I'm (not) Lovin' It

My little sister decided to grace me with her presence a few days before we headed to the beach. It's her first time in Charlotte since my older sister went to school here, but I had to leave both days and we were getting up early to go to the beach. The game plan was to get there early so we could enjoy most of Saturday afternoon on the beach. While we succeeded in that mission, breakfast proved to be a little more difficult.

 All ready to roll at 6am

There's a McDonald's right outside of my apartment complex but we decided against it. 5:30am is way to early to consider eating deep fried potatoes and chugging sweet tea. We decided to drive a little and stop when we got hungry and/or needed gas.

The trip from Charlotte to Sunset Beach is two roads: A tiny, windy, country back road and interstate 74 which goes directly into the beach. We gave up hope finding a McDonald's on the first road and the closest thing to food was a farmer's market that didn't open until 10. So we kept driving. We came to the intersection of the first and second roads and our hope lifted when we started noticing signs of a little city. So we bypassed the Bojangles and the Arby's then the Hardees because SOMEONE wanted a McGriddle. We came upon a McDonald's towards the edge of town and celebrated this tiny victory.

Wrong.

There was some form of construction going on in the parking lot and the McDonald's was closed. At this point it's about 9:00 in the morning, we've been up for three hours and still have had nothing to eat. 74 is like any other highway with exits and those convenient blue signs that tell you the gas, food and lodging at the upcoming exit. We looked at sign after sign and still saw no sign (pardon the pun) of a McDonald's. After much convincing, we settled on a Hardee's and I made moves to take the next exit.

Nope.

The Hardee's was 5 miles off of the exit. Being that it was in the morning and cell phone service was already a little rough, we got back on the highway and decided we would just wait for the McDonald's at the beach. We made a turn to follow 74 business towards the beach and were blessed with the Golden Arches up ahead. And then another one...and another one a few miles after that. After we stopped at the first McDonald's, there were at least 5 more in a 10 mile stretch.

There are McDonald's in Paris, London and China and it took us 4 hours to find one along the southern border of North Carolina.

Road trips with Molly are nothing short of eventful. Whether it's rogue spiders in the car or our ridiculous N*Sync sing-a-longs, it's definitely better than having to make even the shortest trip alone.