Seeking Southern Charm: Do It Anyway!

Here's what I've learned so far on this book tour, this life tour, whatever we're calling it these days: if you think you shouldn't do something, do it anyway.

I learned this lesson again yesterday, in Beaufort, South Carolina, wearing the wrong swimsuit. Or rather, wearing no swimsuit at all, which turned out to be the whole point of the story.

They were calling for rain most of the day. Not a maybe-rain, a definitely-rain, the kind of forecast that gives a woman permission to stay in and call it wisdom. I wanted to go to Hunting Island State Park. I hesitated, because of the rain, because forecasts feel like promises even when they're just guesses in a uniform.

And then, because I am trying to be a person who goes anyway, I went.

It wasn't raining.

I should back up, because there was a small automotive subplot happening underneath all of this. My rear window — the one in my trusty old Lexus, the one that has carried me through more of this trip than I like to admit — had stopped working. Again. It had done this before I left home, and I'd had it fixed, both the rear window and the front, thank you very much, paid good money, drove away feeling very responsible. And then somewhere along this southern road it quit on me a second time. I told myself it was the rainstorms. Cars, like people, apparently hold onto old wounds and reopen them when the weather turns.

Anyway. I can already tell this story is going to run long. It's going to be worth it, I promise!

I got up early (well, as we’ve established, early is my natural rhythm) and looked at the brochures again for Hunting Island State Park — which, if you don't know, and I didn't know, is a genuinely beautiful beach, unspoiled by condos or restaurants elbowing each other for the ocean view. There are turtle nests tucked into that sand, and volunteers who love them the way you'd love something you'd sworn to protect, checking on them so gently, so faithfully, that no harm comes to those turtles on their watch. There is something about a place that has resisted being paved and franchised that makes you stand a little straighter.

I decided to go despite the forecast, and because it wasn't a sunny day, I didn't wear a swimsuit. Note this, dear reader, and do not make my mistake: always wear your swimsuit to the beach. Always. Even under the clouds. Especially under the clouds.

The drive out at 7 a.m. was stress-free — no traffic, just me and the road and the particular quiet of a world that hasn't fully woken up yet. I am so glad I went. Yes, it was overcast, but it was mesmerizing watching the sky do its slow, moody work, with storm clouds gathering off in the distance, rain falling on a horizon that was no where near me (or the turtles). 

There was nothing on the beach. Just a few people walking, way down by parking lot 8, and the turtle volunteers doing their quiet rounds. That was it. That was the whole congregation.

And I wished that I'd worn my swimsuit. It was the perfect morning for wave jumping, for just wading in and letting the ocean do what it does. There was no one there to laugh at my mismatched swimsuit, or at the fact that my soft belly is the color of grocery store white eggs while my arms and legs have gone the deep brown of eggs from the farmers market. It would have just been me and the Atlantic, having it out, no audience required.

I didn't get in the water. But I got the lesson anyway, delivered the way the best lessons always are — a little late, a little damp around the edges, and completely worth the drive.

And that, dear reader, was only the morning.

I left the beach craving a burger — a real one, red meat, no apologies — and set my sights on Biddy's, which I had seen was open at nine. What I had not seen was the fine print: nine, on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Not one of those days was today. Boo. I stood there a little bereft, the way you can only be bereft over a burger you never actually had. But it had already been a glorious morning, and we were only a few hours into it, so I let it go and kept driving.

Which is how I ended up in a Verizon store.

My phone had been refusing to hold a charge on this trip and it’s now a couple years old, tired, and done with me. And when you are a woman alone on the road, in towns you've never seen, your phone is not a convenience. It is a lifeline. 

So, in walked me, to a Verizon store I hadn't planned on, with an upgrade offer waiting and a gut feeling that this was going to go well.

It did. Even though it was 9:20 in the morning and they'd only opened twenty minutes before, they were already busy. A gentleman named Ken came over anyway, just to tell me it'd be about ten minutes and to have a seat. And Ken was wonderful. This is what I mean about southern charm, or small-town charm, or whatever the right mixture of the two turns out to be — I genuinely can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Ken was originally from Texas, his whole heart still there, but he'd come out to help his mother. He talked about his life a little, and it was plain as day that he adores his wife. He talked about her the way you talk about someone you still choose, every day, on purpose — she's creative too, he said, with real warmth in it. I don't think I've ever heard a man speak so lovingly about his wife to a total stranger in a phone store. It gave me hope. Maybe there are more Kens out there than I think.

