Dallas!

We're all moved 'n stuff. The first trip down, with the GIANT OMGWTFBBQ TRUCK, was somewhat...eventful, shall we say. If you followed the news for the past few weeks, you might have noticed some coverage of Tennessee getting flooded. In epic form. Yeah, guess who was swimming through the middle of that fiasco? (In a giant, unmaneuvable, not-water-winged truck.)

To make things eeeeeeeven moooooore exciting, the highway (I-40, the main drag going across the state) got washed out. The cops were, obviously, kind of busy with other things at that point (so busy that when I called 911 to report an accidnt because nobody was on the scene helping, there was no answer), and managed to put up a detour sign, but no signs indicating where to go from there. So, we non-TN natives were on tiny, flooding back roads, guided only by an extremely zoomed out map and a GPS with some horrible version of ADD and Tourettes. (Seriously. It could not believe that we actually, really, and truly did not want to traverse the flooded interstate, and kept screaming out "I-40! Turn left! I-40! I-40!" Definitely what we needed right then.)

Alex, fortunately, was driving. We were in the middle of the rising creeks and washouts, so we'd crest a hill, see the entire road covered in clay and scree, and Alex would somehow maneuver the constntly-pulling-to-the-right battleship of avehicle down the slope. I, meanwhile, was trying to use the (inaccurate, blurry, unclearly marked, and constantly shifting) maps on the GPS, or the tiny, very zoomed out TripTick map to find a way around the flooding (hah) and back to the interstate. We lived (erm, you may have guessed that), but I have lost all faith in my GPS (which was never high to start with) and with the weather advisory radio in the south. Instead of, you know, advising people on where they should go to avoid the water, the stations kept parroting the same advice/slogan: "Turn around! Don't drown!" Thanks, guys. I'll work on that.

The second trip was better; we drove down in my car, taking most of the pets. The cornsnake managed to escape while we were gone. I think one of us probably wacked the tank clip with a box by mistake, since the tank stand was in a high-traffic room. Alex is looking for the snake while he's back in Jersey, and cornsnakes can survive in the NJ climate, but still. Poor snake.

The other snakes are loving the climate and amenities down here. I've never seen the ball python so active. The Burmese python also gets to swim in one of the giant bathtubs and make Alex nervous. (Khan's tank is right next to Alex's computer, and Alex is working from home, so he's constantly supervised by the snake. Apparently, the scrutiny can be somewhat unnerving, judging by Alex's repeated insistance that Khan really wants to come out and play, and I should let him go swim. A very long swim.)

We're about 80% unpacked, and I've got leads on a few job, so all is well. We've found a few good local restaurants and essential shops (hello, snake breeding store), and, barring the peculiar accents, are well on our way to becoming functional citizens. Who'da thunk.