Travalon and I are back home, and we suffered through a day of work after getting in at 11:45 last night. Tuesday we drove along the Florida Panhandle, through the hurricane destruction in Mexico Beach and the crazy tourists in Panama City Beach, which Travalon calls the "Redneck Riviera." We went for a walk along the beach at Grayton State Park, with the beautiful sugar-white sand and the blue and green Gulf of Mexico. We had lunch outside at the Grayton Brewery - delicious beer! Then we took more of a back road through Alabama, and we passed a place selling old gas station signs. Only after Travalon had paid for the top lamp from an old Sinclair gas pump did the proprietor drawl, "Y'all gone vote for Trump agin?" How to reply to that? It's not like we voted for him before. I lied and said, "That's a long time from now - I haven't really thought about it," since I wasn't in any mood to get in a political argument with some random redneck. He seemed pleased with that answer, like he thought I shouldn't trouble my pretty little head with such issues. Heck, he probably wishes women still couldn't vote. Then we got on the road again and drove, playing a game where Travalon got a point for gun shops or pawn shops, and I got a point for every Baptist church we passed. I am pleased to report that I won by a lot; Alabama loves God more than guns. After dark we got to Birmingham and drove to the Vulcan statue, from which you can get a great view of the city. I took some fabulous pictures with my real camera and will post them at some point. However, I was too terrified to go out on the observation deck - the floor was grating, so you could see straight down! We ended up having dinner just before midnight at a Waffle House in Columbia, Tennessee.
Yesterday we had lunch at a Backyard Burger in Paducah, Kentucky, and they have a really good black bean burger. We stopped for a hike around a lake in Ferne Clyff State Park in southern Illinois, then we drove forever and I got points for license plates west of the Mississippi while Travalon got points for Casey's General Stores and mileage signs to Chicago. At first I was ahead, but after dark I couldn't see license plates anymore, and he ended up winning by nine points. Just about the time twilight was falling, we stopped at Ma Hat's Alma Mater of Illinois State University and explored the campus briefly. Illinois is a very long state, so we didn't get back to Wisconsin until after 11.
Here are some pictures from our northern road trip. First are a couple of pictures from Grayton Beach.
Here is the old gas pump lamp Travalon bought.
Here are a couple of pictures from Ferne Clyff State Park:
Here are some shots from Illinois State University. The first picture is the music building. I'm not sure what all the other ones are.
This is some sort of power plant thing that looked really creepy at night. It might have been the nuclear power plant; we aren't sure.
And finally, a short video of the light show on the Vulcan statue in Birmingham.
Famous Hat
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