He got me squared away, no upselling, none of the usual "you also need this, and this, and this" that I walk into every store back home in Pennsylvania bracing myself against — and still, somehow, I walk out with gadgets I don’t need or, if I’ve stuck to my guns and not added any extras, I still feel frustrated that I’ve had to say No a thousand times. I'm working on that about myself. But Ken didn't do it. He just helped. And then, hours later, he texted to check that everything was working fine! Come on now. How awesome is that!

And then — dear reader — when I tried to roll my back window down, it worked! 

Feeling like it might be my lucky day, and that taking chances pays off, I went and did something else I'd been putting off: getting the back of my hair trimmed. My hair grows fast, and I have a long history with hairstylists — one who was wonderful and then left, another who was wonderful and then left, a parade of colors and cuts over the years, pink, shaved, long and gorgeous (I still miss that one, if I'm honest), blonde, dark, everything but red. I walked into Hair Play Salon and Color Bar, a block from my Airbnb, and asked Tara if she'd just trim the back, dry, no wash, so I could watch it happen and know exactly what I was getting.

If you ever want to know a town, go get your hair cut there. That's where all the real knowledge lives. And this shop had it — that easy, unforced warmth that doesn't feel like a performance. Back home, conversation can feel like work. Down here, it feels like you've been let into the family. Maybe that's just how they treat the tourists. I've decided to believe it's how they are all the time.

Still craving that burger, I walked to the historic district, sat down at the next place I found, and opened the menu. No burgers there either. I asked, a little sheepishly, and the server pointed me a couple doors down to Luther's or Hemingway's. I know, you would THINK I’d have picked Hemingways, but she had assured me Luther’s had a burger, and it would be a good burger. 

It was, without exaggeration, the best burger I have ever eaten in my life. Amber was behind the bar — sweet tea for me, not a drop of anything stronger, and somewhere on this trip I have quietly become a sweet tea person, which I never saw coming. Amber grew up in Beaufort, lived for a while in New Jersey and New York, and came home anyway. She was wonderful, and she offered to take my picture right there at the bar, no fuss, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then I popped into a few book stores (I’m going to do a separate post on all the bookstores!) and finally made my way back to the Airbnb (I’m also going to list all those in a separate post!). 

So here's where the day landed: a day I had planned to spend indoors, hiding from rain that was supposed to fall from sunup to sundown. It didn't rain a drop until nine o'clock that night.

It's funny — I arrive in every town and immediately think, this is the one. Harrisonburg, maybe. North Carolina I never really got to know; that was just a one-night stop to break up a long drive, nothing against it. Charleston, where I stayed in Mount Pleasant with the beach practically outside my door, is the town I'd move to tomorrow if I won the lottery. And now Beaufort — beautiful, historic, gentle, full of the kind of nature sounds that feel like a good friend sitting quietly beside you. An hour and a half from Charleston, an hour from Savannah, all that charm in one small place, and I haven't even scratched the surface of it yet.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Savannah. Can it top all of this? I honestly don't know, but I’m betting I’ll adore it just as much as all the other places on my journey. 

So here it is again, the lesson I keep learning on repeat this trip: if you think you shouldn't, do it anyway. Bring the swimsuit. Go before the rain. Say yes to the Verizon store and if the trim turns into a haircut – it grows! But what you can't get back is a morning you talked yourself out of. Thank goodness I listened to the “do it anyway” voice!

Sweet things ahead! – Birdie Jane 

Bewfort, Not Beaufort: Finding My Sandy Feet in the Lowcountry

Here is the fastest way I know to explain the difference between Charleston and Beaufort: in Charleston, everyone called me Ma'am, like I was a lady of some consequence passing through. I liked that just fine. But when I landed in Beaufort and sat down at the Magnolia Café for a pecan-crusted chicken salad — strawberries, blueberries, feta, a lemon dressing I would've licked off the plate if there hadn't been witnesses — the waitress called me Honey. "Here you go, Honey." "How you doing, Honey?"

I did not take a photo of that salad, by the way. A woman has to draw the line somewhere, and mine is not looking like the tourist who photographs her lunch in a town of four thousand people who've seen every kind of fool come through.

Now, back home, I know women who'd draw themselves up to their full height if a stranger called them Honey. They'd tell you all about it later, too, at length, with their arms crossed.

