Not So Very Far South

There's something about crossing over into Mississippi that changes your frame of mind. I don't drive as fast; the landscape becomes rural nearly immediately on our route; and, the heat and humidity emanate. Just a few miles North it is just plain hot and yucky, but when you cross into here it feels like a novel. It feels slower and haunted and quiet even though the same four kids are laughing at a movie in the car with the AC blasting air on their faces. The road wanders and the landscape is green, overgrown. The small towns you drive through are quiet on Sunday afternoons and whisper about the things that they've seen.

So the drive to our friends' puts me in the right frame of mind for slow Sunday afternoons of chocolate cake and spraying 40 degree well water from a hose at each other. The adults sit and talk and the kids run in and out. We're a big sweaty mess when the time comes to find some dry clothes and settle back into the car.
And that is what Sunday afternoons should be I think.