the week in review

So the week in Searcy (pronounced "sur-see") was pretty productive. I may have gone deer hunting and eaten beef jerky...I will neither confirm nor deny.

Arkansas is supposedly "the natural state." But I saw mostly rice, cotton & soybean fields. Lots and lots and lots of them. Not terribly natural. The food in Searcy and the surrounding communities left something to be desired. Sweet tea is a bad thing. And I went a week without good coffee. I had an interesting exchange with a cook in a motel/gas station/convenience store/lunch counter. He had rattled off the omelet options (which I think were something like cheese, ham & cheese or western) and I spaced out for a second. I heard him say something about onions and peppers and jumped to the conclusion that there was some sort of vegetable option. I asked for a vegetable omelet and was met by a blank stare and the question, "you mean, like lettuce and tomato?" I just got the western.

The people were lovely, though. A member of the housekeeping staff seemed genuinely sad to see me go, even though I had never spoken with her before (or had any interactions with any of the housekeeping staff, for that matter-- I kept weird hours). At home, I'm pretty sure this woman would have ignored me. The Fish & Wildlife guys that went out hunting with us at night were all nice, too.

I'm in Athens now. Not sure how the weekend will go. I have some errands to run, but there's a football game tomorrow. Athens is supposedly impassable on home football Saturdays (people are making it out to be something on the order of Boston on Marathon Monday...I can't imagine it's that bad.) And the buses don't run on Sundays. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to get stuff done. Oh, well. I have a lot of boards review questions to go through. I can always stay here and so that.

Too tired to think clearly right now...more to come.