Dreher Island State Park, South Carolina

Friday July 19^th. In the evening we returned to the Majestic Theater to see the show called, “America’s Hit Parade”. In addition to four of the cast from the Soul of Motown show, the Hit Parade had four additional female performers and one male performer. The male was an Elvis impersonator and you could say the lead performer, but neither show billed any one of the cast as the headliner. The Hit Parade covered songs from the 50’s up to the 80’s. The performers sang and danced in costumes to match the songs, this made some skits like The Village People’s “YMCA” hilarious. It was a very good show, but after having just seeing the Motown show the night before this one seemed tamer. This is no refection on the cast; it was probably because the “white but polite” audience was silent except for the appropriate applauses.

On Saturday July 20^th we left Pigeon Forge and the state of Tennessee via I-40. The interstate passes thru the mountains just north of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It meanders thru the mountains rather than making a dramatic gap crossing like Newfound or the Cumberland but it is a very scenic ride just the same. Like a lot of mountain valleys this one has a wild river running down it and the road is adjacent to it most of the way. At the Apex of the mountains we entered North Carolina and drove the 90+/- miles thru the state to the South Carolina border without stopping.

Entering South Carolina we had to accept the realization that the New England trip aka the Honeymoon trip is almost over and we will be home soon. Not that living at the beach is any kind of hardship; we do consider Myrtle Beach to be pretty near paradise.

We decided not to spend the tail end of the trip as a long drive down the interstate so we deviated just west of Columbia and got a site at Dreher Island State Park. The park campground is on a small island; our motorhome is backed into a site just steps from Lake Murray. We will spend two nights here before running the remaining 150 miles to our home.