Good evening Singapore and welcome to Sleepless in Singapore episode, I think 27, on Sunday, July 21st, 2024. Last week I recorded the last episode of that big trip around the world, or at least half of the world. I started with Philip, starting in that little place we were born near Mannheim, Germany, and taking the train all the way through Eastern Europe, Russia and Mongolia, almost to China, never happened, but then also we did Korea and Japan and pretty much all of Southeast Asia. And in the very end I had another very short stopover in Singapore before I finally, after, I don't know, three quarters of a year or so, went back home, not for very long.

But anyway, that was last week's story and last week's episode, and I'm just mentioning it again because I wanted to apologize for my very weird voice and that it was very short and probably a little bit chaotic. I really didn't feel well. I think I might have had COVID again. But today I'm back, one week later. I feel brilliant, everything is all right, and maybe I couldn't give this very long trip last week the ending it deserved, but I can't go back in time and change it. So I'll try to do my best to give you a good episode today when I tell you all about my trip with Markus in 2022 when we did a big road trip through the US. So please make yourselves comfortable, lie down, relax, and let my voice be your guide to a restful night.

I'm not 100% sure how we even got the idea to make a road trip and to make this road trip. I believe I was talking to Markus, very good friend, who lives in the US, I believe still now, and who had moved to the US a year or maybe even two already before we met and did that road trip. And Markus is one of the people I don't talk to for about half a year or a year or maybe even more before. And that's 100% all right because the second we do talk, it's like it always was and everything is all right and we exchange our stories and we do our talking and nobody even has a bad feeling for not having talked about a year or longer maybe.

So on one of these rare occasions where we did talk, and I don't really remember all the details, but obviously it must have been over the phone, probably some WhatsApp video call, Markus and I thought, "Why don't we do a road trip in the US?" Markus lives in King of Prussia, which is a little bit outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he's got a car and we talked and I guess we very quickly came to the decision that a road trip through the US is a good idea and I remember that I planned this a little bit. You know, I don't always plan my trips, but I felt a road trip needs to be a little planned, at least well enough, so I will be back at the airport by the time I have to fly home.

So what we planned was to meet in King of Prussia and to start our road trip, I believe, the next day after I arrive and then go down the, actually not the east coast, but going down the eastern part of the US from Philadelphia, like diagonally down to Louisiana, to New Orleans, and then go along the coast in the south and in the east up to, well, pretty much King of Prussia again. So this trip started already with something I had never done before, very exciting, the longest flight in the world, the longest regular flight in the world. I was on SQ23, which is a direct flight from Singapore to New York. Actually I think it's the other way around, I'm looking at the boarding pass from our way back, or from my way back. So the flight to New York, Singapore, to New York City, to JFK, was probably SQ22 or 24, well, the other one.

And I was super excited because not only is it the longest flight, it is also in a plane that does not have any economy seats at all, the whole plane is only premium economy and business class. First, I also don't know. And I was very excited to have this long flight to pass the dateline, and, I mean, you all know I like to fly, I like airports, I like planes. I was looking forward to that very long trip around very literally half of the world. In a way, the same distance I did in the previous episode, or at least I completed in the previous episode, only by train, and that took us like half a year to get from start to end. I am doing now, a couple years later, in a plane, and it takes only 18 hours and some minutes.

I was early at the airport, check-in was flawless, I had access to the Singapore Airlines lounge, I had the four S's on my boarding pass, which I'm not 100% sure what it stands for, but it definitely means that you have to go through some special security screening, which is probably what three of the four S's stand for. And I did that, wasn't too bad, I had to unpack my carry-on, but otherwise pretty fine. And then finally I was sitting in the plane, and the plane took off, and I was making myself comfortable. I paid a little extra to get a first row seat to have space for my legs. And maybe about an hour in, I put my feet up against some handle of that plane door to make myself comfortable, and pretty much immediately my seat neighbor, a large-ish American woman, was getting nervous and talked to me, and she said, "You gotta put your foot down." I'm like, "Okay, why?" "No, you gotta put--you're gonna open the door by accident." I don't think that ever happened, that somebody opened a plane door by accident, but she wasn't really receptive to any reasoning, and then her argument was, "Believe me, honey, I'm working airport security down in Atlanta. I know you cannot put your foot up there." And I thought, "Well, I had a Big Mac before, that doesn't mean I know how to run a McDonald's, but if that's your argument, fine, I'll put my foot down." And for the rest of the flight, even when I only looked at the door, the lady already got all upset, and I didn't want to cause any fights or any troubles. But sure, I was annoyed, at least as much as her, and that made the flight not as nice as I thought it could be. But still a fun flight, everything went well, we landed in JFK, and I spent my first night in New York City.

