When Kentucky met Maryland

I feel it is necessary to start out this post by giving an explanation as to why my geography knowledge is so limited.  I have only had exactly ONE Geography class my whole life, and it was in the 8th grade.  To make matters worse, our teacher, Mrs. M, was assumed to be an alcoholic.  If this tells you anything, we watched the same movie for 3 months at one point.  (Would it impress you to know that I can still sing the theme song to that movie???)  Needless to say, my geography skills are extremely lacking.

Anyway, I had to take a work trip last week to Maryland.  Historically, my work area (ie-Kentucky) has always been grouped with Southern States, like Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, etc.  Now, we are in an area with Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., & parts of Delaware.  Attending meetings used to be just a quick drive away, but now they're a plane ride away.  I pretty much LOVE it because I get to experience a part of the US that I've never seen before.  However, I am 110% sure that our area gets an absolute kick out of us Southerners because we are such fish outta water up in their homeland.  Last week's meeting was an extremely small meeting, so there were only 2 of us from Kentucky that went, but I think our little Duo was all they would have been able to handle. Thank God I did not have to go alone, because after reading this post, you'll agree with me in thinking they would have thought I was straight special if I had been left up to my own devices.

Meet Brittany.

Natural beauty, right? I love her 2nd grade style. Please note she's wearing a cat sweatshirt.  Its no wonder we're friends. 

Okay, meet Britt for real.

Brittany & I were the only ones from Kentucky on this trip.  To say we are 2 peas in a pod would be a vast understatement.  Her & I pretty much stay in hysterics every time we are together or are on the phone.  Love this girl & can't imagine work without her.  I wasn't sure if our counterparts were quite ready for us & the hilarity that ensues with our mildly ignorant innocent comments. 

Please let me provide some examples of the solid entertainment we gave our East Coast counterparts at this past meeting...

Example #1: We had a conference call a few days prior to our last meeting to discuss our meeting agenda.  When asked about how we were getting from the Baltimore Airport to St. Michaels (our meeting destination), both Britt & I reply with "Oh, we'll just cab it.  Its no biggie."..... And then we were met with dead silence. Like you could hear a pindrop silence. Then someone says "Ladies, you all realize St. Michaels is about 1.5 hours away, right?"  Us, "Oh, it's not right outside of Baltimore? Well, umm. hmmmmm?"  Seriously? Who doesn't map out where the meeting location is? Our cab ride would have literally ended up costing about as much as our flights.  Clearly Britt shares my limited geography skills.  
Example #2: We ended up having a counterpart pick us up from the airport.  During the ride, we crossed over this little number.

So of course I ask, "Sooo, what state are we in now?"  Because in Kentucky if you cross over a bridge, you're in another state. Duh.  The driver gave me a look & said, "This is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge."  Me," Right, so what state does it take you too?"  The driver "Umm, Maryland.  The Chesapeake Bay is just in Maryland, Caroline."  Classic.  This is coming right after our fabulous driver was talking about how Wilmington bordered Maryland.  My comment? "Oh my gosh, I didn't realize North Carolina was so close!!. Wilmington, NC was where they filmed One Tree Hill & Dawson's Creek.  They probably like it because its on the coast. "  Dead silence.  Driver says, "Um, The Wilmington I'm talking about is in Delaware because Delaware borders Maryland."  OMFG. I am completely geographically illiterate.


Example #3: Even I know that Maryland is known for their crabcakes, so obviously we went to a seafood restaurant for dinner while we were there.  This might sound ridiculous but I have never had a harder time ordering food somewhere.  When it came time for me to order, I was persauded into ordering their seafood sampler, so I could try everything.  Okay- easy enough!  Then, the waitress went on to ask me how I preferred the various food to be prepared.  I just tell her "Oh you know, the normal way?"  The waitress responds with, "Let me just give you the different options." Then I swear the waitress went on about the 80 different ways they can prepare crab, oysters, shrimp, etc.  It was very reminiscent of listening to Bubba from Forest Gump.  



I then got wayyy too flustered to even answer because everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to make a decision, so I just blurted out "Ummmm... fried?" Typical Southern Response, right?  I just obviously wanted to make sure I sufficiently clogged up my arteries that night.

Example #4: Wedding crashers did not exaggerate East Coasters love for sailing.  At all.  I just conveniently forgot that aspect of the movie.  Almost immediately upon arrival, our peers began discussing their love for being on the water.  I also love being on the water in the summer, so I ask, "Ohhh, so what kind of boats do yall go out on?  Speed boats? House boats?  Or pontoon boats?"  I was promptly looked at like I had 7 heads.  Response? "Ohhh, no.  Honey, we go sailing."   Well, of course you do.  We're in Maryland after all.  Duh Caroline.  Lucky for me, we ended up going out on a sailboat a little bit later so us Kentucky girls got to see what the fuss is all about.  

I'M ON A SAILBOAT!

I took about 15 pics that look exactly like this because I was so utterly fascinated.

Not going to lie, sailing does have an extra element of class that pontoon boats just can't quite reach.  I mean, how many lake boats motor back to a place like this after a day on the water?  

As you can see, there were no pontoon boats at this dock.  Shocking, right? hahahaha

So even after all my ridiculous commentary, I find it hysterical that all of our counterparts are pleading to come to Kentucky for their next meeting.  Lets be honest here, I can't really blame them- horse racing & bourbon? Why wouldn't they want to come here ?  :)  I have a hard time believing they'll have as many off the wall questions as I did, but I'm going to console myself with the assumption that there is one "special" person in every crowd, and last week- it just happened to be me :) Okay yall, thats it for now.