CT Blue

As I threatened or promised (take your pick) on Friday, this week will be given over to pictures, since I’m on vacation and sort of cut off from the world, although I did get the story that the Red Sox beat the hated ones, and John McCain was never a maverick and not only that, never said he was. Look for Wolf Blitzer and the gang to buy right into that.

Anyway, we spent most of Saturday and Sunday on Amtrak, with a brief stopover in DC. I didn’t take any pictures there, but herewith some pictures of our present location, Fayetteville, North Carolina, where we are visiting my brother in law, who lives in nearby Hope Mills.

This, I am told, is military country, as the local economy is dependent on a nearby military base. I didn’t see any more sign of it than I see of the sub base presence in Groton, but then, I’ve only been here for a day. Downtown Fayetteville certainly compares favorably to downtown New London (it actually has a bookstore, which doesn’t sell porn), and it was a pleasure sitting outside at an outdoor cafe to eat, something that is perhaps still a few weeks away in our neck of the woods.

Below is a picture from the Cape Fear Botanical Gardens. Fayetteville is inland, but the Cape Fear river, which runs through it, drains into (no surprise here) Cape Fear.

This is downtown Fayetteville. The building in the middle is the old market which, unfortunately, is no longer used for that purpose (or so I am informed).

No pictures of the South taken by a Yankee would be complete without some proof that this is in many respects a foreign country. Let’s start off slow with this, a picture from an exhibition of high school art, much of which was quite good, by the way. Is this patriotic, or sacrilegious? Maybe it depends on whose ass sits on the Stars and Stripes.

Proof that paranoia is alive and well down here:

The gun merchants must have been overjoyed when Obama was elected. It’s been a bonanza for them.

Lastly, as it was Easter, this sign informing us that it changed everything, just like 9/11.

Another church sign, which we weren’t quick enough to stop for, proclaimed that Jesus had changed the world with two boards and 3 nails. Thank God (or the Roman system of justice) they didn’t hang the man; people would be wearing nooses around their necks. No matter where you stand around here, there’s a Church within spitting distance, one of the reasons there really is no long range hope for this country. Just by way of contrast, here is a picture I took in Boston that I meant to post last week.

We’ll be spending one more day in this God drenched land, and then return to Washington, where many pay him tribute, but no one really believes in him.