Moseying into Monroe

I arrived in Monroe today. The trip here was an uneventful medley of waiting in airport terminals and sitting in cramped plane seats. The big highlight was I was pre-selected for the special screening. I didn’t I feel so special. I think in exchange for being felt up by an old lady in a TSA outfit I should get some sort of door prize. Or maybe they could just tell me I may have already won a million dollars.

So far, Monroe looks both very different and very much the same as any town in the Midwest. There are strip malls and road construction. That part is not exactly pretty, but it’s not unusual. Monroe is different in the sense that it’s “the South” There are parts of town with large, old houses that have a genteel southern flair. More disturbingly, the familiar eco- and geological markers aren’t there. It’s flat...very flat. I haven’t seen a hill since I got off the plane. Compared to the Ozarks where I grew up Kansas City is as flat as the proverbial pancake, but Monroe is making Kansas City look like the Rockies. Add this to the occasional palm tree and and a bayou landscape that I’ve only seen in pictures, and it just has a different feel than the Midwest.

You're going to have to wait for beautiful pictures of the wall view from my room. The wireless internet connection in the lobby is being strange.