Back To My Transplanted Roots

I realized today that I'm going to North Carolina in a week. My family hasn't lived there for 9 years now, but Utah just doesn't seem like home to me the way that North Carolina does. The last time I was there was for Jacque's wedding reception in 2004. At the time I was dating someone pretty seriously in Utah and was planning on staying there indefinitely to be with him. Well, little did I know that just a few weeks after my visit, I'd end up leaving Utah (and him!) and moving out here to San Francisco. A lot has happened to me since I've been back - I've grown up a lot and you can all see from the picture that I posted yesterday of me and Jacque from 10 years ago that I look completely different as well.

I only have 1 close friend from high school who has stayed in Charlotte post graduation and it's funny to me that she's still there, since it never even dawned on me to stay. There are a few things though that I can count on. My old neighbors, Lee & Barbara will still be there - and if I'm lucky, I just might catch them walking their dog. I can also count on it being unbearably hot and humid. There are a lot of people that I want to see over the long weekend and I'm hoping that I get to see at least a handful of them. The only thing disturbing me so far is that the Matthews Public Library has suddenly changed locations.

Here's a short list of things that I want to do while I'm there:

• Do a drive-by of my old house & neighborhood.
• Go inside the Hallmark store where I used to work
• See Brandy & co.
• See Jacque & co.

You know what's really funny is that when I think of places that I really want to go eat, very few favorite restaurants are coming back to me. Mostly, I ate at taco bell and chick-fil-a every chance I could while growing up. If I must eat somewhere authentic, its either Johnnie Burrito or Best Wok.

I found a few funny pictures for those from Charlotte to enjoy - I know that there are a fair amount of you out there. This picture is of a man sitting in a row boat that he built himself, that is in the pond in the back of the arboretum. (Stoners sitting right outside the frame of the picture are not included.)
And the picture below is a real gem. If most pictures are worth a thousands words, this one could be worth a million, so please consider this a special shout-out to all my North Carolina readers. I'm even tempted to have a caption contest over it. If you feel so inclined, please do so in the comments section.

My southern accent has been coming back to me this week - North Cackalacky, here I come!