I have not traveled out of the midwest much in my life. I'm not sure if that makes me uncultured or not, but we went to Michigan for our summer vacations growing up. I missed out on the traveling, but building the relationships with family was a treasure and a gift that keeps on giving. I find a wonderment in so many things when I go to another part of the country. Here in Georgia there are many interesting things. There are pecans everywhere. And that's pronounced Pee-Canz for you non-Georgia people. I was corrected by the woman at the place where we bought the regional goodies. I was looking for peanut brittle, which is freaking fabulous here, but I didn't realize it was in the Peanut Brittle Aisle. Where else would you go where there is a peanut brittle AISLE! Everything you can think of making with citrus fruit, peaches, or nuts . . . jams, jellies, honey, fudge with orange, peach cider, pecan meal, honey roasted peanuts or pecans. It's everywhere. When you go out to eat, the waitresses call you honey or sweetie in their sweet as pie southern drawl.
Some things that people take for granted in a warm climate area too are part of the architecture everywhere. In Angela's apartment building, the stairs to the upper level are open air. Being from the midwest, I just think of how much snow would accumulate in that area or how cold it would be trying to get the door open with the key while the cold wind is whipping at your back. The sidewalks down by the ocean are cement mixed with sea shells. So many homes have porches, sometimes around the whole house, sometimes on both the bottom and top levels. They almost always have rocking chairs on them. There is Spanish moss hanging from almost all the trees. Where it comes from or how it gets there, I don't know.
One thing I thought was so funny and amazing is that when we went out for Mexican food, I had a margarita. When we went to leave the waitress asked if I wanted one to go. I said "one what?" and both Angela and Jon said "margarita". You can get a MARGARITA TO GO!! Don't know what the laws are here, but it's called open bottle in Minnesota and you get arrested or at least ticketed for that there. So much for the problem of drinking and driving!
It's been so fun to be here and spend time with Angela. She's so much like me it makes me laugh. Two words are out of my mouth and she finishes the rest of the sentence. The word I can't think of, she's got. The parallels of her relationship with Jon and how my relationship with Tim was warms my heart. It's a gift as a mother.
I have to go back home tomorrow. Back to winter. It's so hard to believe when we've been walking around in our short sleeve shirts that it's February and it's not summer. I walked down the BEACH in February. I can't believe I'm going back to where it's winter. But now I can make it through the rest of winter having experienced this little luxury of warm weather. In fact, this scares the hell out of me enough I think to go home and get on that exercising that I've been thinking about so when this kind of weather comes to Minnesota I don't look how I look now! A swim suit is mighty scary about now.
A little side note; the number of views on my blog has now passed the 500 mark. Thank you!!! I get excited to keep bringing y'all more posts. Just a little saying I picked up down here.
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