North Carolina is a great place with wonderful scenery (even though everything is dead in the winter, as I was often reminded). It’s funny, I had frequently told people in Uppsala that the US is huge and it’s no more fair to judge the US by one region than it is to judge Europe by one country, but I had never actually experienced the diversity in the US for myself. I now see there is more truth in my words than I had ever thought. Europeans had real difficulty understanding that although Arizona is technically in the southern part of the US, it is not in the South. The difference between the South (and North Carolina isn’t even the Deep South) and the Southwest is staggering. There are more churches than I have ever seen in one area in NC. It’s unreal. Also, the food is distinctively different, although thankfully there are enough national chains that you don’t have to go to the South to sample it. I tried grits for the first time and was really not impressed. I also tried Southern sweet tea (thanks to Keith) and was very much impressed. I learned they really like fried chicken there and one can go to nearly any restaurant and order some. Chick-fil-a has twice as many options on their menu in the South than they do at the U of A food court. I learned that even though I'm still in the same country and the cultural differences aren't international, I can still be struck by completely unexpected things. My most memorable instance of culture shock was when I ordered barbeque pork and got a plate of shredded meat resembling nothing of what the rest of the civilized world calls barbeque.
Asheville is everything I was promised it would be. Imagine if 4th Avenue became its own city and you pretty much have Asheville. As if to drive that point home, I saw a New Age store called "Street Fair". The Great Smoky Mountains are really a sight to behold. We had complained that it was overcast the entire time we were there, but if it hadn’t been, the mountains wouldn’t have looked nearly as beautiful.
Driving around in NC is quite interesting as well. It’s a big trucking state, so there’s always an inordinate amount of trucks on the road, often making for terrifying moments when it doesn’t look like their load of lumber is properly tied down. The speed limits are frequently strange numbers, like 19MPH. Also, there must be some strange force afflicting vehicles in NC because you will always see cars on the side of the road, not visibly damaged, but abandoned nonetheless. We saw between 20 and 30 cars on the side of the road between Smithfield and Asheville and saw about as many cars with their emergency blinkers on or some that stalled at a stoplight.

Tangentially, I’ve gained a renewed appreciation of Kim’s dogs Mattie and Tia (not that I didn’t appreciate them originally). After seeing how completely unexpressive and lifeless certain hound dogs can be, I’m glad some dogs are more animated and lively than that.

And finally, I have to say I’m surprised with how I can know someone since kindergarten and not know anything about them, be best friends with someone in high school and never see them now, but meet someone for 11 days that changes your life and becomes one of your closest friends even though you haven’t seen them in 3 years. How does that work?

Plus, many new pics and a new, surprisingly accurate, map function.