THE 2021 KLEPPER ROAD
TRIP: ALABAMA,
For one reason or another, this trip to Alabama had been in the planning stages for several years. After the pandemic year, we were more than ready to go somewhere. By the time we pulled
out of the driveway June 27th, we had a pretty good idea of our
itinerary although we had not plotted everything out on the map. We knew we wanted to stay off the interstates and we wanted to eat as much barbecue as we could!
Armed with GPS, cell phones, map, printouts from the
computer, books on CD, a cooler, snacks, and tourist book from Alabama we
headed north to Valdosta and then west on Hwy 84. One of our rules is to avoid all interstate
highways as much as possible. Our aim is to see what is unique about each state, to soak in the countryside and small
towns, and to sample some of the good food that comes from local restaurants.
We have enjoyed the gulf shores of Alabama on other trips and we have
seen most of the sights in Birmingham, so these were not at the top of our list.
We labeled our first day:
Peanuts and Boll Weevils. We
crossed the Chattahoochee River, reset our watches to central time and headed toward
Dothan, our first stop, through flat farmland and little settlements along the way. In Dothan we saw the restored
historical section with brick walkways, colorful murals, and bright summer flowers. After despairing with the directions on the
GPS, we employed google to find the visitor’s center and our first “peanut”
which happened to be Peanut Elvis. After
leaving Dothan which is blessed with urban sprawl and chains galore, we
traveled through Daleville, a nice little town, and arrived in Enterprise where
we headed to the center of the town for the Boll Weevil Statue.
Now the statue is in a busy intersection. There really isn’t an easy way to appreciate
its beauty other than driving by it from four different directions. The statue actually honors the insect which
basically destroyed the cotton industry in the south in the early twentieth
century, forcing the farmers to diversify their crops. Of course the farmers went through some tough
economic times while they were doing this.
Today with modern insecticides cotton farming still exists but it is not
as large as it was before the Boll Weevil’s infestation.
Our next destination was Big Daddy’s Barbecue, but, wouldn’t
you know, it was closed on Monday. We
discovered the old depot by the train tracks and saw more murals on buildings
and a lot of old attractive places. We located Larry’s Real Pit Barbecue out by
the highway circling Enterprise.
Since
it was midafternoon, we did not have any trouble getting a table.
I had ribs; Klep had a pulled pork
sandwiches.
The barbecue was good and so
were the sides.
We left happy, joined
the rush hour traffic (we were near a military base) and called it a day,
stopping in at a Publix for some more snacks before heading to our motel.
Day 2 was Small Towns, Hank Williams, and Famous
Authors. Light comes early in eastern
Alabama this time of the year. We were
on our way under a clear blue sky in time to make it to the Hank Williams
Boyhood Home Museum by opening time. On
the way we spent some time in Elba seeing the old Coffee County Jail and
They would
sit under the house by the chimney during the winters and play the guitar.
The house is full of memorabilia from his
years of performing as well as some of the dishes he and first wife Aubrey used during
their marriage.
After we drove around
the town to see the old buildings, we headed up to Kendall’s Barbecue for
lunch.
Their sign above their place
advertises “Howling Good Taste”
and they lived up to their motto.
It is a little building with a takeout window
with no indoor seating, but the barbecue (I had a rib sandwich) was fall off
the bone good.
The coleslaw was good
too.
One of the fun things about this
stop was the conversations with others who had driven up to get their
food.
One man had been a long haul trucker who has now retired who planned his stops to hit this place.
When we were through eating at the picnic
table, we discovered that the troopers whose car was parked in front had taken
their food next door to eat in the convenience store which had tables indoors
in air conditioning.
Next time we will know!
After lunch we checked our map and plotted a route to Monroeville,
heading west and then south, driving through beautiful hilly wooded areas on
curvy little roads passing farms and churches, passing over creeks, and just
soaking up the lushness of it all.
Monroeville is the birthplace and home of Harper Lee (known as Nell) to
the locals and was a place where Truman Capote spent much of his childhood
living with maiden cousins.
The
courthouse was used as a model for the courthouse which featured heavily in the
book and Oscar winning movie, To Kill A Mockingbird.
The courthouse has been beautifully restored
and turned into a museum which features exhibits for both Lee and Capote.
The courtroom upstairs is just like the one
in the movie.
The set designer came to
Monroeville as well as the actors before the film was made, but the movie was
shot in Hollywood.
Our guide, a retired
copyreader, is a distant relative of Truman Capote and had many good stories to
about him and Miss Lee.
We hope someday
to return when the play is being acted in the amphitheater outside the
museum.
