A Yankee Perspective

As a Type A personality born and raised in Ohio, it has been interesting and perhaps frustrating on both sides talking with the people in the South.  I have found myself assuring people we are from Arkansas (which is true for the last 2 years) and trying to slow down.  But I have to admit the idea of waiting while the next person in line is discussing weather and family with the clerk is maddening.  Plus I’ve seen more than one askance look when they detect I am upset….deep breath…..  The other thing that is interesting is seeing all the Civil War references.  Besides seeing the Confederate flag, every location that a confederate soldier walked seems to be marked, and people even have pictures of their relatives in the war up in their businesses.  One thing that surprised me was that they did have a separate plaque dedicated to the Northern division that overtook one location. 

I've never seen a cotton field when it was ready picking.  We've been seeing large bales of cotton in many fields.  I made John stop while I took a picture of one of the fields.  I ran across the road to take this picture.  The empty road suddenly had a school bus on one side and a truck coming on the other side.  I'm sure I made them think "crazy yankee".  Growing up on the farm, I would have thought anyone crazy who took a picture of corn!

Southern wild plant life has been interesting too.  While we’ve seen Spanish moss draped over trees, we’ve seen much more kudzu.  In case you haven’t heard about this, kudzu was originally from Japan and considered to be great for erosion control.  However, it’s taken over much of the South and has been said to cover over seven million acres and destroys forests.  It actually looks pretty cool, like a green blanket over everything, but you can see that it is smothering the plants beneath it.

We’re staying for a week in southern Alabama to work on the RV.  There are several details that need fixed and solved.  Our short trips before we went full-time didn’t find all the problems.  Surprisingly or perhaps naively, we’ve also found that the people who sold us some items didn’t tell us all the problems with those items.  I guess you live and learn.

Today we drove to the nearby Kolomoki Mounds.  There are 8 mounds built between 250-950 AD by Native Americans.  Two of them are burial mounds.  A museum is built around one to show the mound excavation. Temple Mound is the largest mound and is thought to have been a religious center.  It surprised me to know such a large mound is here in the United States.  The mounds I’ve seen before tend to be fairly low.  This one is tall with a great view of a plaza area where there was a village below.  In the picture, there is a little dot at the bottom of the vertical line (stairs) which is John standing there.