She'd been working at this particular diner for the past three years - working so hard, she said - that she rarely had any time to travel. North Carolina, it should be noted, is 30 minutes from Mechanicsville in good traffic.
Martine then, she confessed, wasn't so great for tips on driving through the Carolinas - North sand South - toward Miami, Florida.
Which is why this week's 180 Degrees comes from Roanake Rapids, a glorified truck stop on the I-95, the super highway that cuts all the way down the East coast of the United States to Miami. The I-95 is part of America's interstate road system, part a product of the car lobby and part product of President Eisenhower's plan for the defence of the US.
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Roanoke Rapids might have got its name because you want to get out of here as fast as you can. Its attractions include petrol stations, chain restaurants (including another Waffle House), cheap motels and a Wal-Mart, the infamous American superstore that sells pretty much everything at cheap prices.
To be fair, there's a take-out sushi restaurant too.
We've left New York for Miami, driving a van stacked with furniture and cardboard boxes. My friend Leroy has had enough of the North-East, the snow, its lack of jobs, the men in their 20s wearing bushy beards (Leroy is particular about personal grooming, it turns out), and is moving to Miami.
"It's got the right mix of good weather and interesting characters, if you need them," he explained.
Leroy doesn't drive (a by-product of New York life) so hiring removalists might have bankrupted him for this trip. I volunteered to drive. His accountant has told him to work less in case it affected his unemployment cheques over the next year. So here we are in Roanake Rapids, in no rush to get to Florida, where we have Justin Bieber on TV and Cairo in the newspapers.
(This is more than can be said for at least three major Australian news organisations last weekend - not SBS, of course - which, embarrassingly, had NO reference to the unrest in Egypt on their websites as the high drama in the Middle East was unfolding).
But it was a seemingly mundane but ultimately strange incident that occurred at another roadside truck stop on the drive down that brought the world to our road trip.
About to climb back in the van and continue heading down the I-95, a woman emerged from behind bushes clutching a mobile phone.
She was Chinese, wearing sneakers with Gucci labels and a clutching a bag with D&G printed on the side. She knew no English except "Please" and "No" and handed me her phone, clearly completely lost.
On the other end of the line was a male voice asking, in barely understood English, for the address we currently were at.
It took about 15 minutes to explain the name of the truck stop and the I-95 exit number, even if there are only so many ways to say "95".
The question remains how this woman from China, who could speak no English, emerged from behind bushes into a car park in the middle of nowhere where the only way in or out was with a vehicle which she clearly did not have.
Today, we head further south, the radio playing songs with lines about "Mama's drinking liquor again," and "Bubba shot the juke box". (These were two different songs, really).
But first, after breakfast, we have to call into Wal-Mart to check out what guns they sell over the counter.
Then, the road.
America - there's a lot of it.
