"Exactly what your father told me not to"

That was my response to the question: "What'd you get?"

The thing being referred to? The first deer I ever killed.

I had decided several months ago that I wanted to go hunting. 3 reasons for this:

1. I've become pretty close with 2 guys in my nieghborhood, both of whom hunt. A little male bonding in the woods is good.
2. I have acquired a taste for venison since we moved here.
3. I am a fan of Michael Pollan and the real food movement. We're members of our local CSA, we don't eat anything that has over 5 ingredients listed on the label, and the farther we can check out of the industrial food complex the better. 

Hence, going deer hunting makes sense to me. It's another Southern experience to write about.

On Dothan and Alligators

Look at that thing! It's huge! (That's what she said....HEE-YOOOO!!!)

We've never been to South Alabama before. Our neighbors who used to live here in Auburn moved back home to Dothan two months ago, and we decided to visit them.

We were told we were going to go fishing, and that we'd be hunting an alligator.

Wait, I'm sorry....A what?

Tuskegee Adventure

Tuskegee is famous for a lot of different things. The Tuskegee Institute and George Washington Carver. The birthplace of Rosa Parks. The Tuskegee Airmen. Tuskegee University.

We had the opportunity to visit one day, lured by the promise of Sweet Potatoes and a celebration of George Washington Carver at the Farmer's Market there.

Unfortunately, the Sweet Potato Festival was a complete and total bust. We arrived to a practically empty Farmer's Market (save for a few farmers), and a small table manned by a few schoolgirls and their handmade signs about what Carver did with sweet potatoes. It was a sad, but amusing sight. The girls had a small microphone and gave a short presentation on all the great things Carver did. It was like I was back in elementary school listening to classmates give book reports in the front of class.

"George Washington Carver was a great man. He was a scientist, and studied sweet potatoes. He raised them in his garden....He was a great man."

You get the idea.