Day 9 - Sweet Home Alabama

After our great experience of small town Tennessee, we decided to change our route to include a bit more small town southern hospitality. We looked at how to visit New Orleans but not stay there. We picked a town 3 hours drive from NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) that was also under 6 hours from Nashville. Grove Hill it was. We also choose Natchez as the other location to stay that was also 3 hours from NOLA.

We set out pretty late on the bitterly cold morning and had to pop into downtown Nashville to change some pounds into dollars. Well, we can reliably inform you, that there is nowhere in the whole of Nashville that will change pounds.

We stopped at a steakhouse/all you can eat joint. Darren had a huge 1 pound steak. The soft drinks came in jugs for one. The serving sizes in this country are unbelievable!

Once we were off the main interstate, we really got to see the landscape. It was very bushy, but dry and red. Also lots of waterways and swampy land. The houses along these smaller roads were small, shack like or trailer houses. I always thought ‘trailer park’ referred to something like a caravan, but now realise it means the unique American style house that is literally a semi trailer size container, on concrete bricks, with windows and a door. It is literally a trailer-home. They are everywhere. Sometimes by themselves and sometimes grouped together in what I’m guessing is officially known as a ‘trailer park’.

In the dark, we arrived in Grove Hill, to find a very very small town. 2 motels and 2 restaurants – a burger king and a fried chicken joint. Exciting. To make matters worse, it was in a ‘dry’ county. No alcohol shops and no bars.

So after checking into the very retro (read: dated) motel, we went to Burger King. Luckily our accents helped us get chatting to a young couple from Grove Hill, Charity and Josh. We chatted over dinner. They had a southern drawl and a friendly nature. Josh had just been huntin’ and Charity just finished work. We talked football, huntin’ (it is deer season and soon it will be squirrel season) fishin’ travelling and work. The told us how some of the older locals like to eat squirrels brains and how it was difficult to hunt for ducks cause of the laws. Josh had never been on a plane.