Me, I could've wept a little. It's warm. It's unhurried. Nobody in Beaufort is in any rush to prove anything to you, and Lord, isn't that a relief.

My Airbnb has a screened-in porch, which is the entire reason I chose it — I did not come all this way to sit indoors like a woman with something to hide. And it's a good thing I have it, because it's been raining like the sky owes somebody money. My first night here, a thunderstorm came through that shook the windows in their frames, lightning going off like a photographer with no manners, and then — once it passed — the whole animal kingdom seemed to clear its throat at once. Cicadas. Crickets. Frogs holding a committee meeting somewhere in the dark. Some kind of fowl that sounded personally offended. I got it all on video, over on Instagram, @BirdieJaneLane, if you'd like to hear the Lowcountry argue with itself.

The next morning I walked into the historic district — fifteen minutes past white churches with steeples like they're reaching for something, old graveyards being minded, patiently, by live oaks so big and twisted they look like they've been standing guard since the Flood, Spanish moss hanging off every limb like gray lace some grandmother forgot to take off after the funeral. The sun didn't show itself, so I didn't get my good morning from my usual warm friend, but I had the whole town to myself at seven a.m., and there is something to be said for having a place all to yourself before it wakes up and puts its face on.

I found a coffee shop and nearly did a little dance. Then I got close enough to read the sign: Open at 8. Well, all right then. This may be a sleepy town, but I haven't slept until eight in the morning since I was sixteen years old and it was summer and nobody needed me for anything.

But that's the thing about Beaufort. It's slow on purpose. It's gentle on purpose. It's not an accident, and I don't think it's for sale, either — you either fall into that rhythm or you don't belong there, and I fell in without even trying.

On the walk in, I passed the blue bottle trees and porch ceilings painted that same soft blue — a Gullah tradition, meant to keep out the haints, the evil spirits, who are said to mistake the color for sky or water and can't find a way across it. I like a town that paints its ceilings against ghosts and doesn't think twice about it.

Then I went to Publix — everyone in there was so nice, and everything in there cost more than it does back in Montgomery/ Bucks County, which I did not expect from a town this unbothered. Not everything. Most things. I've decided it's a small toll for living somewhere this pretty, and I paid it without complaint.

Even the fast food places here look like seaside restaurants. Pastel colors, striped awnings — like McDonald’s got confused

and thought it was in the Bahamas!

By noon, the church bells were announcing the hour like they had news, so I went back into town and took a historic golfcart tour with four other people and our guide, Chance. I called him Chase twice. He did not seem like a Chance to me — he seemed like a Chase (actually, I’m just at that age I forget things). My apologies to Chance, should he ever read this!

That tour was worth every dollar (it was only 36 bucks, and look, I saved money on not buying coffee from the closed coffee shop!). Two things I have not stopped thinking about since:

The "morality stairs." Some of the old homes split their staircases in two, rising separately before meeting again at the top, so a lady in a hoop skirt could climb one side and a gentleman the other, so the male wouldn’t so much as catch a glimpse of a naked ankle! I don't know who thought up architecture as a chaperone, but I respect the commitment.

The crooked front doors. A handful of the historic doors are set just slightly off — not quite square in their frames. The story goes that spirits can only travel in a straight line, so a door with a little crook in it is a door a haint can't find its way through. I don't know if that's true. I know that someone, generations back, built a small piece of protection into every doorway on purpose, and that's stayed with me longer than most facts do.

It was also on this tour that I learned mispronouncing Beaufort is a quiet sin around here. It is not "Beau" like "Bo" — that's Beaufort, North Carolina, and nobody here is interested in being confused with it. Here, it's Bewfort, South Carolina — second oldest town in the state, with Charleston holding the title of first, and don't let anybody in either town tell you different.

I'm reading Pat Conroy's A Low Country Heart while I'm here, which feels like the only correct choice. He's practically the patron saint of this place. We passed the house where he and his wife lived, and it was every bit as lovely as a house is supposed to be when a man like that loved it.

I keep getting this feeling of déjà vu here — like I've walked these streets before, in another life, or at least another Monday. Then I remember: it's because I've read so many of Conroy's books, and so many others besides, all set in exactly these places. I read about the moss and the live oaks and the humidity and the kind, odd, particular people long before I ever stood among them.

And now here I am, walking around inside somebody else's beautifully written story.

