Well with the turning of the calendar, July marks our final month in the Deep South. Believe it or not we actually get called Yankees down here occasionally (kind of ironic in that they see it as a sleight and we see it as a compliment). Here's a list of some of the things that we learned about the South this past year.....
Things We Saw Alot Of:
Waddling---as in massively super-sized people inadvertently swaying left-right as they struggle to walk forward. A common site. Mississippi ranks 50th in obesity and you need not go any further than the Wal-Mart parking lot to see overwhelming visual evidence.
College Football---best college football fans and teams in America period. We were able to go to 2 of the best stadiums in the nation (LSU & Tennessee) and tailgate and watch football. If we make a trip down here again I hope its during football season so we can see more.
People saying "Y'all"-- I'd like to take this time to come out of the closet and express my love of "Y'all." It's way easier than saying "you guys" and it makes more sense when speaking to a mixed group of males/females than "you guys.". I'll keep this southern souvenir in my vocabulary when we leave.
Beautiful Beaches-- I would have never guessed some of the most beautiful beaches in the U.S. were in the south. They call it the Redneck Riviera--from Miss. to the Florida panhandle. Granted most of Redneck Riviera has tarballs washing up but hopefully they can bounce back b/c they really are amazing down here.
Back-Sweat--- It only takes the walk from the car in the parking lot to the front door of the grocery store for me to get sweaty down here. I will not miss that.
Things We Didn't See Alot Of:
People returning their shopping carts --- Wow, this is Jo's #1 pet peeve and I see her point. You'll pull into a parking lot here and see shopping carts littered everywhere. People do not return them to the collection points. Jo says the safest place to park your car is right next to the cart collection area b/c you know you won't get dinged by a cart.
The N-Word/Confederate Flags/Klan activity--- we were kind of bracing for a little bit of culture shock in that way but it never really hit. From what we hear rural Miss. has a lot more of those problems, on the Gulf Coast where we're at it isn't the same. I never understood the Confederate Flag waving stuff. Why would you fly the flag from the losing side? You lost, get over it.
Sidewalks-- there's only 1 street in Gulfport that has a sidewalk. This is probably a cause of the amount of waddling we saw (see above).
All in all we enjoyed our time down here. We were close enough to make weekend trips to a lot of cool places: Orlando, Florida beaches, Atlanta, Smoky
Mts, St Louis, Houston (upcoming), Baton Rouge and New Orleans. We didn't get blown away by a hurricane (though we kind of wanted to be a part of one, darn). Missing a Midwest winter was nice. That being said I think we've crossed everything off of our southern bucket list. One year was fun but enough.
And now we look forward to the culture shock of moving from the deep south to northern California, should be interesting....I bet they return their shopping carts there.
