Shallow South

The railroad station that was converted into a hotel.  Lackawanna - like I wanna!

As we travel south we are noticing differences and similarities.  One of the things that has not changed is the size of the people. The average human size increases west to east.  And I am not talking about height.  Part of this is the diet that the people in the east consume. Deep-frying (and frying in general) is a major part of eastern food.  The other part is the climate: in the winter you take the car because it is too damned cold to walk, run or ride anywhere. 

a snack

That has not changed as we travel south.  My experience of Florida is that I never felt so slim and athletic in my life.  So far things have not been THAT bad but we are headed toward Florida…

This is probably an inappropriate sentiment coming from a little fat man.

The vegetation is slowly changing.  There are few, if any, evergreen trees. The trees are, in contrast to the people, spindly and short.  We drove down the historic Shenandoah Valley.  Everything here is labeled historic, by the way.  It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in America and it probably is but it seems fairly mundane compared to where we have been.

Shenandoah Valley

 The food portions here are getting bigger.  We each had a half portion of a pasta dish the other night and we could not finish it.  We had enough left for a complete dinner the next night.  See paragraph 2. 

Most of what we have seen so far, however, has been the highway.  We passed by all the main population areas of the east coast: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.  When we passed Washington a young man came running out of a large white house followed by a bunch of other men in suits with earphones and he called to us ”Aren’t you staying for tea?  I want to talk to you about socialized medicine!”  We couldn’t stay though. We were on a deadline.

The way people speak is gradually changing as we travel south.  We are going from the delightful Newfie accent to the American southern accent.  Today we walked into a restaurant and the lady greeted us, “Ha thar!  Ha are y’all t’day”.  I said, “I am well thank-you, and how are you?”  She looked at me with some surprise and said, “Nas accent!” 

I did not realize that I had an accent… I thought she did…

Driving on the highways here is different from Canada.  There are a lot of vehicles on the roads.  On the trans-Canada you can ride (or drive) for a long time and not see another vehicle.  Here, vehicles constantly surround you.  It is almost like driving in the city except faster.   There are myriad cities and towns along the way and an almost constant barrage of signs telling you what food, lodging and entertainment is available at the next turn-off.  Some of the entertainment is questionable:  “Men’s Playground – parking available for tractor-trailers”  “World’s largest Adult Superstore”, “Discount Guns”.

We have ended up in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  It advertises itself as the most patriotic city in America.  Americans tend to be loudly patriotic as it is, I cannot imagine how loud it is going to be here tonight…

As we travel south we find the temperature is increasing.  Today it was up to 30 degrees.  I am not sure if that is due to the latitude or just unusually warm weather.   The clerk at the desk of the hotel said she was glad it was cooling down.  We stood there dripping into our puddles of perspiration gaping at her.  Cooling down?  The hotel had a pool and when we dived into it there was a hissing sound and a cloud of steam accompanied by two sighs of relief.

And we still have 2 days of travel south yet to go!