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Like all the best episodes of Columbo I have given away the ending at the start, except this isn’t a who-done-it, more a case of where-is it? Well actually Rag's post above has given away the ending but that's because he has the mobile wireless internet device and I have to rely upon the hotel offering free wi-fi.

So how did we get here, 4 states and 393 miles away from our last over night stop? Your guess is as good as mine. It was a case of suck and see today, we kind of knew where we wanted to end up, but how we got there didn’t really matter. We had planned on moseying on up to Tennessee via Alabama, but we realised that where we stayed last night wasn’t that far from South Carolina and that North Carolina was virtually next door so we headed north, well actually we headed north-east, which when you are trying to go east to west coast does seem a little strange, but there you go.

Our first port of call was a tad fishy, in fact it was a town called Haddock, chosen purely on name but it was kind of on the way to the Carolinas and it meant we could leave the soulless interstates. Next on our list was Liberty SC, again chosen for the interesting name, but to get there we had to trawl through the rest of northern Georgia.

***Warning anti-religious diatribe - contains strong language and strong opinions. If you wish to skip this, look for the next stars****** (not these ones you fool)

I knew before this trip that America really was built on religion, but jeez, how many fucking churches do they need. It’s like every other building in some of these two-bit towns is a church. There are the residents living in run-down shacks and right next door is the sparkly church, but not just one but two or three. There are so many different flavours of the same religion it’s untrue, whether it be Lutheran, Presbyterian or Baptist, you have your pick. Surely it’s got to be morally wrong for the people to be in ruins let the church be stinking rich. I have always been against religion, it is the root of all evil, it is the cause of so much conflict you have to question the motives of some of the people behind it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of speech and everyone having the right to choose, but sometimes the stupid need a helping hand. They may as well spend their money on lottery tickets rather than giving it to the church, they have as much chance of winning as a god answering their prayers. I’m sorry but it gets me so mad, much to the amusement of my fellow passengers.

********* (yes these ones)

A quick check of the map in Liberty and we realised that we were not far from the Smokey Mountains, well given the scale of our map, not far is probably further than you think, almost as if we’d been looking at in the rear view mirror (objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are - no - I suppose it doesn’t work if you have to explain it). Fortunately although this is February the mountains were not snowy or icy so we were able to start negotiating our way from South Carolina into the North and hit Transylvania county. The route took us through the edges of the Great Smokey Mountains, which although picturesque was very twisty and turny and undulating, which after a while took it’s toll on the brakes. We were coming down the side of a mountain when the brakes started to scrape a little, the noise was getting progressively worse and the brakes were getting progressively spongier. We were trying to work out where the nearest town with a rental office was and whether we could get the car there, but with some careful driving and excellent use of the automatic transmission from my co-driver Ivan he was able to nurse the car over the mountains.

We did pass through Cherokee on our trip through the mountains which reminded me of Matlock Bath in Derbyshire, it had a river, it had cheap and tacky shops, a cable car and even a casino (probably more impressive than the 2p slots in Matlock). We are assuming that this is the home of the Indian tribe that gave it’s name to the Jeep, and not that the town was named after the Jeep.

We had decided that once we had gotten over the mountains into Tennessee we would stop at the next big town, which would either have been Pigeon Forge or Sevierville. We hit Pigeon Forge and thought that there were an inordinate number of motels and restaurants, which is when we saw the sign to Dollywood. I could have probably guessed that Dollywod would have been somewhere in Tennessee but couldn’t have named the actual location, well we found it. It seems like a poor man’s version of Vegas without the casinos, cheap, tacky but all in a Dolly Parton theme. I don’t think that we’ll have time to explore Dollywood itself, but I’m sure we can find a tacky souvenir shop somewhere.

We are staying in a very nice looking motel, but it has no wi-fi hence the delay in the posting. Plan is for a bit of lie in based upon the lack of sleep last night and then head across Tennessee possibly dipping into Mississippi if time permits.

Oh before I leave I have just one more question….