Day 5: Birmingham, AL

Sorry for the lack of update last night, as you can see from my text-message-blog the internet was painfully slow at the hotel last night. I also had pretty terrible cell reception throughout Alabama (not to Sprint users, your phone will suck in AL).

So let me think back to yesterday, hmm, what did we do. Well, after waking up in Jackson, MS we drove up the Natchez Trace Parkway for 150 miles. The Natchez Trace Parkway is a beautiful path traced out by buffalo, Native Americans, and earlier traders that leads from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN, it's 444 miles long. On the way, we saw Chickasaw mounds and walked part of the Old Trace before being bitten by some mesquitos.

We took that up to Tupelo, MS--birthplace of Elvis Presley. It was super hot there again, but we had a good time walking around and looking at a time line of his life. While in Tupelo, we stopped for some more BBQ. Leah had pork ribs (different from the beef ribs she had for lunch the day before) and I had a Philly cheese steak and fried green tomatoes.

From there we drove to Oxford, MS to visit Ole Miss and Rowan Oak. Ole Miss was beautiful, but seeing so many brick buildings made me, a California girl, very nervous. With no earthquakes to worry about, pretty much every building is brick! After Ole Miss, we found our way to Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's house. It was pretty hard to find, so if any of you ever try to find it, call ahead and ask for the address of the nearest house. The house was beautiful and the property was very green and oak-y. Inside we got to see Faulkner's house, furniture, manuscripts, type-writer, and alcohols of choice. After that, we walked around the main square in Oxford, got some coffee, then headed back to the road for our drive to Birmingham, AL.

As we got into Birmingham there was a CRAZY lightening storm as the sun set. It was really pretty, and a little scary, but no one seemed phased by it, so we tried to ignore it, but admired it nonetheless. In Birmingham we stopped at a Greek deli where Leah got gyro and I got falafel. We took it back to the hotel and called it a night.

So that was Day 5!

<3 Al