Chapter 21
Western NC
Charles
PHILIP’S BMW, UNLIKE my Jaguar, was designed for maneuvering and speed, and he obviously enjoyed exploiting its capabilities. He turned on the radar detector, and we flew up I-85 at a rapid pace. In less than two hours, we’d covered the 120 or so miles to Greenville, South Carolina, and turned onto a secondary road for a trip across the mountains to our destination in North Carolina.
I’d assumed—hoped?—that the two-lane highway through the mountains would slow him down, and it did, but only slightly, as he was seemingly intent upon defying gravity, flying up steep grades and around hairpin turns. We spent nearly half an hour in silence as he concentrated on upshifting, downshifting, and generally keeping the car under some semblance of control. Finally, on
