Family, Friends, Football, & Fun!

My grandmother that I wrote about in a previous blog, "Miss Lorene," notified my family that she was selling the house, moving to Tupelo, and putting herself in a retirement community. All within the next month. I quickly corralled the family, and we headed to Mississippi to visit her one last time at the house I grew up going to.

Mom, dad, and I left on Thursday. My brother and his fiancee were to leave after work that day. We were headed to Birmingham to stay with my cousins. On the way down there, my father was craving a milkshake. He really wanted to go to the golden arches, but we couldn't find one, go figure. So we stopped at an exit to get gas. My mom noticed a place called "Pop's Chargrille" next door. She proclaimed, "they have the best milkshakes in the world according to Southern Living! You should get one there." So we drove over there. As we pulled up, the place didn't exactly look like a milkshake joint. We drove around the building looking for the drive-thru. Couldn't find it, but saw things in the window of the building such as fireworks and diapers. You would have thought we would have kept driving. My dad parked the car, and with much skepticism from my parents, I convinced them to just go inside and check it out. My mom opened my door on the way in and asked, "do you want chocolate or vanilla?" I waved her on and told her to get whatever. I knew at this point it wasn't what we thought it was. Once they walked in, they quickly turned around and headed back to the car laughing the entire way!

We arrived in Birmingham, met my cousins for dinner, and went to this hole-in-the wall bar my cousin had found. It was called "The Hangar" but I saw no signs...

We left the next morning and headed to Starkville. We had a good time visiting with my grandmother. We gave my brother's fiancee the grand tour of the house. It was nice to see all of the "junk" my grandfather collected over the years gone! We checked out the "bomb shelter" one last time. My grandfather wanted one in his house in case there ever was a nuclear war or something like that. We ate at our favorite restaurants; Oby's and Little Duey's. I ate a 3 pound bucket of crawfish that everyone complained about until they ate some! Crawfish reminds me of the Florabama, Spring Break. But more about that in another post...

Miss Lorene always checks all of the family's blood pressure, pulse, and blood sugar. It's kind of tradition. Everybody was on track. We got up the next morning to head to Tuscaloosa but not before we took some pics...

We pulled into town and headed straight to "The Houndstooth." It's our favorite sports bar that we always go to when we are in town. I pretty much lived there for several years in college. The tooth used to be a shit hole bar, but a year ago they tore it down and made it super nice. I will write about that place in another post also! I met up with several friends there and had lots of fun!

This is one of my good friends, Mary Ruth. It was a nice unexpected visit with her! We went to the game where of course Alabama won! It was rumored that 84,000 people showed up. Crazy. We drove to Birmingham after the game and took it easy.

On the way back today, I realized how hard it is to eat healthy while on the road. There are not a lot of wholesome places to eat advertised on the side of the road. I encouraged my family to eat sandwiches with me at lunch, except the restaurant only offered us "big gulp" cups to drink out of. I thought that was very unhealthy to encourage people to drink a huge cup of sugary soda! Oh well.

It was a nice trip overall. I give it an 8 out of 10. I will miss that my grandmother is no longer in Starkville though. I know she will enjoy her new place.