Welcome to North Car-ol-laahn-a

Hello Peanuts.
I haven't been able to check in yet because, as you will see, I have been very, very busy. Also, when Mr. Landlord said that there was wireless 'innernet' in the apartment, but that it sometimes did and sometimes didn't work, what he meant to say was that there is wireless innernet in someone's apartment, and there sometimes is and sometimes isn't a hot spot in the living room. So. Let that just be an introduction to the tales that await you.
In the meantime, though, despite the torrential downpour and the hydroplaning semi-trucks and the scattered overturned vehicles in the median, we did make it down here to the south. And, Peanuts, we are in the South.
We have arrived in a place where all the buildings are only visible as mirage-like apparitions, wavering behind a clinging haze of cigarette smoke. A place where "fine dining and dinners" means a bar with a menu where you are eyed very suspiciously for ordering food but no booze, despite the fact that it is the early afternoon. Where the confederate flag flies proudly down the roads (which according to our GPS do not exist) on the front of partially primered fords, and where- NO KIDDING- cars are pulled over by an undercover cop driving an extended-cab truck with chrome wheels and lifted with 50 inch tires. If you are wondering what it's like to be vegan in the South, let me just inform you that we stopped at a mini-mart on the way into town, and there was an entire aisle dedicated solely to pork rinds.
But the South is also a place where people hold doors open and wave at you all the time. Which I'm sorry to say I've become unadapted to after living in DC this long. I'll be walking down the street and someone will drive by enthusiastically waving and I'll think, "What the? Do I know that guy?...Oh! Friendliness...wave back wave back!" But by then it's usually too late. Don't worry. I'm stranger-waver at heart, and I'm sure I'll get back in the zone before long. I've already made some new friends, in fact. But I'll introduce them to you later. I've got to go tuck my J into bed, as I see he has fallen asleep on the floor and the dogs are curling up with him like there's going to be a slumber party. Tales from the South are coming soon.