Thoughts on Tyler...

I love running errands with Kristen. One of the things we love to do is to find interesting conversation starters...we try to find interesting, fresh, off-the-wall stuff to talk about.

Last week, we started talking about how Tyler has surprised us. Basically, the premise was this:

IN WHAT WAYS IS TYLER DIFFERENT THAN YOU IMAGINED?

Here's what we came up with.

• MORE DEVOUT. Sure, Tyler is considered 'East Texas,' but Krist and I come from an even more Eastern version of East Texas. We figured moving to a bigger town would mean a noticeable drop in overall religious interaction. Boy, were we wrong! We've found Tyler to actually be more devout and spiritually sincere than we expected.
  
  
• BIGGER. Certainly, you never get a sense of town's size from simply driving through it a couple of times each year, but Tyler has really shocked us with it's size. We've been impressed with how many small communities, neighborhoods are around Tyler that we had never even heard about.
  
  
• REDNECKS. I expected fewer rednecks in Tyler. Turns out, they're here, too.
  
  
• FRIENDLY. With the exception of a few nasty waitresses or stores around town, we've been really surprised at the friendliness of Tylerites. Not sure what we were expecting...but we like it!