The Land of the Sonics

We're gradually getting our bearings here. No one -- and I mean, no one --apparently has a map of this town, and half the roads aren't on the GPS because they're too new, so every trek is truly explorative in nature.

We did find a fabulous duck pond yesterday, complete with ducks, geese, lots of turtles, and huge goldfish or koi. I don't know the difference between large goldfish or koi but I've been assured that there is one. Um, okay. Scattered around the pond are picnic tables and trees, so we took our lunch out there. Sonic! Yay! Z and I both love being in the land of the Sonics again. The closest one to us in Maryland was over 4 hours away, and neither of us could justify that kind of drive just for a cherry limeade. Although they are quite tasty. : )

For those of you who have not had the pleasure, Sonic is a drive-in restaurant along the lines of the original A&W's. They have good fountain drinks and shakes, and serve a variety of food. You pull into a parking place, put your order in over the intercom, and a carhop brings you your food. In some places, the carhops are actually on rollerskates. (More power to 'em, I'd be likely to dump the cherry limeades all over myself and the customers if I ever tried the skating bit. Shoot, I sometimes spilled things just walking when I had my waitressing job in a cafe, but luckily never on anyone but myself.)

I like the wraps and salads at Sonic, but they also have plenty of meat to satisfy the carnivore in (most of) you, including burgers and "coneys" -- hot dogs that are a foot long. They also serve chili cheese (tater) tots, aka "coronary in a basket" -- and of course my husband ordered those to munch on yesterday. I (being above such things as that) spurned the tots, fries, and burgers and took the high road by ordering a wrap... and a strawberry milkshake -- complete with huge chunks of strawberries that got stuck in the straw several times. Yum. The fat cells in my butt rejoiced, for I was adding to their numbers...

On our meanderings yesterday we also found the planetarium, a proliferation of Chinese restaurants, several shopping centers, and an absolutely gorgeous overlook. In the area we are currently living in, it's relatively flat with few trees and a lot of dead grass. There are some flowers blooming, enough to make my sinuses give me a "Hawaiian good luck sign", but not much else. For those of you that don't know what the Hawaiian good luck sign is, Google is a wonderful thing.

A few miles from our house lies "hill country". There is a new residential development that overlooks the valley and an enormous lake that Z swears was calling to him to go fishing. These homes are not mere houses; they are more like estates, the type of homes you see on TV that are in Beverly Hills, CA. One of those homes that would easily go for $2 million plus back in Maryland, especially in the more tony neighborhoods surrounding our nation's capital. They cost -- wait for it -- $175K to $250K here.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Definitely threw both Z and I for a loop....the price we paid for our brown fixer-upper cinderblock home in Maryland, built in 1960, was the same price some of the brand new custom built lower-priced homes with the view here -- and it was appraised at $240K when we bought it. Now that's insane. Everything costs less here -- groceries, clothing, whatever. The tax is higher, when you combine the state, county, and city but things are still cheaper here overall than they were back home. I mean, in Maryland.

Boy, that's going to take some adjustment to quit saying that.