The old Lee home was sold in the
early fifties and torn down, but we saw many other stately old homes which were
of the same period.
At the site of the
old Lee house, we enjoyed afternoon treats at Mel’s Dairy Dream which was
recommended by the museum workers.
We took Hwy 84 to Grove Hill where we saw another historic
courthouse and beautiful old town and then got on Hwy 43 north to Demopolis, paralleling
the Mississippi line about twenty miles west of our route. We found our motel on Hwy 80 and called it a
day.
Day 3: The Bridge,
Hank Williams, American Village, and Cousins.
We headed east under a pale blue sky with banks of clouds before us. We passed a junk store loaded with old metal
bedsteads outdoors, corn fields, fat cattle, old block silos, new shiny silos
flat land, little old churches, old
deserted buildings, an Alabama Catfish feed mill, Harvest Select catfish farms,
and arrived at Selma where we crossed the river on the famous
Edmond Pettus
Bridge from the Civil Rights Marches in the sixties.
We stopped for gas at the Purple Cow outside
of Selma and I was sorely tempted by the egg rolls, but I resisted.
We wound through the outskirts of Montgomery
and then found the Hank Williams Museum where we could not take photos, but
where we enjoyed seeing his blue Cadillac convertible, a lot of his clothing and memorabilia, and I
enjoyed sitting and watching clips of his television performances.
After we finished there, we had planned to
stop at the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum, but it was not open on
Wednesday, so we set our sights on barbecue and headed north to find it.
We traveled through beautiful countryside, rolling hills,
forests, small towns and followed a line of power trucks to the parking lot of
a long low building to the left of the road.
Seeing workers heading in and getting in line was a good sign that we had
found good food. We ordered and sat down
to wait for our food. Klep got pulled
pork and I ordered the chicken which was supposed to be one of their top
draws. The room was full with many of
the workers and others acquainted with each other. I listened to the talk and heard one man talk
about the peaches that were the best ever.
He said his mother had her stand open.
That was good to hear. After we
enjoyed lunch we started toward Birmingham again and passed one stand next to a
peach orchard. We kept a watch out for
another and pulled in. The fruit was
large and beautiful and the trees it had come to was right around the stand a
young man was working the front with an older lady in the back putting peaches
in the baskets. I told them that I had
heard that the peaches were good from men at the barbecue place. The woman asked if they were power workers
and said it must have been her son! Later,
we shared one of the large peaches and they were delicious.
We passed through Montevallo which was a beautiful town and
a few miles out of town we pulled into American Village which is a collection of
buildings similar to the colonial era.
The site has reenactments and educational programs and currently has
their Red, White, and Blue programs going.
Since it was midafternoon by this time, we walked through the veteran’s
area and the chapel and enjoyed a reenactment of a sergeant in General
Washington’s army loading and firing a musket. After this, we headed toward the more densely
populated area of Helena for our overnight with cousins.
Thursday morning, we headed out to Vulcan which is located
close to Homewood. Molly and Coke took
us to an Alabama fast food favorite of theirs, Jacks where we enjoyed a
breakfast of biscuits and gravy with eggs.
Unfortunately the only reasonable way to get to the Vulcan Park was by
using the interstate.
Vulcan is a fifty
ton statue to the glory days of Birmingham’s steel industry which towers over
Birmingham in a beautifully landscaped park on Red Mountain overlooking the
city. The views from the park of the
city ware spectacular as was the derriere of Vulcan which could be enjoyed from
much of Homewood and from the parking lot.
After Coke safely returned us to our car in Helena, we said
our goodbyes and headed east on county roads and state roads gradually working
our way to the area around Guntersville where we started enjoying the lake
views. The whole drive was scenic
including a lovely heard of charlis cattle,
old houses, mountains behind sweeping valleys, and then the lakes.
We arrived at our motel for the evening by late
afternoon. A cousin on the Klepper side
picked us up, gave us a little tour, and we joined his wife for a supper at
Fifty Taters where we enjoyed stuffed potatoes that included barbecue. As usual, we spent a long time at our meals
catching up, telling tales, and laughing a lot.
The next morning, we followed Mel to our next tourist destination, the
Unclaimed Baggage Store. We split up to
do our shopping.
I got a map from one of
the helpful young women at the front of the massive store. The help was extremely friendly and
helpful. It was amazing the variety of
items for sale. I concentrated on the
ladies clothes and the costume jewelry.
I had already decided I would spend no more than thirty dollars. I stayed within my budget, ended up with four
necklaces, a dress, and a pair of denim capris which still had the store label
in them. I spent the rest of my time
talking to people at the chairs near the snack bar. Klep and Mel occasionally checked in as they
continued their exploration in the electronics and the men’s sections.