I understand, finally and completely, why the South keeps producing writers the way it produces peaches — like it can't help itself. This place is romantic and brutal in the same breath, kind and a little haunted, and there's something in the salt air I keep trying to name and never quite manage to catch.

It is charming. It really, truly is. And I am not even a little bit sorry to have fallen for it.

Seeking Southern Charm: Why I Left Pennsylvania With No Books, No Plan, and No Winter Left in Me

 For a photo journey: Follow me on Instagram @BirdieJaneLane If you enjoy reading, please consider buying my published books if they appeal to you! And please sign up to be notified for when Sorry Bob! is released. Thank you so much!!!

I left home on Monday, July 6th. No books in my trunk. Just a bumper sticker that says SorryBob.com, a car full of everything I own for the next 7 weeks, and a bet on myself that I'm honestly too scared to say out loud most days. I've been dreaming about the South for so long, and the time was never right. And then when it finally was, my husband was diagnosed with cancer, our dog Rocky passed suddenly (he was 14, still, we were not expecting it) and that was after our wonderful chocolate lab, Jack, passed 8 months prior. It didn't feel right to leave then. Even though my husband said, "Go! I'll be fine!" (and honestly, he probably wanted the silence!). But, still, I stayed. And then my husband got the 'all clear' this Spring, and so, the dream was back on again, with much less savings and more fear. 

I was a military brat and moved around much of my life. Even when my dad left the Air Force, if he had the itch to leave a place, he would. But, in all those moves, I'd never been in the South. 

I watched Steel Magnoli
as in 1989, a new wife, about to be a new mother, and something about those women on that porch felt more like home than home did. I subscribed to Southern Living for years after that and just... dreamed. I read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil — Berendt's book came out in January 1994 — and something in me went quiet and paid attention. The South is full of fascinating characters. What a rich, unhinged, fascinating story. Of course there was also Pat Conroy, and one of my favorite Southern authors, Michael Lee West. 

These places kept popping up in my daydreams: Beaufort. Charleston. Savannah. Fairhope.

This tour is about nature, nurture, and bookstores. Bookstores I hope to be in myself someday! (It's very dangerous though, all these bookstores because it's so hard to leave without adding more books to my collection! I am on a tight budget that's already dwindling!)

This tour is about nature, nurture, and bookstores — bookstores I hope to be in myself someday! I walk in and I stand there a minute, the way you do in a place you love. I run my fingers along the spines like I'm looking for something specific, though I'm not. And for just a second, I let myself imagine my own name on one of those shelves.  That's reason enough to go, even before anything else gets decided. I'm waiting to hear from an agent, and if that doesn't come through, I don't know what I go home to — except that I already know I can't survive another Pennsylvania winter, so "home" might not even be the word anymore.

I keep waiting for something to go wrong. That's an old habit of mine — when things go right for too long, I brace for the other shoe. Car trouble. Or Worse.

But after spending three morning's on Sullivan's Island watching the sun rise (sorry to my family for all the sunrise videos and photos!) here's what I keep landing on instead: even if the agent never calls, even if I end up figuring out the rest of this from the front seat of my car — this was still worth it. 

More from the road soon — Beaufort's next, then Savannah!

PS: Every Sunday, you'd find me at the Horsham library farmer's market, elbow-deep in the discount book bin like it's a garage sale at The Lilly Pulitzer. That's where I met Caroline- a volunteer at the library.  She took one look at my Spartina 449 bag and recognized it right away. Unheard of in Yankee Pennsylvania!  She too, felt a calling to the South. She too, felt that calling after reading Goodnight in the Garden of Good and Evil! (I did not, however, mention that I was about to pack up my car and go find out if my Southern soul had a return address- I should have and regretted it immediately after leaving).  Caroline, if you're reading this: we are officially Southern Soul Sisters, and this journey is as much for you as it is for me!

Day Four: Seeking Southern Charm — Sullivan’s Island, Sunrise, and a City I Didn’t Want to Disappoint Me

Day four of the book tour started before the sun did.

I made the twelve-minute drive from my adorable little Airbnb in Mount Pleasant out to Sullivan’s Island just as it was getting light, and I caught the sunrise on the beach. Spectacular. Absolutely spectacular. And here’s a confession: I don’t even know why I keep calling this trip “seeking” or “chasing” Southern charm, because I don’t have to seek or chase anything. It’s here. It’s everywhere I turn.

