Daily Archives: June 20, 2009
Mountains and Cheeseburgers…
Well, we did manage to extract our coach from the soggy mudhole that was masquerading as our RV site in Charleston. We left earlier than we normally do because today was going be a 260 mile trip.
We headed out about 9 am up I-26 toward Asheville, NC. We wanted to visit the Biltmore Estate and the surrounding area.
About a hour out of Charleston, we encountered something we hadn’t seen in a good while, in fact, had almost forgotten they existed.
Hills, and then, mountains!
The last time we drove through any type of hills was last November as we traveled back through Tennessee and north Alabama. Of course, the real downside was my normal 9.5 mpg I get on the flat, dropped to 7.5.
Our only stop on the trip was in Spartanburg, SC for lunch. We had seen a show on the Food Channel about the The Beacon Drive-in there, and wanted to give it a try.
And it was certainly worth the 3 mile trip off the Interstate. The Beacon opened in 1946 and has been going strong ever since.
They’re the second largest drive-in the US and serves more iced tea than any other restaurant in America.
Of course, I had to know where the largest drive-in is.
And it’s The Varsity Drive-in in Atlanta, GA. (Remember Google is your friend.) Plus The Varsity is older, opening in 1928.
Jan and I had cheesesburgers with fries and onion rings, and of course, iced tea. And the cheeseburgers were great! Your good old-fashioned slightly-greasy cheeseburger. As I said, well worth the stop.
And the place is huge. I had checked Google Maps to see if there was a place nearby we could easily park the coach. And discovered their parking lot was enormous. It’s the size of 4 football fields.
Here is where we parked at the corner of their lot.
Beacon Parking
And here’s how far it was to the restaurant itself.
The Beacon Drive-in
And there’s another parking area just as big on the far side of the building. And it’s needed as they regularly serve over 5000 people a day.
About a hour after we left Spartanburg, we pulled into our site at Rutledge Lake RV Resort, and it’s so much better than where we were at in Charleston.
Here’s where we are.
Rutledge Lake RV Resort
As you can see, Mister is already checking things out for us.
More tomorrow…
