Southern States: When I left a small town in the western part of Texas, I was ready for a big drive. All the way to Ohio in 3 days! The Interstate 10 went through rather boring eastern part of Texas. I drove 725 miles in this day, the longest I drove by myself in this tour. Next day, I was in Arkansas. Then, my car stopped working properly. The engine did not start in a gas station. The people in Arkansas speak funny English. But everybody there was nice and helpfull. In fact, I kind of enjoyed the happening in the middle of boring driving. About half a day behind the schedule, I met my friend in Ohio.

Mid-Atlantic: The first visit was the famous Great Smokey Mountains National Park (1). It was a beautiful mountain. We made an 11 miles hike to the top of Le Conte Mountain (6xxx feet high). We both agreed that the mountain range looked like the ones in Japan. The shape of the mountain and thick green forest reminded us of Japan's scenery. The park does not have sceneries as dramatic as the parks in the west. But that does not mean this park is not beautiful. Next, we wanted to see the Atlantic Ocean.

Myrtle Beach after the storm. No one was on the beach even it was the Fourth of July weekend.

Sunset at the quiet harbor in Ocracoke.

The 2nd destination was Myrtle Beach (2). After a long drive, we arrived the town about 4 in the afternoon. And the town was a mess! The billboards and electric poles were down on earth, debris were scattered, and police and emergency cars were running all over the town. A storm and tornades struck the town about 2 hours before. Because of that, there were only a few people on the beach when we swam in the Atlantic Ocean. The water was nice and warm, the wave was not that rough. Not bad at all; I swam in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. The next destination was the North Calorina coast. But we stopped briefly at ??? Wildlife Refugee (3). It was once a site for a large town build on a marsh land. The name would have been "New Amsterdam". But the plan never made to realization. Today, there was only an old building that was once a hotel. Stopping at the unknown place just like this, can be quite refreshing. There are always a surprisingly beautiful scenery as in this wildlife refugee. The Outer Banks (4) was much larger than we thought. It was a little disappointing that we could not see ocean that much as we drove through the banks. There were a lot of strange looking houses along the way. These were vacation homes, but they made the scenery really ugly. But the town of Ocracoke changed our view of the Outer Banks. We saw beautiful sunsets on the ocean. This is probably the only place we can see the sun sets on the east coast. In the last day, we were still 800 miles away from Ohio, and my friend had to work the next day. We drove until 4 in the morning, passing through Shenaddoa? National Park (5) and many scenic route in West Virginia.