I didn’t think Harrisonburg could be topped. Turns out Charleston does it — not by much, just a little — but it’s bigger, and it comes with more history than I ever knew existed. These people take real pride in being America’s rebels, and you can feel it on every street. The folks here are every bit as kind as they were in Harrisonburg, and don’t even get me started on the fashion. Pastels everywhere. Gingham everywhere. Women who look like they stepped out of a catalog even in shorts — and I don’t mean the LA, Beverly Hills kind of polished. I mean something more relaxed, more artful, more lived in. That’s Charleston to me: colorful, proud of its art and its history and its nature and each other. And I’ve only scratched the surface — I know I haven’t seen everywhere yet.

The Water Taxi Was the Move

Once I’d had my fill of sunrise, I needed to figure out the best way into Charleston proper, so I asked my Airbnb host. She pointed me to the marina and told me to take the water taxi — eighteen dollars for an all-day pass, back and forth, with drops at different spots along the way. Best eighteen dollars I’ve spent. The captain and her assistant were phenomenal, and even though I had no real plan once I landed, I figured it out fast enough.

I walked past Miss Pat’s house from Southern Charm — heads up, don’t bother making a special trip, it’s all walled off — but it was still something to stand there and read the history of Rutledge Street and realize the role that family played in founding this country.

Then I just walked. Real feel of 108 degrees, humidity thick enough to swim through, and I didn’t care one bit. I’d almost hoped Charleston would let me down a little — give me a reason to say I wouldn’t actually want to live here. It did not cooperate. It’s everything I’d dreamed about for years.

Books, a Hat, and

I stopped into Ladybird Books on King Street — newly opened, painfully cute, smaller than I expected — and walked out about $100 poorer and much happier. Felix the bookstore dog was off duty, which was a real disappointment, but I’ll forgive him. At the City Market I bought an actual hat. I don’t wear hats. I am now, apparently, a woman who wears hats, because I’m trying this whole “getting a little more Southern” thing on for size.

The water taxi back gave me three dolphins as a farewell gift. I was home by two in the afternoon and asleep by six — because this, it turns out, has been quite the journey.

Follow me on Instagram for all the pictures and videos of the journey! @BirdieJaneLane 

Harrisonburg VA: A Stars Hollow Glow Up

 Day Two on the road, and I think I've found a little slice of heaven in Virginia.

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The Airbnb & Gwen's Southern Hospitality

Let me back up to where it all started: Gwen.

Gwen was my Airbnb host, and she is the very definition of Southern hospitality. On day one, I landed in a place that felt like exactly what I'd been seeking — and I'm discovering it's more the norm than the exception around here. Southern hospitality is actually a real thing, y'all.

The Airbnb itself was absolutely adorable. If you ever need that recommendation, drop me a line and I'll happily share the info. It was charming, cozy, and perfectly set the tone for everything that followed.

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The Magpie Diner — Hallmark Could Never

This morning I went to the Magpie Diner, and let me tell you: Hallmark couldn't even come close to this place.

All the feels. Beautiful, bright, wide-open space. Extremely nice staff. I sat at the counter and ordered biscuits and gravy, and I think I can never make it again at home — because this was hands-down the best biscuits and gravy I have ever had in my life. I'm ruined for all other biscuits and gravy now.

Then I asked the server what she recommended from the bakery. She said everybody — including her — loves the vanilla braid. And the gentleman sitting to my right at the counter nodded his head vigorously. Yes. Get the vanilla braid.

So I got the vanilla braid.

And I am here to tell you: it is magnificent. Vanilla-sweet, yet flaky. It's like a croissant, but not as layered as a croissant — yet it has that crispness of a croissant. Oh my goodness. Just trust me on this one.

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Lost Credit Card, Zero Panic

Here's the thing: I left my credit card at the diner.

I didn't realize it until I was browsing the thrift store across town (found some wonderful treasures, by the way — and the people there were so nice too). When I went to pay, it hit me: Oh no. I think I left my card at Magpie.

But here's the beautiful part — I didn't freak out. You know why? Because I knew it would probably be there when I got back.

I drove the four minutes across town in zero traffic (amazing), walked back into the diner, and sure enough — the lady handed me my card immediately. Her name is Kaitlyn, and I love the name Kaitlyn (because family name!) and its one of the best names out there. She told me she tried to run after me but only made it as far as the stop sign before I was gone.

That's Harrisonburg for you. 

