Water
From New Orleans to Washington DC, we followed within about 50 miles of the coastline and everywhere we turned there was water: seeps, sloughs, bays, estuaries, inlets, streams, rivers, creeks, brooks, ponds, lakes, reservoirs, swamps, marshes, wetlands, bayous, sounds, ocean, lagoons, branches, …
There was so much water that the air was thick with the stuff: mist, dew, fog, and it condensed on our skin and other surfaces with very little provocation. It even fell from the sky as rain and hail.
One can’t help but notice that the southeast has so much water and meanwhile so much of the rest of the country is water-starved. This is just another example of the physical differences across regions. But we wonder how it colors the perceptions of the people who live here and have never been west of the Mississippi. No wonder drought in the west isn’t a big story here.