We're in Charleston, SC now after driving for two days. We wanted to find a city in the South that we were both interested in spending some time in. We thought about Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Biloxi, Jackson, others too. Annie remembered that Charleston was a neat city. Fort Sumter came to mind and, aside from that and Myrtle Beach, I knew nothing of South Carolina. Why not.
We left Houston on Friday the 18th to kick-off our road trip. A weekend with my sister in Dallas followed by two days of driving to get to the East coast. I didn't think much about it, but Euless (the city that my sister and her husband live in) was really going to be my last goodbye. We were not coming back until possibly Christmas at the earliest.
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union to start the Civil War. Six states followed immediately after. The last was Texas. The start of the Civil War was the Battle of Fort Sumter (small man-made island at the mouth of the bay leading into Charleston) where Confederate troops took the fort from the North. I say this only because "southern" is the best way to describe the city. It's very beautiful. It's very southern also. People here take pride in having started the Civil War, as weird as that sounds. The war was not about slaves they say, it was about state rights. They are proud of surviving Union bombardment for 5 years. All this is strange to me. Even from Texas, my impression was that the South was wrong and the North right. Perspectives are everything. Amazing.
I had said goodbye to lots of folks already. All of my friends and coworkers. I was still in Houston though so I was able to push off reality for a bit I guess. Even going up to Dallas, a trip I had made a dozen times, was still familiar. Again, it's not real yet.
Charleston is 19 hours from Dallas. We opted to pick a city in the middle to split the drive in two. The two options were Birmingham and Atlanta. The first was doable, the second aggressive. We landed on the first. Not to bore you, everything west of the MS/AL border...boring. Everything east, pretty cool. The Appalachian region of the US is quite beautiful. We saw the changing seasons in the trees, hills, very few billboards, and the nice weather didn't hurt.
It became real as we were driving out of Euless. I had said my final good byes to my family. I got some words of advice from my pop. I gave hugs to my brother and sister. I'm not really sure what happened to be honest. Just as we were driving out of town, emotions overtook me.
It is real.
-Sergio
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