I departed after Earle crushed a gallon of milk and headed past the parade of “Choose Life” billboards and advertisements for various life-changing church experiences.  I felt like a stranger but was set at ease by learning the globality of some local stores:

But a bit of Southern uniqueness was that every interstate gas station also sold bag-your-own fruit while at the same time charging extra to use a credit card.  In most cases, this fee was smaller than the cash-back amount I receive so I bravely overpaid in the short-term.  I met up with a Magic buddy after navigating successive waves of 50, 75, and 40 cent tolls moving east across the state.  We talked for 20 minutes waiting for his car to get towed and reminisced about 5-Color games past. Then, north.

Georgia had much duller and less vitriolic billboards which I was glad to be rid of in the Carolinas which had the old stalwarts of J&R and South of the Border.  After a few hundred more miles I called it quits for the day the and settled down after trying to take pictures of myself without looking.

With the exception of an ill-fated trip to Hardee’s I’ve been lucky in avoiding accents I’m not used to.  I’m absolutely terrible with them and in this case I was saved by the fact that I’ve grown accustom to desk clerks named “Jaya Viswanathan” elsewhere.  And again,  I missed the hot breakfast served between 6 and 9.