Cross Country

Cross country seems like one of those weird concepts that was never more than an abstract to me until it started to happen.

I still don't think it's begun to sink in for me yet - so far, we've been through places that are reasonably familiar. Monday, we got off to a pretty late start, which when combined with the fact that we had to pick up my license from the DMV in Jersey, made the first leg more of a mini-leg - about a seven-hour trip (including stops) to Philly. Since we started at 5 PM, and the scenery from New England through New Jersey isn't that varied, it was pretty much strictly about covering distance.

And also, dinner at Red Lobster in Connecticut, which was fun and funny.

Yesterday was a significantly longer day. The thing here is sleep; it's important that we be well-rested, or driving for hours and hours is not going to work out. So since we got into Philly at 1:30, we didn't roll out to the DMV till about 10:30 or so, and didn't get on the road until 11:30. That said, we got to Nashville by 1:00 (though granted, we did change time zones, but it still counts). This was maybe the longest day of our trip, and for me, certainly the most familiar. I don't know how many times I've traveled down I-95 into the South, but the Mid-Atlantic still feels vaguely like home.

Traveling west through Virginia was new for me, certainly. Being from a state as small as New Jersey, and traveling most often between Boston and New York, it's easy to forget that most other states are actually way bigger, and that you can easily spend most of a day driving through one of them. I don't have any staggering cultural insights; as we moved further away from urban areas, I became slightly uneasy and enamored, probably in equal measures. The Shenandoah Valley and western Virginia are beautiful, certainly; green and green and green, with a gorgeous blue sky (pics later). The people, when we stopped, were in general warm and friendly - again, no surprise. But I also noticed that as we moved west, brown folks became increasingly more rare, and there was the odd look here and there. Though nothing really offensive, I don't think.

But it's pretty funny - of course, as soon as we got to the Real South, we saw signs for guns and fireworks. Then we saw the Biggest Cross Evarr (well, maybe not Evarr, but it was huge and prominent and surrounded by Quality Inns and Shoney's and McDonalds' and Pilots).

Unfortunately, it was dark as we drove through Knoxville, but it was a strange thing to go from total rural - like nothing, nothing, nothing - to a full-on city with very little transition time. I know that's how it happens in the South, often enough, but we were driving a long ass time without seeing any signs of human life (aside from the food and fuel stops, which kind of don't count) before Knoxville kind of popped up. It seemed pretty; it would have been nice to see.

But now we're in Nashville, and it's raining, I'm pretty sure - I heard some pretty loud thunder earlier. But I'm interested to see it - see what the flood did, and how it looks. What it feels like.

Then, Memphis! BBQ! Graceland! And oh yes, there will be pics of all.

And THEN, New Orleans!