Before noon we headed west on Alternate Hwy 72. A few miles out of Scottsboro, we pulled over
to check our notes and find our next barbecue restaurant. As we looked at the map, I heard a tap on my
window and looked up to see a red headed, bearded UPS driver standing
there. He was concerned that we were
either lost or were having car trouble.
We explained what we were doing and he got all excited and told us about
the time his daddy took him to Tuscaloosa for a Bama game and they ate at the
original Dreamland Barbecue. We talked
barbecue for a while and he recommended the original Big Bob Gibson Barbecue in
Decatur which was once ranked as having one of the top four barbecue dishes in
the entire country. It was on our
list. He gave us directions and we were
on our way.
When we pulled into the packed parking lot, we saw the first
sign that this was a good place with the stacks of wood and the smoke coming
out of the cooker. When we got inside,
the dining room was huge and within minutes we were at our table. The place was known for its white sauce and
for the chicken, so that is what I ordered.
Klep got another stuffed potato and he got the chicken too. The food
lived up to its hype. The sides were
good and you could tell that the mac and cheese was baked by the crust on the
top.
Full and happy, we returned to our car and headed west on 72
as the land flattened out and we returned to an area that was at one time
plantation territory. We found the sign
for the General Joe Wheeler house and pulled in for a visit. After
the Civil War, General Wheeler who was still a young man, returned to Pond
Spring, courted, and married a widow.
He
built the home and this is where their family was raised. One of their daughters was a nurse during the
Spanish American War and served with her father. Later she was also a nurse in World War I and
served in France. We continued our drive
through small towns, enjoying the old courthouse and historic churches and cemeteries. We hit Hwy 43 south of Muscle Shoals and
headed north toward Florence which would be our home base for the next two
nights.
After checking in, we broke our no franchise rule by running
over to the DQ which was next to the motel and getting blizzards for supper. Afterwards, we plotted out Saturday’s
itinerary and called it a night.
Saturday dawned bright and blue. We started by driving across the Wilson Dam,
the first dam on the Tennessee River to come under the authority of the TVA. It was built in 1924 and became a historical
landmark in 1966. It was impressive to
drive over the actual dam and see the massive lake it created. This is one of nine dams on the Tennessee
River.
We enjoyed spending some time in the park on the southern
side of the lake and then drove on into Muscle Shoals for our visit to Muscle
Shoals. Our destination was the FAME
Studios where the renown Muscle Shoals sound made its way into the music world
back in the sixties. To quote from the
FAME website:
" FAME Recording Studios’ lush acoustics and unique musical legacy
have made it one of the most sought after recording studios in the world. It’s
the room where Aretha Franklin found her sound. It’s the room where Wilson
Pickett whaled on “Mustang Sally”. It’s where Clarence Carter has recorded for
five decades. It’s the room that continually produces chart-topping,
generation-defining music year after year after year, including the 2019 #1
Americana album Muscle Shoals – Small
Town Big Sound which included #1
Americana single, Grace Potter’s “I’d Rather Go Blind”
After the
studio, we drove down to Tuscumbia to see a manmade waterfall at a little
lake. It was lovely, but the leavings of
dog walkers around the lake made walking a bit troublesome.
Our next
stop was the birthplace and childhood home of Helen Keller. The house was built in 1820 by Helen’s
grandparents and is described as being a “Virginia Cottage” type structure with
four rooms downstairs divided by a hall and three rooms upstairs with a hall. The kitchen was in a building outback. The house was originally located on 640 acres.
Helen was born on a cottage close to the house where her parents lived when
they were first married. This is where
Annie taught Helen the concept of language and the pump where the breakthrough
took place is located between the main house and the cottage.
The
house is furnished with original furniture, the grounds are lovely, and there
is a steady stream of visitors from all over.
In the evening, the play, The Miracle Worker, is put on next door in an
amphitheater on Friday and Saturday nights this time of the year.
Lunch was
next on the itinerary and it was to be Brooks Barbecue back in Muscle
Shoals. We finally found a parking space
and discovered that there was no indoor service and no drive through window. We went to plan B and put the address for the
Rattlesnake Saloon in the GPS and headed toward the hills. We continued our journey for miles before
pulling into a large parking lot full of cars and motorcycles and a very, very
long line of people snaking around the lot from a stand with a sign for the
shuttle to the saloon-in a cave up the ridge. I looked at Klep,
he looked at me, and we decided no food was worth standing in that line in July
heat. I scrounged around in the car and
found a box with two apple fritters we had gotten at Publix the first day of
the trip and we headed off to find the Coon dog Cemetery.
