Life of Megan: Welcome to My New Home Y'all

Hi y'all! How's the weather in your neck of the woods? I've got mid 80s all week long - love it! So my family and I survived the trip down here (they are in the Dayton, OH area headed home as of now). I just loved the 70mph speed limits...what's even better is that Kati (my car) survived the trip with no problems what-so-ever!! I finally have everything unpacked and all of my paintings, photos, and Guatemalan & English postcards on my walls. Here, have a photo of my amazing bedroom that was covered in cat hair (which I'm allergic to I discovered) when I arrived. The people before me must not have known what a vacuum cleaner is or how to use one. I know - they are really complicated pieces of machinery that only trained specialists can use. My bad.

Double bed all to myself. You are seeing the Nature side of the room which includes photos of the Grand Canyon, Tanzania, Annie, Abbey, Lago de Atitlan painting, postcards and a DNA poster. Sorry for not including my bathroom and closet but you know what they look like. A toilet, bathtub, and sink occupy the bathroom and the closet is a place for hanging my clothes, tossing my shoes in, and storing unnecessary items on the top shelf. You know the drill.

The living room after I cleaned it. Notice the dining room in the background. It came furnished (thankfully).

MY KITCHEN!! It's nothing fancy - you're not missing out on anytime, I promise.

We left the house at 3a, took a detour in Milwaukee, booked on through downtown Chicago, and cruised on through Indiana into Ohio. I saw a lot of dead critters on the Indiana highways and even more tire parts along the edge. I counted a lot of semis and discovered that there are no good radio stations in Ohio. There was a windmill farm along the Indiana highway (super cool to see, by the way) so if you get bored go for a drive! Then we started the descent through Appalachia - BEAUTIFUL! That was the second best part of the entire journey. 5% grade downhill requires very little usage of the gas pedal and only slightly more of the brake. Kati meandered through the sharp corners like a gem and coasted through the mountain passes with ease. I also learned that the off and on ramps can be incredibly short or extremely long.

No worries, Jason took the photos whilst I cruised by at 78.

Rows and rows as far as the eye could see either way and for miles in the direction I was heading.

But the best part of the trip was pulling into my parking spot in Raleigh, NC (besides seeing the sign welcoming me to North Carolina). After almost 16 hours in the car I was ready to be done driving for awhile. We spent a night in Bluefield, WV (highly don't recommend) and ate the greasiest food you can possibly imagine. Oh, do you know how hard it is to find a vegetarian friendly dinner down here? Chicken and waffles sure! Bojangles - of course! Deep fried this or that - why the heck not?! Salad without deep fried chicken - who do you think you are? I'm going to have a field day trying to find a vegetarian friendly restaurant while eating iceberg house salads in the meantime. Don't you worry, I will find one and I will make my friends eat at that place with me whether they want Bojangles and deep fried food or not. At least the grocery store has my kind of food :)

I'm guessing the only thing that I could have in this picture is the french fries and sweet tea. When they say sweet tea they mean really really really super super sweet tea. Don't be fooled.

Oh, and I went on vacation with the family after we dumped my stuff in my room and unpacked the majority of it. I'll leave that for another post because you are about to be bombarded by photos of a 956 mile journey from one house to the next. **A lot of people have a cute Southern twang - adorable.