Today I drive for fourteen hours. I actually love road trips. I like to crank up the sound and just go, and make very few stops. Of course at my age I do have to stop more often than I used to, and get out and jump around just to make sure my legs still work.
Road trips through the Deep South provide plenty of nostalgia. I like taking back roads as often as possible, where there are acres and acres of farmland and picturesque old barns, roadside stands where antiques and boiled peanuts and peaches in season are plentiful, and by now I’m sure there will be pumpkins everywhere.
It’s a life that seems to be disappearing as the strip malls encroach on the little towns and the interstate bypasses choke off the little main street mom and pop businesses.
My sister has a place in the woods where you can pick muscadines until you are too tired to pick any more. There is no better jam or jelly in the world.
This is what downtown looks like . . . the woods are only a half hour away!
We will no doubt take a little side trip to my Dad’s ancestral home, which is a place where time seems to stand still. There’s a modern hospital in the middle of town that has my great-grandfather’s physician’s bag on display inside a glass case.
See you on Tuesday with stories to share!
Tags: Alabama, muscadines, road trips
October 9, 2008 at 9:32 am |
I would love to take a road trip through Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, etc. I have been bugging my husband to do this forever. I would like to leave home, drive at our leisure, stop whenever we wanted, stay off the highways, go in one direction for half of our time away, then turn around and come home taking another route. Have a good time with family and I hope you take lots of pictures.
October 9, 2008 at 9:40 am |
Roadtrip!! My very favorite pasttime…love to alley drag and see where the road takes me….and photos! love the drive bys…
travel safe and enjoy!
October 9, 2008 at 12:58 pm |
This looks like a pretty big place. Great to see these pictures.
My sister and I were in our small hometown last weekend during the Victorian Tea, Gala, and Street Fair. The town never seemed to change, except for businesses being less and the wagons of farm workers no longer coming to town on Saturday. Same families, homes, and people, though, through most of my 70 years. My sister remarked that it is changing as some buildings are being restored into art galleries, chocolate shops, kolache shops, restaurants, etc. With new people coming while old families are dying out, it is changing some. But the charm is that it is still very much like it always has been. New people tend to want to tear down some of the old things and put up new structures. I always hope they don’t!
I always thought that the saying, “You can’t go home again” was not true. Things were always the same when I would go back home to live with my family for a while. Now they are all dead, homes are sold, so it is different. We still go home every few weeks, though.
October 9, 2008 at 11:32 pm |
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October 10, 2008 at 7:05 am |
I’m from Alabama, and love roadtrips also…As a child, we would head out for a drive to visit family in Tennessee and Mississippi. Once I got married, my husband and I drove all over the US, but mostly through the deep south and Gulf Coast areas. There are no road trips to be taken where we live now…a tiny island in the Caribbean…how I miss those trips. Thanks for sharing, and hope you get some good inspiration!
October 10, 2008 at 10:48 pm |
Looks and sounds wonderful! I know you all will have a great time in the country at Celia’s!