Speed Trap
Dateline -- Cherokee, NC, September 2
Bad weather in Atlanta (or so they say) kept me and my fellow Delta passengers sitting for three hours in a plane on the tarmac waiting to take off. Arrived in Atlanta late, crashed, and was awakened by the phone ringing. A live radio interview: a major show in Louisville, Kentucky. They put me on hold for a few seconds, just enough time for me to race to the honor bar in my hotel room, grab a Diet Coke, and chug it. Enough caffeine to kick-start my brain, but the carbonation wasn’t good for my delivery. . .
Saturday: The Decatur Book Festival, in the town of Decatur, Georgia, which is no more than 15 minutes from downtown Atlanta, a sweet small town whose streets have been blocked off for the 75,000 attendees. I shared a stage with David Robbins, author of The Assassins Gallery — always nice to meet a fellow thriller writer, even when they’re too tall (6’ 6”).
A three-hour drive to the town of Cherokee, North Carolina, the home of another Harrah’s casino. Decided to stop for dinner in a particularly rural part of Georgia — a charming looking restaurant in a tumbledown wooden shack that advertised “all you can eat fried catfish” and “hot fudge cake” and had a handwritten sign on the door saying, “We do not except credit cards.”
Maybe I’d discover one of those great road-food finds that Jane and Michael Stern are always writing about.
Yeah, right.
Turns out that fried catfish night is Friday night, and this is Saturday. So I order the spaghetti special: soapy overcooked spaghetti and lousy bottled ragu sauce, a cold iceberg lettuce salad with Day-Glo orange dressing, and a slice of Wonder Bread. It tasted exactly like the cafeteria food in junior high.
I’m so taken with the spectacular beauty of the Smoky Mountains that I don’t notice the sheriff’s car waiting beside the road, in the town of Sylva, North Carolina, which is apparently one big speed trap.
“Where’re you headed?” the sheriff asks.
“Cherokee,” I say.
“Casino, huh?”
“Right.”
He asks for my license and comes back 20 minutes later, hands me a speeding ticket. No mercy for the out-of-towner. “Slow down,” he says. “You got plenty of time to lose your money.”
Bad weather in Atlanta (or so they say) kept me and my fellow Delta passengers sitting for three hours in a plane on the tarmac waiting to take off. Arrived in Atlanta late, crashed, and was awakened by the phone ringing. A live radio interview: a major show in Louisville, Kentucky. They put me on hold for a few seconds, just enough time for me to race to the honor bar in my hotel room, grab a Diet Coke, and chug it. Enough caffeine to kick-start my brain, but the carbonation wasn’t good for my delivery. . .
Saturday: The Decatur Book Festival, in the town of Decatur, Georgia, which is no more than 15 minutes from downtown Atlanta, a sweet small town whose streets have been blocked off for the 75,000 attendees. I shared a stage with David Robbins, author of The Assassins Gallery — always nice to meet a fellow thriller writer, even when they’re too tall (6’ 6”).
A three-hour drive to the town of Cherokee, North Carolina, the home of another Harrah’s casino. Decided to stop for dinner in a particularly rural part of Georgia — a charming looking restaurant in a tumbledown wooden shack that advertised “all you can eat fried catfish” and “hot fudge cake” and had a handwritten sign on the door saying, “We do not except credit cards.”
Maybe I’d discover one of those great road-food finds that Jane and Michael Stern are always writing about.
Yeah, right.
Turns out that fried catfish night is Friday night, and this is Saturday. So I order the spaghetti special: soapy overcooked spaghetti and lousy bottled ragu sauce, a cold iceberg lettuce salad with Day-Glo orange dressing, and a slice of Wonder Bread. It tasted exactly like the cafeteria food in junior high.
I’m so taken with the spectacular beauty of the Smoky Mountains that I don’t notice the sheriff’s car waiting beside the road, in the town of Sylva, North Carolina, which is apparently one big speed trap.
“Where’re you headed?” the sheriff asks.
“Cherokee,” I say.
“Casino, huh?”
“Right.”
He asks for my license and comes back 20 minutes later, hands me a speeding ticket. No mercy for the out-of-towner. “Slow down,” he says. “You got plenty of time to lose your money.”
Labels: Touring
posted by Ellen Clair Lamb at 10:03 AM
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