Day Two

After the long drive, we finally arrived in Charlotte, NC. After terrible directions from Tom's friend, Courtney, and Tom's heroic driving skills, we arrived at Belmont Abbey College. We waited for Courtney in the parking lot of the college. While we waited, we viewed the future site of their new chapel. When Courtney came down and found us, we went out to IHOP for breakfast. Everyone thought Skyler was "walking cornbread (never seen an Asian before)." We had a good breakfast and then headed back to Belmont Abbey. Courtney gave us a tour of the buildings on campus. There were not too many to see. During the grand tour, we viewed the Math and Science building. We, being engineers of Purdue, dominated the Math and Science department. After a short break to see Courtney's kitten in her room, we headed out to see the sites. We drove to downtown Charlotte to look around and see the city. We couldn't find any free parking and no one wanted to pay to park and walk around. So, in the end, we drove around and just looked at some of the buildings. I took some pictures of the sites I thought were important (they are in the Day Two photos). Instead of walking around the city, we decided to check out the mall near Charlotte, The Mills. It was one of the largest malls I have ever seen. The mall had "neighborhoods", and I actually felt as though I walked through a full neighborhood every time. We didn't find anything exciting enough to buy, but we did walk through a few different stores. Also, the mall contained a NASCAR store with a go kart track and other games such as miniature golf. We bought some tickets and went on the go karts. All five of us raced and Skyler won despite questionable methods. We drove back to Belmont Abbey and relaxed before our big trip to Florida. We took a few hours to check our email and get washed up. Patrick and I had barely slept the night before and took the time to get some sleep. We picked up and left Belmont Abbey at about 8 PM. The trip to Naples would take about 11 hours. Skyler started out the drive and went about to hours before stopping. At this point, we were in South Carolina. Tom took over the wheel, and we drove through more of South Carolina. Tom also drove about two hours and when we stopped to get gas, Patrick took over driving. We were then in Georgia. The drive through Georgia was long and foggy. Patrick wanted to stop and sleep when we made it to Jacksonville, but I wanted to push on since we were only five hours away, but it was already almost 3 AM. I convinced Pat to let me continue to drive and I got us about two more hours along. It was then about 6 AM with Daylights Saving Time. We stopped at a rest stop to take a nap and continue the final few hundred miles in the morning. Here ends day two.