I had a Hilton something-something, you know, one of these cheaper Hiltons, and cheaper in New York City, well, pretty much central in New York City, where I was staying, means it's only $350 a night for a terrible hotel. And I spent my first night there, and then the next day, relatively early, I was boarding a train from the new train station, by that I mean the new part of Penn Station, which is beautiful, very big, relatively organized, to meet Marcus in Philadelphia. On the way to the train station, I had gotten bagels from somewhere in New York's Garment District, and I still remember how impressed I was, because they had maybe 20 different kind of bagels, and at least 40-50 kinds of cream cheese. Everything from lox, lemon dill, the regulars, and maple bacon, and bacon scallion, and everything that sounds halfway reasonable, to cinnamon walnut raisin, Oreo, blueberry, birthday cake, very very interesting bagels.

I was sitting in my train, which was surprisingly comfortable. I know that everyone says in the US you cannot take the train for traveling, like nobody's doing that, we don't have a lot, and so on and so forth. I think the train, for sure it wasn't the best train I've ever seen, but it was a decent train, and the service was alright, it was working. The train station, like I said, was pretty brand new, so also very nice. And so I had a good time in the train again for maybe two hours or so. I had my bagels, I don't really remember which one I got, but I remember I enjoyed it. And then finally, after actually many years, I met Markus in Philly at the train station, where he was picking me up in his car. Actually not in his car, in some rental car, but doesn't matter.

So after saying hello to a very good friend that you haven't seen in many years, which between Markus and me is like "Hi, hi, good to see you, good to see you too, where do you want to go eat?" And after a little bit more of talking about the company that we both worked for, we made our way to King of Prussia. Markus took me home for another night of staying there before we finally start our road trip. King of Prussia, lovely little city. We went out for a walk in the evening because Markus wanted to test fly the drone I had brought him. And I actually also brought a new drone for myself. So we were flying the drone in some park for a bit. And then in the evening, obviously in Philadelphia, or at least in the Philly area, we went for a Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich, which was pretty exactly how you imagined. So much oily, fatty goodness that the paper it's wrapped in is becoming all shiny and see-through.

And in the evening we had a whiskey together, we watched some TV on Markus' 417-inch TV that everyone seems to have in the US. And then we had a good night. Markus has a guest room, I had a good sleep. And then in the next day, not early but also not super late in the morning, we woke up and Markus' real car was there. Markus has a 470 horsepower Mustang, which is the definition of a good American car for a good American road trip. So I was super happy that we had that car. We were both taking turns driving and we started with driving for half an hour to the very first stop, which was Minella's Diner, where we had a wonderful breakfast consisting of eggs and Spam and hash browns and bread and bacon and jam and coffee and, you know, like a very typical American diner breakfast. And honestly, right after the breakfast, probably could have just lied down and slept again.

But we didn't, of course, because we had some kilometers ahead, or some miles ahead, I guess. And the first stop we made was Mount Vernon, you know, where George Washington was living. So maybe this is a good point to tell you our plan a little more in detail, just so you know what's coming. We started in King of Prussia and then made our way to Mount Vernon in Washington. And then we're going along through Virginia, the corner of North Carolina, but then going down like almost diagonally all the way to, well, a little up again to Kentucky and then Nashville, Tennessee, which is the first part of this road trip, the long part, is the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway. The one in the Blue Ridge Mountains, you might know from that song about the Blue Ridge Mountains and West Virginia and that stuff. And then from Nashville, Tennessee, we went down to Alabama, to Mississippi, to Arkansas, and then all the way down to Louisiana. And then from Louisiana, we drove along the South Coast all the way over to, I think, Jacksonville, Florida. And then from Jacksonville, Florida, we went all the way up Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, to, I don't know, this Washington area. I don't know exactly how we drove there. Technically there's still, what is that, Delaware, right? Maryland, Delaware. Anyway, up there, I'll give you the details when we get there. But we made it back to Philadelphia in time. So that was the whole trip I just summarized, or not summarized, I just gave you the route for. And that was, we did that in three weeks, three and a half weeks, probably. And I know people think it's crazy to drive that much. It was maybe 400 kilometers on average a day. But it's a road trip, right? Our plan was not to be somewhere. Our plan was to be in the car and go around and see as much as possible in the short time.

