I'm in St. James, Minnesota, which is 110 miles southwest of Minneapolis. There's really not much here but farms, and I find myself repeating everything I say, because nobody can understand my accent/dialect, or lack thereof. It's thick here. I'm in the Super 8, which is tolerable, but the bed is too firm and difficult to get used to. I'm waiting to see what free Continental breakfast includes before I decide if I should trek across the parking lot to Happy Chef, which looks like a Village Inn with neon beer signs in the windows. It appears to cater to truckers, mostly. I have a day of work here, then I go back to Minneapolis tonight and fly out in the morning. I'm traveling with another network engineer who is a character. He grew up in Ada, Oklahoma, lives in Texas, but carries a California drivers license. We met at the rental car counter and talked the entire way here. He's traveled the world as a Marine, worked on an oil rig in the Gulf, and is currently dodging some kind of alimony suit by drifting as a networking contractor. I thought he was going to wreck the car when he found out I was from Southeast Oklahoma, too. I wonder if he's met Joe from the Unix team, who is from Durant and stops by my cubicle every few days to give me trouble. They'd either get along great or not at all.
Reminds me of my summer in the U.P. of Michigan. Everyone loved to hear me talk...and I had worked hard to get rid of the SE OK accent. Guess I never did succeed, esp. after moving back.
ReplyDeleteI was in Minneapolis this morning, so it sounds like we just missed each other. I was on the 10am flight back home today - would have been funny if we were on the same flight back to KC! :)
ReplyDeleteJo, I was on the 8am flight on American, which connected through Chicago. It was slightly cheaper than the 10am on Northwest, or we would have been on the same flight.
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