Butler County

Woke up at silly o’clock & tried to recollect the previous days events for my blog. It became a bit of an epic ordeal as I had to look up various facts to confirm what Capt’n Ken had told us the previous day.

I got the coffees AGAIN, whilst Jackie got herself ready. Once dressed & packed we went across the road to ‘CC’s Coffee House’ for an iced mocha coffee, 2 sausage & cheese pretzels & a raspberry scone. Pleasant.

We then collected our luggage from the hotel room, gave it the concierge, then collected the car. The concierge brought our luggage out to us, Jackie gave him just a dollar tip & he insisted on hugging us both (or pickpocketing us!). As it happens I annoyingly later discovered that I had left my SD card reader in the room, so there will be no photos uploaded until I buy a new one.

Within minutes we had picked up our old friend Interstate 10 & were back heading east & into the State of Mississippi, passing Pearlington & Diamondhead. At Gulfport we temporarily headed north for a mile to see the ‘World’s Largest Rocker’, not Meatloaf, but an enormous wooden rocking chair in front of Dedeaux Clan Furniture Store. Quick photo and onwards.

Next stop was Biloxi, which is a beach & more predominantly a Casino Resort. It looked like an upmarket, but much smaller version of Galveston. The beach was pure white, but surprisingly no-one was sat on it, perhaps they had read the weather forecast. We stopped at a Hurricane Katrina Memorial in a park, which I have since just read was created as an ‘Extreme Makeover, Home Edition’ for ABC Television.

It was roasting, so we pulled into a petrol station for some cold drinks & the cashier told me that my face was burnt & gave me some advice as to what to buy for it, Wheat Germ Oil. As we left she said “You’ll be thanking me for it”. If it’s that bad, I’d better do my best to avoid the Ku Klux Klan!

We continued up the coast a very short distance to the Gulf Islands National Seashore Park. We got to the Visitors Center, it looked nice for a walk, but we didn’t have the time. We drove along a minor road call the Old Spanish Trail to a small town called Gautier.

We were looking for The Garden of Hope Cemetery, which turned out to be down a long overgrown track into the middle of a Forest. It felt like we were driving to our doom! This Cemetery is supposed to be one of the Top 10 most haunted in America. It was let’s say ‘Au Naturale’. While we were there traipsing amongst the tombstones, a tatty old car turned up & a big black bloke got out. It turned out he was probably in charge of looking after the graveyard, because he said it had got out of hand. I assume he meant the foliage.

We followed him back down the track & on to a paved road. Eastwards we went on Highway 90 & crossed the State Border into Alabama. The sign was slightly more informal than most, because it just read ‘Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama’.

We did not have the most auspicious of initial impressions of ‘Sweet Home Alabama’. We were cruising still on Highway 90 & stopped off at the Chicken & Car statue in front of a Petrol Station. I parked up & went in the shop for a cold drink, but they had had no power for 7 hours. We continued to a hideous town called Theodore, where again we stopped to get a drink. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was filthy & mad. People were either randomly shouting out things that I couldn’t understand or they had physical defects. I grabbed a couple of drinks & sped away quickly.

Next stop was the drab sounding Mobile. As we approached it looked quite modern with a couple of gleaming towers. Our route took us through a long tunnel in which we were sure that we were subjected to some verbal abuse, but with our music booming we couldn’t work out the source. We continued to our intended destination, Battleship Parkway, where USS Alabama was docked. We pulled in to the approach road, where we were notified that entry was just $4. We could see the USS Alabama from where we stopped & an assortment of aircraft & weapons, so we did a U turn & left.

We were heading towards Montgomery, the State Capital of Alabama, but the clouds were now seriously black, thunder & lightning were rumbling & flashing in the distance. We put our hood up & prayed that no hail was involved.

It was torrential rain, but no hailstones, so we traveled north on Interstate 65, not realising that we were passing Florida just a couple of miles to our east. We rattled up Interstate 65 before pulling off towards the town of Georgiana. As soon as you approach the town you are bombarded with signs & advertising boards ensuring you know that Georgiana is the hometown of Hank Williams. We drove to the ‘closed for the day’ Museum & noted the big house opposite was also the Fan Club HQ. The sun was out so the roof went back down.

Our next stop was Greenville, which was quite an affluent town. This was a perfect location geographically for us to stay the night. We located the Motels in the suburbs & chose the Days Inn & got a room for $15 less than it was advertised on Booking.com. Right result!

We had been in our room for less than 5 minutes, when there was a tremendous racket outside. We looked out of the window & the visibility was about 10 metres & driving rain was horizontal. 5 minutes late it had passed & kids were racing to the swimming pool.

Before going out for dinner, Jackie was on a mission. Using her ‘Detective’ skills she had identified that hailstone dents could be repaired using dry ice on a warm bonnet. Over the course of the next hour she identified where could get some dry ice tomorrow & what we needed to do. Watch this space.

About 150 metres away is Ruby Tuesday, which can be clearly seen from our motel room. We started to walk to it, but there was no pavement or walkway of any description to get to it. We turned back & enquired at reception & she confirmed that driving was the only option. Why would anyone want to walk!

We drove then ordered one main meal, ribs & shrimps, between us & had loaded jackets & the bottomless salad each. It was very nice, but more than enough. We were done for the day.

Song of the Day - Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Bonus Song of the Day :-

Jambalaya (On The Bayou) by Hank Williamsもっと詳しく