Obviously, we did not see every museum and every park and every statue. And we did not get to get the whole culture, the feeling you only get after weeks. But it wasn't the point of this trip. This was not slow traveling like I did before a couple of times. This was a road trip, I guess, fast traveling. Luckily, Markus and I are very, very similar. We do not have to see everything in detail always. We both enjoy sitting in the car, talking, looking out of the windows, enjoying the nature by driving through. We both enjoy the food in the restaurants and the breakfast, lunch and dinner we had basically every day on the road. And we also both enjoy looking at a site, taking a couple pictures, getting back in the car and moving on to the next stop.

So anyway, our first stop was Mount Vernon where George Washington was living. And there was a museum and a statue. I think that's also where we bought some kind of national park pass. And that is amazing in the US. If you spend, I don't remember the detail, less than a hundred dollars, you get a national park pass for your car and yourself. And then you have the fee, it's basically paid, the entrance fee for all national parks in the US. And there are a lot. To many museums, to many other things. It's really a very, very good way to see that country. So anyway, we had lunch and then the first day we arrived relatively early at a place already up on this Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway, somewhere in the woods in a very typical cabin with a huge fireplace and with a deer on the wall. And I don't really remember what we had for dinner, but I do remember we had a certainly great time there, or a great night at least. There was space for five more people at least. Marcus and I, we talked a bit more, we got all the machinery we had brought, the cameras and the drones ready. And then the next day we moved on, on this Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway.

And usually our days looked like we got up, we packed our stuff back in the car. Marcus luckily had bought a cooler box that you could connect to the car's power electricity. And so we had kind of like a mini fridge in the back, on the back seat. And so our days looked like we went to a Walmart usually, or some other supermarket, and we bought some snacks for the day, we bought some soft drinks, we bought some chocolate. Usually our go-to thing also was a big pack of celery sticks and a big pack of carrots. And then we usually went for some breakfast, which in this case on the first day out or second day, depending on how you count, we had our breakfast at a, what they call, destination station. It was a rest stop. We had some scrambled eggs and some breakfast sausage. And it wasn't particularly nice, but it kind of gave us the feeling of a proper road trip.

I also am looking at my pictures here at the Walmart in somewhere, Virginia, I guess. And oh yeah, in Roanoke. Roanoke? I'm not sure how to pronounce this, but it is in Virginia indeed. Not super center, a little bit off of the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway. Anyway, we are in this Walmart and you know I always thought they are joking when they had the memes on social media or when my friends told me, but in the Walmart, in the supermarket, there's a whole area where you can buy guns and ammo and pistols and you know, like, how do you call these things on top? Scopes and laser pointers, like laser aiming stuff. And it's in the supermarket. It's in the outdoor section. It's when I'm looking at this picture right now, it's right opposite of all the fishing rods. Also fascinating in Walmart, aside from the fact that these Walmart super stores are gigantic, like nothing like any regular supermarket I've ever seen before, they have a section like a drugstore section where you can get any kind of medicine and a lot of that medicine is prescription free. Like a lot of stuff in Germany we have to have a prescription. In Singapore I'm not 100% sure because I never really had any or the need for much medication in Singapore in the last five years or so. But back in Germany, I know a lot of that stuff I saw just on the counter or, you know, on the shelves at that supermarket. In Germany you have to have a prescription, in the US you don't.

So after stocking up at Walmart, after having our breakfast at the rest station, Markus and I were back in the car and back up the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway. And I feel I mentioned the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway so much, now I should probably tell you something about it. The Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway itself, I think, is a national park, like the road, and it deserves to be. It's a road that is more than 500 kilometers long, that is much, much bigger than Singapore obviously, that is also half of Germany. That is me driving from Mannheim area where I was born to Berlin where I later on lived, which is a 550 or something, depending on how you go, 600 kilometers drive. This Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway is about the same length, but it's not a highway, it's a beautiful street, usually like one lane in each direction, on top of the mountain, Blue Ridge. And there are trees all around you, left and right, and every corner you come out of that, trees out of the forest, you have a magnificent view. It's really probably one of the nicest roads I have ever seen.

And we spent, I think, about three days on that road, drive a little, rest a little, fly the drone, sleep somewhere at night in some cabin, in some wooden cabin, or the second night we were sleeping at a place called, I think, Mountain Time in a village called New Land. And I don't know, I loved it. It was so American, it was a little bit like a hostel, not like a hostel, how do you call this, like a motel? It was like a motel where you can drive your car right in front of your room, unless your room is upstairs. It's not a tall building. In general in the US, in the countryside, there are no tall buildings because there's just so much space. You usually have all the hotels we stayed, all these motels, all the roadside accommodation we had that were not in a city, they were usually one story tall buildings that are just spread out over a big area.

