2003-01-01 - 9:18 p.m.

Back Home Again

Here we are, back home again. Hooray! No more traveling for a while!

It was something of a bummer traveling on New Years Day, but doing so knocked $50 off each of our tickets, so I'm not complaining. That "2003" at the top of the entry looks weird though. The future is here!

I got almost no sleep the night before, but in spite of them I was thinking pretty clearly all day. I had a good breakfast at the Cracker Barrel before we left, so maybe that helped.

The trip home was different than the trip out in that it was all in prop planes the whole way. I don't like them because their smaller and noisier than jets, but my dislike of them is mild. Instead of switching planes in Charlotte we flew into Washington DC. Our plane out of Washington was an hour late, but I didn't mind since we didn't have to make a connection in Albany.

It was weird to be back in Frown Town again. Down in Carolina the weather was in the 60s and it almost felt too warm to walk outside in a long sleeve shirt. On the other hand, there was a two foot snowfall in Frown Town on Xmas day, and most of it was still there when we got home. And it was cold!

I have to admit that Frown Town looks kind of shabby compared to the boomtown atmosphere of Raleigh-Durham. There is construction everywhere and tons of stores and malls and chain restaurants. It's nice that the economy is doing well down there, but there is something soulless about the way the place is mushrooming, like its original character is being steamrolled by this bland, modernizing wave of prosperity. Nothing seems to be terribly well laid out and there is no public transportation to speak of - it's just the sort of place that James Howard Kunstler was railing about in The Geography of Nowhere. A great book by the way.

When I was visiting down there twenty years ago I was struck by the fact that I'd never seen more churches in my life, or gun stores, or adult book stores. That pretty much defined the South for me, but now Raleigh-Durham could be anywhere. This time I was struck by the number of self-storage places - there were dozens of them it seemed. "All the Yuppies need more places to put their shit," said Lily's brother's girlfriend with some heat when I pointed this out.

Oh well! Now, it's time for some serious relaxation.