Wide Awake

Here I am; wide awake in a new year. Another year has gone and it doesn’t feel a whole lot different than it did yesterday morning when only a day had passed.

We were asleep by 10 and in bed by 11, and so we missed any midnight festivities in Orland, if there were any. Earlier in the evening we spent the hours between 6 and 9 at our local church, where we celebrated the dawning of the New Year in Charleston, South Carolina by having fried chicken, black-eyed peas and pecan pie. As 9 PM approached, we counted down the seconds and then celebrated the New Year with those on the east coast.

All of that made me think of the few times that I had been in South Carolina and the fact that I had never been to Charleston. I had driven down I-85 from Charlotte on my way to Atlanta, cutting through the upper left hand corner of the state. That was just a little over a 100 miles of South Carolina for me to experience and here is what I remember; there must be more Waffle Houses per capita in South Carolina than in any other state, with two at every freeway overpass and off-ramp. Billboards are bigger and more numerous in South Carolina and they all advertise, “Fireworks – Next Exit”. Gasoline was really cheap…that’s it, I don’t remember much more about the state.  Oh yes, there is a BMW factory, somewhere between Greenville and Spartanburg.

I do want to return to the South one day and spend some time being a tourist and not a harried traveler, racing from one airport to another. I think I have spent more time in southern hotels and airports than I have in seeing what the South has to offer the genuine tourist.