The Long Road Home

The Queen took a short trip south to see her parents, and this lady:

She is the Queen's grandmother, almost 90 years young and still going. Not many people can say they know their great-great grandchildren, but she can.

We must like stripes in our family... the two people in the background are also family; we had an impromptu family reunion at lunch. About 20 of us swarmed the local Mexican place. Mom's side of the family is loud and boisterous, since I'm a halfling (a product of mom and dad) I'm quiet and boisterous.

Case in point, my cousin and her daughter:

It was a short vacation but a good one, and after a day and a half I headed home. Six hours of gorgeous scenery.

A road all to myself! 

From Mississippi to Alabama in under an hour! A world land speed record? Nah... it's just close by.

No need for a stop light, just keep an eye out...

A war memorial in Hamilton, AL because the south is proud of our veterans

Even though I woke up way too early, with a view like this it was hard to be grouchy.

I've been searching my whole life for the "perfect" tree... I probably won't ever find it because there are too many to choose from. But I do really like this one... stupid light pole photobombed my picture...

Hay bales

Look at that hill... *squee*

Going down...

A kudzu forest... which is kind of pretty, but kudzu is very invasive.

There is a place nearby that I call The Valley of the Trolls because it is overrun by kudzu... giant trees just covered from top to bottom with vines... ergo, trolls. I guess I have an active imagination. I saw a van with a traffic cone strapped to the front bumper and thought of a rhinoceros.

I haven't decided if Alabama is extremely thoughtful or if people get so lost that it's a necessity, but they have cut throughs every few feet for people to cross over the median. You can see three in this picture as the road climbs the hill.

I did not like this one little bit. Even my Mini felt too wide, I don't know how the cargo truck made it.

When we were towing the rv I would always cringe when we encountered an overpass or a bridge because we never knew exactly how high we were. In this case they re-routed most rv's and trucks because the bridge canopy was too low for them to get through.

Another thing about Alabama is that you go over a lot of bridges. The water is beautiful.

The Alabama Welcome Center. Reminds me of old days. I used to pass by rockets every day when I went to work.

But there's nothing like being back in Tennessee!

A birdie at the welcome center.

Exit 32 is completely unattractive.

Exit 42 is very attractive.

Yep. We have castles.

Well... we have a renaissance festival anyway.

Poor Exit 65 is also unattractive.

As was my car after all the bug guts. So Scout got a bath.

In this completely random spot outside of a Walmart is an historic grave. I have never taken a look-see, because the sign was pretty inconspicuous. But they updated it and made it easier to find the little side road.

My favorite farm... it's so gorgeous.

My other favorite farm. I love farm houses. I should have gotten a better picture of the view because to the right of the barn is a hill and it's so picturesque.

But the dingle dells closer to home are by far the best... I learned from an Irish friend that a 'dingle dell' is where trees come together across a road to form a canopy. It's just pretty to watch the light filter through the leaves. Sometimes it's dappled like this

Other times it forms lines that slash through the trees (not in this picture... just sayin').

Chicken of the sea? (This was taken in Alabama)

Picked the royal hounds up from boarding. They were wearing bling.

And they were tuckered out.

Bo didn't feel good. He wouldn't eat and couldn't poop. He finally started acting normal this morning. He gets really stressed when we go anywhere and leave him behind so I think me being gone for two and a half days stressed him so much that he made himself sick.

I had hoped boarding him in someone's home would reduce his stress, but I guess not.

Blue moon.

Bunny Foo-Foo, one of our wild rabbits. We have two that regularly appear in the front yard. I usually see solo bunnies but those two are always together.

The end.