When we are on a road trip, my lovely husband usually drives. We both know it’s best this way, and he doesn’t mind—yet another reason why our marriage has been a good one! I forage, he drives. It leaves me free to mull. And by mull, I mean let my mind wander and take in the surroundings.

On our recent trip to the USA, I started making notes of some of the funny things I saw, but first I will set the scene… Imagine driving through states like West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, and Ohio, parts of which are the ‘Bible Belt’, and parts of which are just pure ‘down home’, and areas where the two overlap considerably! When you drive off the expressway along some of the old state roads, one sees the beautiful rolling land of enviable farming capacity.  We listen to mostly country music on the radio, because that is what is easiest to find, and because, well, you can take the boy out of the country, but you never get over songs like ‘Redneck Girl’, ‘Don’t think I can’t love you’ or lyrics like, ‘put some bang in your yin yang‘!!!

Once, somewhere between West Virginia and the western part of Virginia, we stopped to get fuel. Outside the ramshackle shop was a sign: ‘Cold Beer, Live Minnows, Live Tadpoles’. What else could one want? Apparently, one could want spare ribs. Outside this same shop, the good ole boys were setting up their half-drum, homemade barbeques and they had a pile of ribs you couldn’t jump over that they were ‘fixin’ to cook’. (fixin’ means ‘getting ready’, often this phrase is shortened to what one will ‘fix for dinner’, fix meaning ‘to prepare’, not to repair, and not the same as fixin’ -whew) One of the fellows was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Redneck Rodeo’. Perfection. It was not, however, a situation in which one felt a camera would be well received, to be perhaps mistaken for a ‘Yankee up to no good’. So it stayed in my bag and I savoured the moment in my mind’s eye.

 

Here are some notes from our journey…

Horse Stamp Church Road (no idea, sorry, but am sure there is a story there.)

Cuckold Landing (also a story–SURELY)

Sign at a Burger King: Try our new Italian Burrito! (or not!)

Sign in front of a church “Don’t give up. Moses was a basket case too!” (religious humour –always welcome)

Along the highway in Ohio: Choose life, your mother did. (can’t argue with that one.)

Sign, not far from Mr. Redneck Rodeo: Music and Shag Fest (with spare ribs?)

Farmhouse Antiques and Neat Stuff (wish we’d had time to stop…)

On our most recent trip to Ohio, we sat down to our first country breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy, and when the waitress brought it she said in her well-practiced, country twang “Ah’ll jest sit this down yonder”.

Ahh, yes, now I know where I am.

 

I hope this was a short reprieve from the holiday busy-ness… have a peaceful time and I’ll see you in the New Year, if not before.

xx Ardys