Alabama the Heart of Dixie

Annmarie wanted to put in her 5 cents of the trip so far, these are her words:

We arrived in Tennessee yesterday Dec.11th. we stayed across the street from Graceland, Elvis Presley's mansion. it was much smaller then expected, he bought it when he was 22 in the 50's so back then it was considered big! the tour took us through his home, pool area and the trophy hall full of gold albums and his famous jumpsuits he wore on stage. it was really neat and so sad at the same time. what a time that must of been, that house felt so lonely now. Memphis was scary...we went to look for a restaurant and we were the only white faced people. So we left today and drove thru Mississippi and stopped off at a Starbucks (Arkansas still holds the record for the slowest service) but Mississippi came in second, its unbelievable! so we tried to get thru as much as Alabama as we could desperately trying to get to the ocean but we only made it as far as Dolthan, Alabama. We found this town to be very charming. We had a great dinner at a place called Charlies. They put together a Cajun pasta just for us vegetarians...between new Mexico and Alabama there is no such thing as a vegetable or green salad, just iceberg lettuce and lots and lots of steak! Alabama is very beautiful and the people are really sweet. They don't say happy holidays here they actually say have a merry Christmas.. there are churches on every corner and Confederate flags everywhere. literally Methodist and Baptist. Although Vegas has the most churches per capital its not the same you just gotta see it to believe it. we are going to head to Tallahassee Florida tomorrow so we hope to be in Lakeland Florida to see our friends Mark and Bonnie. after that we head out to the Siesta Keys (the whitest sands you'll ever see they say) and then to Sarasota to look at property. we are almost there! will let you all know and I hope you are having a great week too!

(Warrick Back) That's pretty much the sum of it.... today was a long long driving day... we covered three states in all... Tennessee, Mississippi and now we're in Alabama... I must say, Alabama is aw some.... the towns are very clean (or at least Dothan where we are staying is - "Birmingham and Montgomery not so much"). Troy university is in Alabama and we have seen both campuses from the road... huge brick buildings, very impressive looking... almost like Michaelhous in fact. for interests sake we picked up a homes magazine. For the same price that we sold our place for in Vegas, we could get a 3500 SF home, 5 beds, 4 baths, Pool, Barn, Granny Flat, Basement and on 6.5 acres with great views. Not bad if you consider that the temperature right now is 65 Degrees F and apparently according to our waiter there is no better place in the world.

Right now we plan to head towards Tallahassee and beyond... since we had such a long drive today I doubt that we'll try to get all the way to Tampa or Sarasota tomorrow. But both Annmarie and I agreed this morning that we were in need of some salty air and I am in desperate need of some salt water on my skin, so were heading to the ocean and we'll just figure it out from there.