THERE’S no coffeemaker in our room at the motel…but there is coffee available in the foyer.

It’s a bit stewed, but it gets us going and Margaret packs the bags while I try and deal with a load of online stuff.

We drive around looking for somewhere for breakfast and stop off on East Street aka ‘E Street’, home of Bruce Springsteen’s band at the junction of East Street and 10th Avenue, outside the library, there’s a giant replica of Brice Springsteen’s telecaster.

I take some pix with a bottle of Smokehead and we take an obligatory selfie too.

A drive along the oceanside then back towards the main road and we find a wee place for breakfast. I can’t see past steak and eggs – but Margaret deices to go for the local ‘speciality’. Pork roll.

Turns out to be a spam-like meat roll, thinly sliced and fried. Glad I went for the steak. A proper steak, scrambled eggs, hash brown and toast for eight bucks!

No show tonight – but we have a 300-mile drive to our hotel just north of Richmond, Virginia.

The traffic is terrible. We’re not used to traffic jams in the USA (other than in Chicago) and the entire journey is hampered by stretches of heavy congestion with no visible reason/s.

We stop at a supermarket for some dinner supplies and finally roll up at the hotel after 8pm. We’d expected to be here before 6pm!

Margaret gets a washing done in the hotel laundry while I fight with the wifi. Our phones and iPad connect OK, albeit with a slow connection, but the laptop ain’t playing.

I get frustrated as I have a lot to do tonight…Swampcandy, who organised next Saturday’s show in Stevensville, can’t play as Rueben has injured his back. They’ve organised a stand-in, but to means I need to edit the Facebook event and create new poster art and online banners reflecting the change.

Normally that wouldn’t be too much work, but with no internet on the laptop i have to try and create images, airdrop them to my phone and do the edits from that. Slow, laborious and frustrating when we’ve had a long day in the car and I have a heap of other stuff needing done too.

By midnight I’ve got the stuff updated and sorted and finally sit down and chill with a dram. Jeez..