So today we left our hotel room, and headed to Florence for our interview at New Spring Church in Florence, SC.  We got their a little early, so we took advantage of the time by making some phone calls, and other business.  Their offices are actually held in an apartment complex, so as we were loitering in their parking lot, Sam, the worship pastor, came down and saw us.  He was on his way home, which was the apartment unit right next door, to get a water bottle.  Sam took us up to meet the rest of the staff, who were all really cool guys.  We will post their podcast soon.

Afterwards Sam took us out to lunch at Apple Annies Deli and Pub, a local favorite.  It was really good, but I think it may have given me slight heartburn, but that would not be the first time I suffered for good food, in fact that happens pretty regularly.

The rest of the day was spent fighting the wind going from Florence SC, to Hickory.  There we met up with my 2nd cousin, Heather Wood, whom I never met before.  She is also a youth pastor at her church in Hickory, and is who we are actually going to interview for North Carolina.  She took us to another delicious local pub with her friend Chandler.  Heather’s mom Deborah, my mom’s 1st cousin, met up with us at the restaurant/bar and so we all got to meet.  They are really fun people, and I can’t believe I didn’t even know about them till recently.  I knew I had family out here that I had never met, but how cool is it that I have a cousin around my age that is also in youth ministry.

After the pub we headed to Lenoir which is just about 2o miles northwest of Hickory to Deborah’s house where we are staying for the next couple of days.  I think tomorrow we might go for a hike, but we will see.  I guess it depends on how lazy we feel.

Miles today: 223, overall: ~4600

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Pre Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.