Day Five:The long drive South

This will be a picture-less blog post...gasp! We left OBX, (which we locals call the Outer Banks, oh, I mean tourists who think we are so cool) and drove across the sound and headed south through North Carolina to South Carolina. The sights and landscape of North Carolina, especially through the Alligator River Valley were fantastic. Earthy tones of browns, reds, and greens greeted us around every corner. There were many birds and we spotted deer and hundreds of turtles. We took a lunch break in Washington, North Carolina. Padmini and I decided, we were in the south, we needed southern fried chicken. We pulled off and asked a nice man if he knew of a fried chicken place, "like KFC?" he responded. "Um, no." Padmini retorted, "like a local place." (in retrospect, we probably shouldn't have asked a guy headed into Wendy's for lunch) He thought for a bit and suggested KIngs. To Kings we went. When we arrived at Kings, we took pause, it looked like an old time hamburger place, very bare bones with no seating and little ambiance. However, the most concerning feature was the Kid Rock look alike in a fedora and black trenchcoat. We are not scaredy cats. We made it in unharmed, and tried to make sense of the menu. When I went to order I had noticed they severed dark meat. I asked her if I could replace the two pieces of dark meat with a chicken breast. She stared at me for a long time, then finally asked, (add your own southern accent to this) "you mean like white meat?" Yes honey. Padmini decided to further complicate her life by refusing the sweet tea that the young woman thought Padmini would want with her meal deal, and requesting a different drink. "Does not compute" flashed across her sweet southern eyes. My favorite part of this place, was the two men, who were not eating, ordering, or seemingly interested in anything to do with the restaurant, standing and talking very animatedly about their lives. What made it special, beyond the volume, was the fact that neither I or Padmini, could figure out anything they were saying. Welcome to the South! Our last stop was Myrtle Beach. I am not going to get into it much, I am trying to block out that part of my life, but after spending 3 days in the Outer Banks, this over the top, loud, sensory overload town was a little too much. We made it to Charleston, where pictures galore and blogging to the max will happen again. You are welcome.