The Morning Walk

After breakfast, I took a walk around the neighborhood. Adorable doesn't even cover it. Harrisonburg reminds me of Stars Hollow — but with a glow up. People were out walking, waving, saying good morning. It was garbage day and even the guys on the truck were wearing nice uniforms and were genuinely friendly, calling out good morning as they passed! 

I love that. I love that.

Final Verdict

If I were an influencer, people would be mad at me for broadcasting how wonderful this town is. But since I'm not an influencer, nobody's gonna listen to me — so for the few people who might:

Harrisonburg is probably one of the best towns I have ever been in.

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Oh wait — I forgot to tell y'all about Buccees too. You know what? I'll save Buccees for tomorrow.

I'm currently in North Carolina at a cute little cabin, and I'll post the rest of Day Two along with Day Three when I get to my next stop. Stay tuned!

For photos and videos check out my Instagram @BirdieJaneLane

Chasing Southern Charm: Day One of Birdie's Southern Book Tour!

 Guys! I did it! I’m currently at my first stop on “Birdie’s Southern Book Tour” (this name may change. If you have any ideas, please email me!” 

I left Bucks County Pa, to start my Southern Spirit (Southern Soul? Southern Romance (like, I’m in love with the Southern culture – I think I’m in love with the culture – the slower way of life, the manners, the food, the stories. But maybe, once I’ve been immersed in it, maybe I will find I fell under the influence of books like “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” and “South of Broad.” And Michael Lee West (wherever you are, I hope you are ok).)

But I feel like I’m going to love it. 

As soon as I left Pennsylvania, the traffic thinned out. There were a few stretches of road where I was the only car! As someone that loathes traffic (I mean, we all do, right?) this was thrilling. Some people might be thrilled going to a Morgan Wallen concert; I’m thrilled when all drivers keep at least three car lengths away from each other!

I almost backed out. Four a.m. this morning, I woke up, the house was still. It was that time of morning when all inside and all outside the house are quiet. It was the hour where questions of sanity push all confidence aside. The mean girl voice: WHAT IF YOU DIE. WHAT IF YOU GET KIDNAPPED? WHAT IF YOU GET LOST AND CANT FIND YOUR WAY BACK. 

I texted my daughter who was working. She texted back: You’re going. And that’s that!

And so I said, “Yes, that’s that. I’m going.” 

Also, I spent two days packing, unpacking (Chanel’s advice – but traveling wise: pack what you think you’ll need, then, subtract a few things.) and the thought of unpacking it all, trying to reschedule this bucket list/life is short/book tour was more dreadful then heading into the bad weather that the radar was taunting me with. 

I’m here in Harrisonburg. It’s just a quick stop. So no bookstores today. 

But I did stop at a Hardees in Virgina! I grew up with Hardees, and there hasn’t been one in our area for at least 15 years. 

I started out around 7:45 – hit some rain, some fog, some traffic, and then the sky turned blue and I had the windows down because the air just feels…more energetic, more…pure? 

As soon as I arrived at the cutest Airbnb- a big clap of thunder shook the sky. 

Which reminds me, the trip started off on a rocky note. My cooler tipped over and leaked all over everything. I had to pull off the road and ended up throwing the whole thing out because the water had collected in the fabric holder of the cooler. Note to self: only hard coolers while traveling! 

The second incident: I got off an exit for gas. Only, the exit I got off at was under construction and I went at least 8 miles in a slow moving narrow cattle shoot. I will admit to not being a Southern Lady at all with the foul language that was captured on my car camera. (Which has since been erased!). 

All the streets were closed off, and Google kept saying “rerouting” “rerouting” “rerouting” and then Apple wanted me to keep driving for 21 miles (21 miles! Are you HIGH right now Apple?)

So, I used common sense (which I doubt all the time when it comes to travel because my sense of direction is like a five year old chasing fireflies) and made the first left I could, then I reckoned I should stop for gas since it was right there, and the kind gray haired man with the racing t-shirt told me how to get back to 81 South. And then, he did the sweetest thing, he waited for me to top of my car, and I followed him out. When the split came to get onto 81 South, he stuck his arm out the window and pointed to the right, to make sure I found my way. I really appreciated this. And, this is exactly what I mean about the South and manners and a kinder way of life!

Anyway, I’m going to be stopping into bookstores and libraries along the way, as well as doing some touristy things! 

Day 1 is in the books. 

See you tomorrow!