. and that gives us 2 lanes on each side. The slow jerks are the ones who get in the passing lane and stay in the passing lane. Doesn't matter that there is a veritable parade of folks riding tail; it doesn't register for a slow jerk because they apparently have no ability to see in their rearview mirror. Oh, how I loathe the slow jerk. Pull over! Pull ovah!

I wound up riding the wind tunnel of a New Jersey Lexus for most the way. New Jersey folks LOVE to tailgate and they do it so very well.

Dinner was unremarkable, but the hotel I'm in is quite lovely - there is a jacuzzi in my bedroom. Really. And I'm at a Hilton, not some seedy pay-by-the-hour hole. But there's something a little sad about a jacuzzi in a king-bed room when one is traveling alone. It seems a terrible waste.

All for now...


UPDATE: If you check the comments you can see that in my ingnorance, I wrongly accused the good people of the Carolinas of having pride in the palmetto bug. Seems it's actually a type of palm tree. Not much of an improvement, but I'm cynical and mean spirited.