Road Trip Day 4

 November 13, 2024

 

It was a wild and wooly night in the tent last night. A windstorm started about 2:00 am and didn’t stop until after we left. We were snug in the tent but the sound of the canvas being whipped by the wind was LOUD! Jeezum Crow! We were some sleep starved puppies this morning. Needless to say, we got a really early start to our day since sleeping in wasn’t an option with the noise of the tent. We made our way Montgomery which was only 3 ½ hours from Lake Guntersville. 

 

We made a pitiful attempt to embrace the wacky along the way to Montgomery when we saw a sign for Peach Park and decided to give it a try. There was a random horse (unfortunately fake because a real horse would definitely have qualified as wacky) standing amongst some picnic tables and a giant peach next to a gas station. We get points for spontaneity but not much else. We’ll try again tomorrow.

 

We arrived way too early to check into the hotel, and since it was lunch time we located a place in the city that Terry had read about called Martins Restaurant known for its Meat & Three, which is a choice of protein and three sides from the daily offerings. It was freaking amazing! 

 

We all got the fried chicken, and Terry was more adventurous than me and got a corn and okra side dish which she deemed good (I was dubious but didn’t try it to confirm). Mum and I got the classics of mashed potato with gravy, cole slaw and dressing with gravy. Our poor arteries. It was all scrumptious though and we don’t need to eat for another three days.

 

Afterward, we drove around the city of Montgomery to see a few sights and it was really odd because there was virtually no traffic despite it being mid-day during the week. Was there a recent zombie apocalypse in Montgomery that we are unaware of? I’ve never seen so few cars in a city like this. But it did make it easy to stop our car in the middle of the street to take tourist photos so that’s a win.

The Alabama state capital

Martin Luther King’s church

And a statue of Rosa Parks where she stood to catch the infamous bus

And then we completed our exploration of Montgomery at the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park which just opened this year.  It told the story of enslaved people through original artwork. It was stunning! It was an incredibly beautiful way to tell an unbelievably ugly part of U.S. history. Photos were not allowed through the majority of the park but at the end of the experience, was a large wall with the last names of 122,000 newly freed people and the names they chose for their first census survey.

 

It was a very moving experience and I’m so glad we visited this park. 

 

We finally checked into our suite at the hotel which had three large beds, two bathrooms (thank you baby jesus!), and a kitchen. And we’re 99% positive the wind won’t be waking us up tonight. Which is good because we are on our way to New Orleans tomorrow and have lots of plans that will keep us busy.