Talking about touring in America with his band, Family, Roger Chapman sang “Makes London to Glasgow, seem like down the road you know”. It’s felt a bit like that for the last two weeks. Today was “just down the road” compared to some of what we’ve been doing. Greenville to Atlanta is a mere 153 miles.

We said farewell to our kind hosts, leaving Carolina in the Mornin’ and returned to Georgia. Stopping at a Wendy’s again near Carnesville, we are dab hands now at ordering. Why though do I baulk at asking for TruMoo instead of milk to accompany my large English tea?

As we crossed into Georgia we stopped at the Welcome Centre, where was the sign at the top. For the first time in an American loo I found some graffiti. It said “You have what you say. I am going to be rich. Say it. Believe it. In due season receive it.” I said “I am in a gold plated bathroom.” Nothing changed. Someone had added underneath “False faith”. Sadly there are some professing Christians who have the same attitude, “name it and claim it”. It seems to be spouted by very rich preachers who have very gullible followers who willingly hand over their money in the expectation (but not realisation) that they will eventually get something in return. It would make a change if these preachers forewent the $200 haircut and told their followers NOT to give them any money, but rather give it to some cause NOT connected with the preacher.

In no time at all, although long enough to hear Richard Dawkins acknowledge that altruism is the opposite of survival of the fittest as propounded by Darwin,* we moved into urban congestion as we navigated round to a Comfort Suite near the airport. (*We have been listening to Melvin Bragg’s series ‘In out times’ on philosophy off the BBC website.)

One sign en route said ‘biggest FLEA market in the US’, implying that even the bugs here are superlative. We earlier saw a sign advertising ‘giant FROG jumping’.

Once in the hotel Marianne took to the hotel pool for a refreshing dip. It tasted mildly saline and was rectangular and 3ft deep at each end and 4’ 6” in the middle, so swimming was possible as long as Digby came to be the ‘supervisory adult’. However he was more interested in photography and had no intention of getting wet even if an emergency did arise.

We watched a brief diet of US news broadcasts about Mitt Romney’s multiple faux pas in the UK and Israel. We thought that almost all US TV was anti-Obama, but MSNBC really has it in for Romney. We visited Cracker Barrel for a tasty meal. Marianne had rainbow trout, green turnip (which seemed to have bacon with it!), okra and casserole hash browns. The side breads were really scones and savoury buns and were fine with ‘jelly’ to accompany the English tea (refillable) served by a young lady chemistry student from Tallahassee whose name ended in ‘honey’ (DeAuzhoni). We had an entertaining banter with her throughout the meal. When it came to paying some of the other staff had problems with subtraction (I didn’t put in the tip, just the total amount). He couldn’t work out what the tip was and I teased him mercilessly about it.

Our return journey was hampered by the limited illumination. For the second time on this trip we found ourselves ‘on the wrong side of the road’ as there were no signs that the road was dual carriageway. We are glad to report that we safely reversed back to the junction and found the other side of the carriageway.

We have just seen Team GB excel at male gymnastics, fantastic!