Welcome to your new home, Charleston
to
We made it to Charleston, and within about three days had a furnished apartment. 🏠
Tom, the landlord, told us that within a week or so we’d get used to the train that went by a handful of times a day, at any hour. And, we did. The first couple of times my gut reaction was that there was an earthquake, and to get somewhere safe. But, after adding some dampening material (read cardboard and duct tape) behind the mirror, and tightening down the lamp shades, we were able to get a pretty good night’s sleep.
We didn’t meet a ton of people in Charleston, but had encounters with a handful. Katie worked a lot. It was her first time on night shift. We felt a bit out of place for the most part. It’s a very different part of the country. In the spring when we arrived the leaves hadn’t come in just yet. It was, frankly, a bit bleak in appearance at first. When you drove out of town the poverty was fairly obvious, and unobscured. There were many facilities for coal and auto parts.
But soon, spring sprang, hard. Within about a week we went from about 3% foliage coverage to about 90%. Everything was in bloom. Everything was so green. The air grew thicker by the day, and all of a sudden it was sweltering summer. It ticked all of the boxes:
- Tornado warnings 🌪
- Soft serve ice cream 🍦
- Fire flies 🐜
- Thunder storms 🌩
I don’t know if or when we’ll ever be back, but having our first home together was a really special thing.
