In Florida

At this very moment, I'm in my grandparents' lovely Sarasota house, listening to the 70-something year-olds crowing at the TV (Patriots v. Chargers). I drove down here yesterday with fellow Yalie and good friend, Smita Gopisetty, who will be teaching baby equestrians that there's more than life to horses (like, history) in W. Palm Beach. We started in Princeton Friday night and drove almost without cessation for 25 hours in her brand-new baby blue Prius, which is a great car. Pros: great gas mileage, handling, rear-view video so you don't have to look back when you back up... this takes some getting used to. Cons: rear-view window is too tiny and split halfway, steering wheel is made for people half my height, and the steering wheel is also v. low and can't be coaxed any higher.
Going back up to CT tomorrow assuming it doesn't snow in Chicago for three weeks before returning here, Feb. 4, which is Super Bowl Sunday. My grandparents are going to kill me if the Patriots are in, and they have to pick me up from Tampa.
The ride down here was interesting/painful. I-95 in Maryland is like a runway: bright giant street lights, wide lanes, and smooth blacktop. This is also where you start seeing the giant billboards that grow more frequent the further south you get.
In VA we started seeing signs warning us that our speed was "monitored by aircraft." What aircraft, I want to know? And why does this aircraft have nothing better to do than monitor how fast I'm going? It's not like it's going to pull me over...
We ate at a (seemingly) successful chain restaurant called Waffle House, which you'd never know was a chain from eating there. The waffles are skinny, super-eggy crimes against breakfast and the place looks like any other crummy diner. But the place is ubiquitous, has hospitable service, and the hashbrowns are pretty decent.
Really exhausted in South Carolina, I made the mistake of pulling off some random exit, hoping to find a parking lot to take a 30 minute nap in. No luck. Just fields. As I was about to turn around, I saw a sign for a Presbyterian church and decided to follow that road. I didn't find a church, but we did come across a pack of dogs roaming the roads and the saddest most decrepit school, with a faded two-sided sign that made me die a little inside. I took pictures and will post them tomorrow or Tuesday when I'm back in CT.
We saw some really memorable billboards along the way in the Carolinas for fireworks warehouses and something called Risque Cafe, or Cafe Risque, and -- my favorites -- signs for a weird Mexican amusement park/tourist trap/ surrealist model place called "South of the Border" just South of the North Carolina border. Deeply, deeply weird. I'm still sorry we didn't go there.
At some point, Smita and I were trying to figure out the derivation of the word "stumping" in campaigns. I was fairly sure it has something to do with a stump of a tree (as sort of a natural podium for campaigns) and that the phrase "being stumped" came after the campaigns (you lose a debate, you've been stumped) but now I think I may have made it all up. Any thoughts?
I am reading Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners right now, and it is so far the most enjoyable short story collection I've ever read. The girl can write, and I thank Amy Poueymirou for recommending it, and Nick Antosca, whose added recommendation made me finally borrow it from my public library.

That's all for now. If I think of any more good stories from my East Coast trek, I'll post them in the next few days.