The Drive up I-65

No where (that I can think of, yet) embodies the elements necessary to scare the shit out of a Yankee visiting the state of Alabama than a drive along I-65 North from Montgomery to the state line of Tennessee. It has just about everything you could ask for, from the Confederate battle flag to Religious fundamentalism to outright hatred of democrats.

Good lord, I nearly shit my pants everytime I drive it.

The Auburn Football Family

Today we're gonna see Auburn (hopefully) kick some LSU Tiger butt. Because the wife is new faculty and was hired in the spring, we weren't able to get on the faculty ticket list. And, because of other commitments (notably Kentucky Colonel Day at Churchill Downs), this is the last game we'll be able to attend this season. (And yes, both the wife and I are colonels. Don't ask how.)

Because we don't know our situation for next year, this could actually be the last game we see for awhile. And I have to say, while I didn't enjoy football in high school or college, I am surprised by how much of a college football convert I have become.

I didn't get it before. I didn't understand that in places like the rural South, your college team is all you have. You don't have professional sports teams readily nearby (name a top tier professional sports team in Mississippi or Alabama. Go ahead. I'll wait.), so there is nothing of that sort to identify with. In Connecticut, you were either a Yankee fan or a Red Sox fan. College football? I don't think so. Patriots, Jets, or Giants. Or if you lived in upstate NY, the Bills (shudder).

But down here, all you have is your school. The school you may have gone to, or not (from what I understand, the vast majority of 'bama fans never went there. Infer what you will about the level of class)And it's the place you stay loyal to because, despite the vast sums of $ that are available to teams in the BCS system, they, unlike professional sports teams, aren't going to leave your town. They are a part of the community. They are loyal to the alumni, faculty, students, and fans who flock to the campus every Saturday (regardless of where the team is playing. Auburn travels well. Nebraska and Clemson as well), and stake out there spots, and welcome other fans (who support their team or not) in an open, friendly, gregarious nature. The college isn't the Yankees or the Red Sox, able to shell out over $200 million a year in salaries in an openly disgusting manner in the middle of the recession while raping working families for $50/tix to seat in the nosebleeds. (An aside, sometimes the Yankees make it really hard to root for them.) And yes, while some of the tickets aren't cheap, there really isn't anything like being in a stadium with 85,000 other people.

Here at Auburn, the senior level staff and those associated with the school talk about the Auburn family, how everyone is welcome and how we all look out for one another. And despite being the Yankee I am, I have felt welcome from the very moment we crossed the state line 3.5 months ago. In a strange way, those 85,000 people have become my family. And regardless of how long we stay, (or don't) I will always be an Auburn Tiger.

War Eagle

Roundup of interesting facts I've learned so far

In no particular order:

1. Armadillos carry leprosy. Ewww.
2. Deer sausage is really, really, really good.
3. Collard greens are good in a soup, but fricking nasty when they're cooked normally. (Boiled, then simmered with a ham hock for what seems like forever. Verdict? Still gross.)
4. It seems we are the only people in the neighborhood to sleep with their windows open at night. This seems weird to me.
5. I know I will be going hunting for deer this fall / winter.
6. I know that if I actually do kill a deer, I will cry. Maybe not right then and there, but eventually.
7. I am ok with the above two items. I actually think this is healthy. We've been removed from our food sources for too long.
8. The only way to get rid of an armadillo is to either remove its food source, or kill it.
9. The landlord opted for option #1.
10. Armadillos are gross. And they grunt.
11. The redneck version of cow-tipping is armadillo kicking. Because they can't see well, you approach them from behind and commence launching. Be prepared for your foot to hurt due to their hard shells.
12. I have not participated in either cow-tipping or armadillo kicking.
13. 11am kick-offs make a football game family day at the stadium. All the kiddies are there.
14. Booing is very much frowned upon at said stadium. Especially in front of kids. I did not know this.  :-/
15. Additionally, when you say things like, "Hey Ref! Get off your knees, you're blowing the game!" you get frowned at.

So, them's it so far

You stay classy, bammers.

 Hat tip to friends of the program

It's my birthday!

And to celebrate, the wife and I went down the Gulf of Mexico and the Redneck Riviera! (Seriously, they themselves call it that, so I can too. So, there.)

Anyway...

Perdidio Key is southwest of Pensacola and a part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. The drive from Auburn took about 4 hours, but that's only because Google maps had us take the Blue Angels Parkway, a one lane road that could have been avoided by going the way we went home (along the 110 into...oh, wait. I just realized I am doing that thing that my adult male relatives do after they've arrived somewhere. That's another post at another time.) We headed straight for a bar that I'd heard of from people both here and in Connecticut. The Flora-bama

The carnival

Good god, what a shithole. It strattles the Florida - Alabama border on the beach, and is an amalgamation of tents, coverings, wood platforms, and other assorted crap glued and screwed together to somehow pass code. It's a classic hole in the wall bar, as evidenced by a shot I took of the inside to the right.


See what I mean?

There are other "areas" that are all sort of cobbled together. You have multiple stages for performers to set up on, so forth and so on, and lots of individual bar stations. One thing I did notice was that there weren't too many TV sets, which was nice. Nothing I hate more when I go to a bar is to have nothing to look at except TV's.

Oh, and did you notice what was hanging from the clotheslines up there? Here's a better picture.

"Oh look, there's mine!"

Lots and lots of bras. Gives the place character and class, doesn't it?

Since we hit this place up right around lunchtime, we weren't expecting it to be crazy. But as evidenced by the underwear, clearly good times had been had here.

As it was lunch time, oysters and fish po-boys had to be eaten.

Yes, please!

After lunch we headed back to the beach and laid out on the beautiful, white sand beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. And they truly were stunning, until you walked up and down the beach and saw the oil response clean-up teams, their equipment, and tar-balls. Lots of little tar-balls.

The following show the tar stained beach and the equipment used by the teams:

Tractors and other "stuff"

Crews getting ready to hit the beach

Used sand sifters. Not small enough to get the majority if the tar balls if you ask me

Oil stained sand

Lovely, right? Sigh.

Pack? check. Beer? check. It's dark. Let's go!

You may also have noticed me with a backpack on my shoulders. That's because the wife and I camped on the beach on Saturday, and we had to hike in about a mile to get to where we were allowed to stay on Perdido Key (the photo was taken Sunday morning on the way out). But here's me gearing up ready to make the trek out at night.

And here we are in the morning after a not so great sleep (due to lack of pillows, a thermarest with a hole in it (grrr.....), hellacious temperature and humidity, and lack of breeze through the floor of the tent (which will be remedied on the next tent purchase.))

Good morning!

Sunday saw us stopping off at the IHOP for breakfast, driving to Pensacola Beach for the, well, beach, and then to the Pensacola Art Museum for a little bit of afternoon culture. Incidentally, the museum has a very nice collection, which we would have seen if they weren't playing a movie about Marc Chagall at the same time we visited.  :-(  Oh well.

We traveled back to Auburn after the museum and drove through a pretty horrendous thunderstorm, one that had a lighting strike right next to our car and which sounded like a shotgun! Fun stuff! It was f'ing terrifying, but, we were alright. Just a little rattled.

All in all: Great trip, glad we went, and we'll certainly go again when it gets a little cooler.