When we hit
Highway 72 again, we knew something was wrong.
Our written down directions said the cemetery was 1.2 miles from 72, but
we had found no road. Later that
evening, we discovered that it should have been 12 miles and that my google directions
had been right. Ah, well, these things
happen. I went to the GPS, looked up
barbecue, and we decided on Bishop Hog House Barbecue because we liked the
sound of the name. The address was a Cherokee address.
He gave us some of his 3 N 1 barbecue sauce and told us to follow him
back to the barbecue house where he showed us the two massive smokers where they
could cook 1300 lbs on each cooker. They
use hickory wood. Mr. Bishop sent Klep
back to our car to get our ice chest and filled it up, gave us barbecue frozen,
cole slaw in container, plates, forks, and a ziplock bag to keep the leftovers
in. He told me to stop at the store and
get some buns. After showing us some of
his Alabama memorabilia, he gave us easy directions to the Natchez Trace, told
us some history to be aware of, and bid us goodbye. What had been a frustration turned into an
absolute charming encounter.
We made our
way to the Trace, turned onto it, and headed back toward Florence enjoying the
serenity of the surroundings and imagining it when it was the trail travelers
took it from Tennessee to the Mississippi River.
We got off at county road 8 to find the Wichahpi Commemorative Stone
Wall.
The wall contains 8.5 million pounds of stone with no fill and no
mortar. It is the largest memorial built in honor of a woman. Tom Hendrix spent more than 33 years building the wall
to honor his grandmother who went to Oklahoma on the “Trail of Tears” and
returned to her singing river walking alone as a teenager. It is a peaceful, simple and impressive
creation. We were the only ones there
and we stood under the massive trees in the cool of the late afternoon ad
relished the beauty of it all and the spirit of the woman.
Later that evening, we
enjoyed our late, late lunch and agreed with Mr. L.O. that he made some fine
barbecue.
We could have spent another week
in the Florence area, but Elsa was still threatening to come up through our
area and we had to keep to our schedule.
We headed east Sunday morning to see Rogersville, Alabama,
then to visit
some of the little towns where our friend Judy spent some of her childhood
years as a Baptist preacher’s daughter.
We passed through Town Creek and much later in the day Hanceville. We drove over Wheeler Dam, built 1933-36, the
second built on the Tennessee River. We
next wound south to Natural Bridge Park where we walked from the visitor’s
center to the longest natural bridge, 148 feet long made of sandstone, east of
the Rockies. It was wonderfully cool the
deep shade of the forest.
We left the park and headed
east to Cullman where we had planned to eat at Johnny’s Barbecue, in business
since 1956 and highly recommended.
Unfortunately, they were not open on Sundays. In fact, we never found one open on Sunday
which was also the fourth of July. We
went to our next tourist stop, the Ava Maria Grotto which contains 125 small stone and cement structures and was built by a monk . It is a winding
path through miniature villages and shrines which is fascinating. I was especially intrigued by the Italian
area and the old Jerusalem buildings.
Afterwards, we picked up some shortbread cookies and raisin bread baked
by the monks and hit the road looking for an orchard that was supposed to be open
and was supposed to have peaches. It
wasn’t but we had a scenic tour through some more of Alabama’s lovely
countryside before we drove over the Easley covered bridge which has been in
use since 1927.
We headed south toward Talladega
and called it a day.
Klep found another farm that
was supposed to have peaches near Ulaldo.
They did have some peaches.
Another item was checked off our list.
We also procured some fried fruit pies for emergencies. Our last major tourist stop was to be the
tree that owns itself in Eufaula. Klep
did not want to go through Auburn, so I plotted us a circuitous and interesting
rural route south through more little towns and farmlands until we arrived in
Eufaula and discovered that our barbecue restaurant for the day was closed on
Monday. By this time, it was raining and
the traffic was heavy. We were getting
close to the infamous tree, but not getting our turn that we needed. We were also getting hungry, so we went out to
the fast food strip on the east of town and pulled into Jack’s for a burger. Klep was not leaving
Eufaula without seeing
the tree. We inched back through pouring
rain and he made the turn, jumped out of the car, got the photo, and we headed
toward home.
The navigator was instructed
to get us back to Hwy 84 without backtracking through Dothan. With only one little mistake in our
navigation, we did just that, entering Georgia at Fort Gaines. We pulled into home having logged 1796
miles. It was a good trip. We said hello to the cats, started the
laundry and checked the progress of Elsa.
