Bobsledding Through “God’s Country”

OK, so it took almost a week to unpack.  Not really, but with school getting ready to start, football practice and this being the last week the pool is open; I’ve had a pretty busy week.  The trip to Alabama was awesome.  The drive alone wasn’t bad at all.  NukeMom loves to drive.  She also likes to leave on trips at around 6am, so she gets to drive.  No argument from me, just give me a pillow.  Around lunch time I’ll take over and let her rest.  It all comes out in the wash. 

I forgot how beautiful the drive through the mountains is.  When we moved here we came the same way, I-40 through eastern Tennessee and Asheville, North Carolina.  If you’ve never been through that area, just know that there is a reason they call it “God’s Country”; every site could be on a postcard.  Well, except for the Stuckey’s, I don’t think God eats at Stuckey’s.  I’ve borrowed a picture from the Internet for the Smoky Mountains as I couldn’t operate the camera and be the steer-man for the luge at the same time.  It’s a beautiful drive, but it’s also the equivalent of a world record bobsled run.  The road climbs up to Asheville, so you have a third lane to allow all the semi’s that can only manage about 4 miles per hour a lane of their own.  Once you get to the top, your goal coming down the other side is to keep the trucks that made it to the top from ending up in your trunk.  If you’ve ever seen Steven Spielberg’s first movie called Duel, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Dennis Weaver would have a coronary on this road.

After I-40 we cut across Tennessee and drove through Chattanooga.  Talk about a beautiful place.  Big Tennessee river running through downtown, mountains all around and, oh yeah, SEE ROCK CITY!  In case you missed the 24,000 billboards along the way or the 14,000 barn roofs painted with the same slogan, there is a place called Rock City on Lookout Mountain.  Lookout Mountain is actually a plateau that runs through Northern Georgia and ends in Southern Tennessee right at the Tennessee river in Chattanooga.  This will be next summer’s vacation stop.  There are a ton of things to do there.  I won’t kill you with all of the details (too late?), but we are looking forward to next years vacation there.

What am I forgetting….Oh yeah!  There was a wedding!  We stayed at the brides home near Huntsville, Alabama.  She rents the house out now to her best friend and her kids and they GAVE UP their house for the whole week so we could stay there.  Talk about southern hospitality!  The kids got to “camp out” in a trailer that another friend brought over to the house.  The bride said; “It wouldn’t be an Alabama wedding without a trailer in there somewhere!”  Her house sits on farmland that has been in her family for generations.  Her Mother and Father live right next door; in fact, that’s where the wedding was held.  Her folks house sits on a bluff above a slow moving creek.  Slow moving, that is, until they get a good rain, and then it can overflow it’s banks and run halfway up the bluff.  Thanks to the ancestors for building on top of the bluff instead of next to the creek! 

Her folks do a Barbecue every month for family and friends; and her Dad has built his own BBQ pit right next to the creek.  I worked at a BBQ restaurant for years and I can tell you that they sure know how to do it here.  If you’ve ever been to a barbecue like this one, then you know that the cooking of the meat is the extravaganza; eating it is incidental.  The 8 to 10 hours it takes to get everything ready is just as much a party as the party itself.  I got to sit around and talk Texas BBQ vs. Alabama BBQ for a little while.  They even talked me into trying the “World Famous” Alabama White BBQ  sauce.  It was incredible.  I hate chicken, but I went back for seconds.  The White sauce helping me get over my aversion to poultry, if only for one day.

The wedding was short and sweet.  Wil and Nancy exchanged vows and the ceremony was over within minutes.  The Chaplain followed suit with the blessing; which lasted all of 19 words.  It wasn’t “Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat”, but it was close.  The BBQ started next, and the ribs, slaw, hash brown casserole and beer disappeared quickly.  The kids splashed around the creek and had a rolling contest down the side of the bluff.  One kid even said; ”Hey, ya’ll; watch this!” before tossing his carcass down the hill.  Those are dangerous words down south; HYWT is usually followed by a trip to the hospital for a maiming injury.  Thankfully the only injuries this night were to a few unfortunate swine who wandered too close to a wedding BBQ pit.     

Nancy’s Aunt Betty Jo had all of us over to her house for a brunch the day before the wedding.  She lives in a beautiful home in the hills overlooking Hunstville.  She is quite the host.  The brunch was fantastic, and hearing her stories amazed me.  I’m not sure how old she is, and a proper southern woman never tells anyway, but suffice it to say that she is at least 60.  She looks like she is in her 40′s.  She is in better shape than most people 1/3 her age.  SHE ROCK CLIMBS!  I don’t mean rock climb like; “let’s go hiking in the park tomorrow”, I mean like Tom Cruise-Mission: Impossible 2-hanging off of a sheer rock face 1,000 feet up rock climb.  Her garage was filled with rock climbing equipment.  She had finger-cups hanging from the ceiling for training.  One cup would hold 4 fingers, the next 3 fingers and the bottom only 2 fingers.  Your goal is to hang by your fingers and do pull ups.  My record?  I did 1/4 of a pull up with all 4 fingers.  Then I passed out.  She is truly an amazing woman.  Nancy’s whole family and extended group of friends treated us all like royalty.  I even got to play a round of golf with her sister and son.  Yes, this trip to Alabama was everything you hear about when people talk about the hospitality of southerners.  Best trivia facts brought home from this trip?  The Alabama Crimson Tide have won 12 National Championships in Football, and the first 3 Super Bowls were won by Alabama Quarterbacks (Bart Starr (I,II) and Joe Namath (III)).  Makes a Texas boy want to keep his mouth shut; and I did (mostly).