Weekend Thoughts for 12/20/09

We've been in Murray for about a week now, and we've just begun to explore.

• There is no Starbucks here. Which is excellent. Fidalgo Bay Coffee is better. The locals all swear by it, to the point where they actually have a setup in the hospital Brynn's working at.
• Hardee's IS NOT the same as Carl's Jr. It was truly disappointing when we went in and found no Western Bacon Cheeseburger to order. A Thickburger is not the same thing. Period.
• They are not kidding about Southern Hospitality. Everyone we have met has been extremely nice and welcoming. 
• The city, while highly intertwined with the university, almost has a feel like the college is hardly there. It remains to be seen if this is related to the fact that they are not in session right now.
• We are less than 20 minutes to Tennessee, we found. And we've even had wine in Tennessee as well already.
• If I haven't mentioned it before, Murray is situated in a dry county. That means only alcohol can be served at restaurants larger than 100 seating capacity, in this case.
• As a result of being a dry county, when you cross into Tennessee, and the non-dry county that is the first over the border, they know you can't get alcohol in Kentucky, and advertise that they are the first stop for alcohol on that side of the line.

We are both looking forward to being home next week for Christmas, and spending time with our family and friends back home.

The Road to Kentucky

We managed to get out of Michigan before too much snow fell. Apparently they received almost 2 feet of it in the week after we left. Hooray for missing that!

 

Now that we finally have internet, I figured it was time to share some of the things we saw on our short (1 day anyway) trip from the Chicago suburbs to our new home in Kentucky.

• Not unexpectedly, Lincoln is HUGE around the states here. Indiana has on its welcome sign that you are in the "Boyhood Home of Lincoln". Illinois is the "Land of Lincoln". Kentucky is the "Birthplace of Lincoln". They all lay claim to having some part in creating him. Although I never thought of Indiana or Kentucky as relating to him ever before.
• The town of Effingham is home to a gigantic cross. I didn't believe it would be there until I saw it, and it is still a bit strange to me, but there is apparently no church attached to this cross.
• We passed through the town of Metropolis, which is home to this Superman statue. I guess it makes sense, since Superman's home was Metropolis. But it was still a bit strange to see.
• I'm not entirely sure where we passed it, but apparently there is a 1920's jail museum along the road to Kentucky as well.
• The town we live in, Murray, is home to Murray State University. A giant billboard on the side of the road informed us that they are "Kentucky's Public Ivy University". I have honestly no idea whether or not the education is that good here, but I have to imagine that they aren't making that claim for nothing.

Our Time in South Haven

As our time in South Haven has drawn to a close, I thought it would be a good time to recap some of what we've seen and done here in Michigan.

Good food knows no single location.

• We found excellent Mexican food in Michigan, which I never would have expected.
• We also found some really good Chinese food in Mattawan, which was also a bit of a surprise.

Neither does poor food.

• We definitely found some "interesting" definitions of what passed for Chinese food.

We have really seen some of the small-town experience.

• High school football here is not only prevalent, but an experience which dominates the local towns.
• This was the first place we had lived where we had a really large group of trick-or-treaters.
• We saw some of the emptiest shops ever for a Black Friday. Whether or not it was related to the economy, or to it being Michigan remains to be seen.

Hitting a deer is apparently not as unusual of an occurrence as it should be.

• You would think that this would be a very unusual occurrence, since there are towns all over this area. Apparently not so much.
• Also it is amazing how much dead deer can really continue to smell. The car will still smell like it even now, almost 2 months later.

People are different elsewhere, but not in a good or bad way.

• We have met some of the nicest, most welcoming people we have ever seen.
• People are generally just expecting to be treated the way that they want to be treated.

So what have we learned so far?

• IT is truly amazing how much free time you have when you are not planning a wedding or a cross-country move.
• It is also amazing how little there can be to do in a town when you don't have a built-in social structure there.
• Travel is as interesting as the next place to explore.
• When we went exploring the areas around South Haven, we really enjoyed what we found.
• Once we had explored the majority of the areas within a reasonable distance, we quickly found ourselves borde and not really feeling too much adventure out of it.

I think that one of the biggest things we have learned is that we have lived in large cities for far too long at this point to be able to live in a small town for very long. Or at least a small town that is not very close to a larger city. I am hopeful that we will find out some more things when we get to Kentucky.