Hickory

Even though Chris wanted to be on the road by 7, it was a little after 7 when we got up. Then he got ideas... So we got a late start. I drank a quart of lemon water. I packed the Burkey back in its box. I threw food from the fridge in a box. I ate an egg and an avocado. Chris packed the car while I did last minute things.
And then we were on the road.
The weather was good at first. Chris had his phone plugged into the car and was using the WAYZ app as a GPS. We ran into traffic in Chattanooga and it routed us around, but we still ran into some traffic. Then it rained. We stopped several times at rest areas, or to put gas in the car.
That stop was quite the place, with lots of tourists and little bungalows and a swinging bridge over a river. I told Chris we should spend a day there.
It was a long trip. I watched scenery, I slept, I sorted fabric squares, I ate some of the food we brought (including the breakfast I made last night), and peeled some eggs for Chris. I finished off the cans of coconut water. We talked about retirement. I read a book. I read the car manual. Like I said, it was a long trip.
We got to Hickory about 5pm local time. We stopped at the hotel where we had reservations. The inside was huge and lined with marble. We had to ask directions to find the front desk. There was an expensive-looking restaurant across from the front desk. Chris checked us in and we were assigned a room on the outside away from the front street.
Instead of going to our room, we used the phone app to find a place to eat. It even directed us there, though we missed it the turn and had to go way around. A u-turn would have been much shorter.
Anyway, the restaurant had an Asian-sounding name. We were directed to a table and given a large plastic menu. While Chris used the restroom, I took a pic of the fish tank. I ordered the yellowfin ceviche and octopus on rice. The ceviche came with fried egg noodles, which I gave to Chris. He had an appetizer of pork egg rolls and fried tofu with rice. His meal was so-so but I really liked the ceviche.
After eating, we went back to the hotel. We checked into our room and brought in the food boxes and my suitcase and our laptops. The room was quite a disappointment. Very dated and not luxurious (or sound-proofed). The toilet refilled itself several times an hour.
Chris tried to hook my laptop to the TV, but the remote did not have the options for HDMI, so we read e-mail for over an hour. At 8 local time, my tapping buddy called. We had a very productive session. I didn't count the number of times the toilet refilled while we were talking, but it seemed like a lot.
After the call, I opened Netflix on my laptop. We sat in bed together and watched several episodes of Agents of SHIELD. Then he went to sleep while I stayed up to post to my blog.