I'm a redneck woman...

We just got back home from a weekend spent in a little town called Manning, SC. Ohhh boy!
Two of our best friends in the entire world, we'll call them C and J, invite us every year. C's family lives down there (all together on their own land) and they throw a HUGE party every year for his cousin's birthday. I'm talking like at least 50 to 60 ish people - huge. I'm getting ahead of myself a little here, so let's back up a little. I wanted to get every little detail down.

Remember, I'm from up north. And although yes, I've lived down here for almost 13 years now, I live in Columbia. It's still a major city. With that said, here is a little descriptive tale of our trip to Manning. (I made notes for yall on the way down) *Please know, that I'm by no means judging.. I just find little things like this highly entertaining*
A little over 1/2 way there, we need to make a pee stop. We stop at this gas station and immediately catching my eye is a sign on the door that says, "please end all cell phone calls before stepping inside". Really? It's a gas station, not a doctors office. But I'm intrigued and need to know why. I have all intensions of asking man behind the counter why this rule exists. We walk in and I say hi in a very friendly voice. I get nothing back. He doesn't look at me, nod in my direction, smile, mumble hi, nothing. Ok! We treck it on over to the restroom.. RR for paying customers only. No walk ins. Out of Order. Ok. So we walk back out, the man never once even looked up at us. Strange. I guess I'll never know why he doesn't allow cell phones in his store.

We go down the road and stop at the next gas station we see. Ohh man. It's lookin a little scary, not a place you'd normally stop. But we do have another couple with us and she's prego, so we stop. This must be a really really small town, we have everyone sitting outside of the store, eating fried chicken and cutting up together. Everyone that pulls in knows eachother. And there is a dog just laying in the grass far away from everyone else with noone watching her. (we heart-breakingly thought it was dead for about 5 minutes, but he did get up and move) The bathroom was horrendous.. pee stuck to the floor, smelling pretty rancid, but it was an emergency. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.. roll up her jeans. So we're outside, waiting to leave again.. just kind of standing around like everyone else. This old man in a pick up truck backs up to J and I and says *with the biggest country accent you can muster up in your imagination please*

man: yall lost?
us: Nope, on our way to Manning.
man: aight, just checking. yall look like tourists.
me: *looking around* Ha! I feel like a tourist.

So we venture on our way. I'm in awe of this little town we are passing through and seeing how everyone lives, wondering what they do with thier spare time, when I almost loose it. We pass yet another gas station (I think). It has a big sign out front advertising what they are selling today. Amoung other things I have to mention two of them: liver puddin and butt meat!!??! yes, there was no g on the end of puddin and what in the hell is butt meat and why would you buy this stuff?? Please! Someone enlighten me!!

Anyways.. we finally get to C's family's house (or houses) and we had a blast of course. When they throw this party.. they go alll out. Like I said, a ton of people, more food than you could ever imagine set up in the barn :) a bon fire, homemade moonshine (we're in the country now yall) and kareokee set up in said barn. Now, this isn't just a home kareokee machine. They actually hired someone to come out and run it all night. Like you go and request your song and they set it up for you kareokee. Usually there is a band playing out there instead, but they went did this this year instead. Which of course thrilled me. I, like usual, had a little too much fun. There were tons of pictures being taken and in any one of them, I'm sure I'm either on the dance floor (yes there was one of those) dancing to either, The Cha-Cha Slide, Electric Slide, Cupid Shuffle, some new one that the kids taught me, maybe even a little Soulja Boy, and possibly shaking it out there to some Lil Wayne or Pour Some Sugar On Me... I'm just sayin. Or giving awesome renditions of Friends in Low Places, Strawberry Wine, Nothing Compares to You, Before He Cheats, and Did I Shave My Legs for This. And I may have gotten into the home-made moonshine. Big mistake, but it was blueberry flavored. I mean come on!!
I'm sure there are way more highly embarrasing details that I chose to not remember, but I gave you a few. If I ever do see pics, and if there are some that aren't too horrid, I may share. But I'll leave you with that.
I can't express the amount of fun we have every year at this shindig or how much love I have in my heart for C's family. These people are amazingly nice and welcoming. They work really hard to put this together every year and geniounly (sp) just want everyone to come and enjoy themselves. Just don't try to feed me any liver puddin or butt meat!!