Alabama: What can I do with advertising?
We visited Alabama twice on this trip, once on the way to Louisiana, which was less memorable, and once on the way across to Atlanta, which was longer and involved more meat.
A thing I've experienced many times when traveling the world is surprise at how greenly similar so much of our planet is. Flying over England, "hey, that looks like rural Indiana!", flying into Hawaii "Hey, it's covered in grass!", etc. Perhaps I sound like a complete idiot, but I didn't expect Alabama to be green, rolling. I was expecting burnt orange, hot red somehow, but it turns out it mostly resembled southern Ohio.
Thoroughly confident in the latest edition of Roadfood (it was 2/2 with excellent suggestions on the way down in Louisville and Nashville), we decided our dining stop on the long drive back to Georgia would be at Mobile's "Brick Pit", an oversized shack offering up pulled pork slow-cooked for 30 hours, drenched in house BBQ sauce and served with enormous slices of white bread. I ordered the most delicious sweet tea of the whole trip, and a pork sandwich, while Allenn ordered the platter.
It might be germane at this point to mention that I have been a fish-eating vegetarian for more than two years, and although I have faltered once before, I had not touched the meat of pig since a fairly debaucherous sausage and bacon birthday frenzy Robbie and I threw for our combined birthdays a couple of years ago. (That night, Susan and Jeff and I would dare each other to give up land meat completely.) I confessed this to our young waitress, who smiled and said, "Yes. I was a vegetarian, too. Until I started working here."
It was amazing, of course, and while we ate and drank our tea, we listened in on our waitress advising her co-worker on possible career streams available through the community college course book she was working for. By the time we left, she was still undecided on whether to go into occupational therapy, marketing, or cosmetology, but I'm trusting she made the right choice.
As a footnote, downtown Mobile is a really lovely place, surprisingly well-kept (if completely closed up by 4:30pm, and I'm guessing earlier than that, too.) The streets are warm and clean and the architecture charming. I would have thought it idyllic if anyone would have let me use their bathroom, but everyone was pretty rude about it, making me think Mobile is sorely in need of Washroom Quest. Eventually some nice Mormons directed me to the Subway sandwich shop, where I used an unnaturally large bathroom (public bathroom phobia #1!) with no lock whatsoever (public bathroom phobia #2!).
Finally, my favourite part of any southern roadtrip is viewing the myriad combinations of burned-out letters in Waffle House signs along the highway. It appeals to the kitsch-lover and Scrabble-player in me both, and Alabama's waffle emporia did not disappoint. This trip's highlights: WAFFLE USE and F HOSE. (Note: enjoying the signs is much more pleasurable than actually eating at an AFFLE HO.)
Had no time to stop and visit Guy in Auburn, but I think I'll be back, Alabama.