Georgia Tech Fans Not Allowed, originally uploaded by LeeLeFever_TwinF.

A defining factor of Southern culture: college sports rivalries. We watched a bit of the Oklahoma/Nebraska game last night and heard that Wake Forest won the ACC championship and UNC beat #1 ranked Ohio State and Kentucky in basketball. My team is UNC and it's fun to have the American sports back on the agenda. I never did get into cricket really.

We do love Seattle and plan to be there for a while, but it seems that many of our friends have chosen to move on to other places.  Of course, this gives us more people to visit along the way.

Shawn and Laura, who both lived in Chapel Hill, NC for a while, lived in Seattle for most of our time there and become some of our best friends.  We stayed with them for a night and nearly came to blows over who would buy dinner (Shawn won) :-).  It was awesome to see them and their dog Herbie.  Such great people.  Shawn is modest about his work in the music industry, but has a room full of gold records, including one of the amazing Garden State Soundtrack.  I was plotting how to fit it in my bag.  This is us in their Atlanta neighborhood.

  Next we trekked up to Rome, in northwestern Georgia to see a guy named Charles whom we both worked with in Seattle and became close friends over the years.  Charles is good people - not a mean bone in his body and someone you can count on always.  After moving around the country and even being a cop for a while, Charles has returned to his roots and is working at the very same hospital where he was born in Rome Georgia. The is Sachi and Charles...

I realization that I just had this morning is that I've changed the way I'm viewing the regions of America.  Formerly, I might travel to the south and say "that is soooo southern".  Now, I'm more likely to say "that is sooo American".  It's like we've been saying that a place is sooo Italian, or sooo Japanese or sooo Russian and now we can more easily recognize the elements of America that make it so very American.  

We've only traveled a small way across, but we've found some great examples...

This is my uncle's deer stand in southern Virginia, dubbed "the condo":

 Rome Georgia:

 A gas station in Aalabama.

Americana - Romulus and Remus in Rome Georgia, originally uploaded by LeeLeFever_TwinF.

Directly in front of the Rome, Georgia city hall is this is peculiar statue of the Italian Rome's founders Romulus and Remus, suckling away at their legendary caretaker.

The plaque under it reads:

This statue of the Capitoline Wolf, as a forecast of prosperity and glory, was sent from Ancient Rome to New Rome, during the consulship Benito Mussolini, in the year 1929.

Herbie Dog, originally uploaded by LeeLeFever_TwinF.

We're staying with our friends from Seattle, Shawn and Laura who live in a sweet bungalow near Little Five Points in Atlanta while Shawn is in law school. It's so nice to be with old friends again - and their pets. The picture above is Herbie, certainly one of the best looking dogs around.