Just a thought....

Today I was cleaning out some folders of maps and notes etc from our trip north and then south again last week. Information on the Natchez Trace, old coupon books for motels, receipts, candy wrappers...you know how it goes. Then I came upon a small handwritten note that I had written as we drove into Florida. We were SO tired and the book on tape was over and we just wanted to be home (that's the context). I remember now, saying to my husband, "When did we cross the Mason-Dixon Line?" In popular usage, especially since the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (apparently the first official use of the term "Mason's and Dixon's Line"), the Mason-Dixon Line symbolizes a cultural boundary between the Northern United States and the Southern United States (Dixie).

So we began joking around trying to decide WHERE that cultural line was crossed..southern Illinois? Kentucky? We decided that there were far more interesting "lines" being crossed as we came south. Why had no one marked these along side the road? We came up with a list of "lines" that we felt we had crossed between Wisconsin and central Florida that deserve a wayside marker. This was the scrap of paper I found....

1. The sweet tea line

2. The bail bond office on every corner line

3. The boiled peanut line

4. the disappearance of the watch-out-for-icy bridges line

5. The palm tree line

6. The put-your-sandals-back-on line

7. The confederate flag line

8. The kudzu line

You will fill in the location of the line on our own depending on which route you travel, of course. I can tell you for a fact that Paducah, KY is the sweet tea line if you are coming from Wisconsin! North of Paducah if you ask for sweet tea they hand you a sugar packet.

Most of the others start in Georgia although we did see confederate flags and kudzu in Tennessee.