So the second night, second or third, I don't know, we were sleeping at this motel, or hotel that looked a little like a motel. There was a bar, the barkeeper was entertaining the people. There was a guy sitting with a hat with a US flag on top, on his head. There was country music playing. They had 20 different kinds of craft beer on the menu. The barkeeper had us try. The barkeeper was talking to us because I guess it doesn't happen every single day that travelers come through.

Everything was made from wood. There was a big TV on the wall, obviously, but actually it was off. And there were like deer and other animal heads on the wall. And you just looked up and you know you're in the United States. In a good way in this case. Really nice place. After that night we moved on, I believe for the last part of the Blue Ridge Mountain Highway already. And I promise talking about it doesn't really do it justice. I'll upload a picture or two to my blog so you can have a look.

The last day we had a lot of fun on the road because we were in a good mood. We had our celery sticks, we were talking a bit. We had so much fun driving Marcus's car. These American muscle cars like the one he has, they are nothing like German sports cars or anything with that amount of horsepower. They are heavy and a little, well, you basically can feel the inertia, I would say. But they also, they sound, you just have like this deep, dark bubbling of the engine, of the exhaust. And I remember when we went through that tunnel I slowed down the car and then I pushed it and we pulled down the windows and the whole tunnel was like vibrating from our car. So it was the best car you could wish for a typical American road trip.

And then we took that car up a mountain that we hadn't really planned in the beginning. It wasn't part of our route but we saw it and we thought maybe once we're here we should also do it. And that was Mount Mitchell. And apparently, so it says on the sign I'm looking here, it's the highest peak east of the Mississippi River. 6,684 feet. I'm not 100% sure how much that is in meters but it's not entirely low. And it was so, so beautiful. It's the Mount Mitchell State Park. You could drive almost all the way up. I'm not 100% sure how to think about that but in the US you can basically drive almost everywhere and these national parks, they are so big you kind of have to drive. And so you get to see a lot of things. You can take your car almost everywhere. And yeah, probably it's a good thing. I mean, sure, for the environment, driving in a park, I don't know. But if it wasn't possible to go there with a car, like this Mount Mitchell thing, probably would have been a three-day hike. But the way we did it, we could do it in two hours before noon, before we went for a small lunch. And I think that's a good thing, yes.

Then we went to a place called Cherokee and we went to the Okonaloftee Visitor Center. You can Google that one because I don't remember all the details. And then in the evening we arrived in Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg is in Tennessee and it is exactly how you imagine the southern part of the United States. It's got a lot of pretty houses, a lot of wooden cabins. And I remember Gatlinburg mostly for the very excellent dinner Marcus and I had. Let me see if I can figure out the place's name. It was in Gatlinburg. It was a stone building. There's a G on top of the entrance. I think it might be the, oh I'm sure it is, the Greenbrier. And that, while a little bit costly, was amazing. There was a fire outside, people could sit around. And inside they had, I had grits, I had a whole chunk of butter on top. And then obviously for the mains we went for steak and sauce bearnaise and asparagus and carrots, like glazed carrots. And just looking at it I'm realizing how hungry I am.

Gatlinburg, August 5th. And then we sadly could not stay there. It was just a restaurant, no hotel. So for the night we decided to stay in a place called, a city called Oneida. Alberta Street, Oneida, Tennessee, US. And judging from the map it must have been the Royal Inn. And let me tell you, there was nothing royal about it. It was a motel and it was of the kind that you see in American horror movies. It was, it wasn't even that cheap, that's the thing. I don't think we ever paid less than a hundred dollars, which counts as very cheap. But it was one of these flat buildings I described earlier and very, very, I mean it was okay, there weren't any cockroaches in it. There wasn't anything like, it didn't smell like dead body or anything, but it sure is the simplest place you can imagine. So Marcus and I, we very briefly talked about sharing rooms during that trip, but we also very quickly decided that we are too old and we don't want to sleep next to each other in a bed. So we always got two rooms and we had two adjacent rooms in this Royal Inn apparently.

And in the evening we were sitting right in front of the door of that room, which also at the same time was right in front opposite of where we parked our car, right in front of our room door. And we were sitting there and having a beer and I think back then I was still smoking, having a cigarette and looking at this picture now, but also from my memories, this was when I felt, all right, this is a proper American road trip. And how that road trip is going to proceed, I am going to tell you next Sunday. For now, let's have some Tom Sawyer.