A few more arrangements in place –

The £ has plunged alarmingly against the $ over the past months, but luckily we got the spending money side of things sorted out a while ago at a slightly better rate than what’s now going.  More recently organised is an overnight at the Comfort Hotel, Heathrow Airport, the night before our (7.30am) flight.

Maps are proving an interesting challenge – it comes as a surprise, but perhaps shouldn’t given the size of the country, that detailed road-maps are hard to acquire.  The Rand McNally state maps are on a very small scale, don’t appear to have been updated for years and are of questionable quality.  Our best bet seems to be to download and print relevant bits of the Michelin maps from http://www.viamichelin.com (very good site).

Very pleased to find out that Kitty Hawk, where the Wright brothers’ first flight happened, is on the outer banks of North Carolina, which was on our route anyway – now doubly so.