Sweet Carolina

After a summer of overseas adventure,

I was excited to return to the South.

I flew directly from a tour in Arizona.

Kristen drove my car from Utah to North Carolina

and picked me up at the airport.

(She's the nicest girl, ever)

It was early. We were sleep deprived.

She had driven through the country,

I had flown through the night.

We needed sustenance.

Home-cooked Southern sustenance.

The Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen!

Golden biscuits turned breakfast sandwich.

She had the ham and egg.

I had a BLT, that's what.

(Did I just say "That's what"? Yup...)

We spent the day moving the contents of my storage unit

into a musty basement apartment.

The weekend was a blur of old friends, thai food,

a redbox dvd, church, way too many tortilla chips and salsa.

Come Monday, we had to get Kristen some genuine Carolina barbecue.

Lexington and Eastern style,

served with hush puppies and fried okra.

Bam.

After lunch, on the porch, we played checkers and rocked in the rocking chairs.

My apartment, while intolerably musty and without oven or fridge,

does have two redeeming boons:

a baby grand piano in the living room

and access to a private community lake.

When light rain began spritzing down on the sand

we took cover at a picnic table near the dock.

We are bananagram champions.

The next day we visited the Duke campus,

saw the famous chapel and had a picnic in the Duke gardens.

And, of course, no tour of North Carolina

would be complete without a trip to the beach.

Her manicure happened to match the sunglasses.

Someone scultped a beautiful sea turtle

with a shell made of sea shells.

Love this girl--we had a blast!

p.s. please notice our clothing.

We weren't exactly planning on going to the ocean at that point in the day

so we were without proper beach attire.

That didn't stop Kristen--she swam out as far as she could in her dress!