Finally - a word from North Carolina!

My apologies to all who may have been wondering what happened to me since I left town at the beginning of July. The main reason you haven't been hearing anything was that I didn't get internet access until yesterday. The local phone company - which shall remain nameless - had lost my order that I had placed three weeks in advance, and so I had to start all over again.

So where to begin? The trip down here was uneventful, except for getting alternatively stuck in traffic and lost on the back roads of Indiana for a whole day. Then we had to camp out in a motel in Hendersonville for almost a week while we were waiting for our furniture to arrive. It came on July 14. Not having any distractions through the computer or TV, we have unpacked everything and are already pretty well settled in, as far as the furniture is concerned. Of course, there are the odd things that seem to be missing - just this morning I'm wondering whether a box of my books has been lost.

Our house is in a gated community where everyone pretty much knows each other, especially right in our neighborhood. There are directories, for example, that list all the residents by street addresses, which is very handy. Most of the people in our neighborhood are retired and older than we are, though there are some young families in rental housing nearby. We all share certain amenities, most notably a heated outdoor swimming pool, clubhouse, and walking trails. It sure is nice to go swimming after a day working on the house - it's like mixing work with vacation. We take out the trash as we drive by a giant dumpster near the exit, and retrieve our mail as we come into the compound - either by car, or else a ten-minute walk from the house. There are social activities, committees, etc. and we are planning to get involved in order to really get to know our neighbors. Altogether, there are about 300 units, so it's pretty sizeable.

Hendersonville is a "little, big city" of 12,000, but with surrounding communities the county has about 100,000 people. We are living close to the interstate and the "strip" with grocery stores, restaurants, Walmart, Lowes and Homedepot, etc. A five minute drive to the other side, and we are in the next little town, where a Mexican family runs a large fruit and vegetable stand open 7 days a week. Our favorite place to shop for fresh produce at bargain prices.

One thing is the traffic, which I find a bit intimidating. People drive faster, more aggressively. Speed limits are higher, too. No wonder that insurance rates for the same coverage are about 50% higher! Next week we are planning to apply for our NC drivers licences, for which we have to pass a test and provide about 5 forms of IDs - I'm not kidding!

The weather has been nice ever since we moved in - at first it was rainy, but now the sun is shining almost every day and the humidity tends to be low. This makes it seem more like a vacation spot. It's kind of a weird feeling, moving to a place where people go to vacation and planning on staying - and working - here. I'll get used to it, I'm sure.

Dwight and I have been going to church twice - first to First Baptist, which is "the" church (membership 1200), then to Family Christian Center, a Pentecostal Holiness Church. I/we are going to try another one this Sunday. There are tons of Baptist churches, but very few charismatic churches - most seem to bristle when I ask them whether they are charismatic.

Well, that's all for now.