Day 5 - Alabama

There are constant surprises on the road.  Finding things, places, people you would never expect.  Last year, we stopped in Cape Girardeau, MO, home of Southeast Missouri University.  Just a small town between St. Louis and Nashville, with a two block downtown.  Here we found a really nice little Italian restaurant/market run by an Italian chef who had married a woman from Cape Girardeau.  (Found this out when I asked him how he had ended up there.)

Last night, in Opelika, AL, another two block historic downtown which included a store called New York Fashions.  It has been there for a while, evidenced by a window display that had probably been unchanged for forty years.  Shoes had soles peeling away from the shoes because the glue had melted, which was a match for the totally faded leather, decorated with cobwebs.  Hard to imagine anyone walking into this store to actually buy something, although I was tempted by the blue paid suit.

But three doors down was Zazu, an upscale, really attractive restaurant with great ambiance and serving fresh local fish, meats, veggies and, of course, hush puppies. Had an awesome meal.  The fact that it was unexpected just made it that much better.

Today's drive was across Alabama to Gulf Shores.  When I was reserving places to stop, I was surprised that the first few in this area were totally booked.  But I found another place and thought nothing of it.  Once we got into town, we stopped at a farmer's market before arriving at the RV park.  While Pascale was in the store, I took Bowie for a quick walk and spoke to a local guy doing some work.  He asked if Bowie was a Vizsla and if I took her hunting.  No and no.  Then he asked if I was here for the Hangout Festival.  When I asked him what that was, he said it was "bands, naked women and drugs."  Starting to like Gulf Shores, I did a quick search and found that the Hangout Fest is 3 days of music on the beach.  Basically the Alabama version of Outside Lands.  Unfortunately too late to change the schedule and actually go as Vampire Weekend, the Lumineers and Hozier are on the schedule.  Too bad.  Would have been some consolation for totally missing the Florence and the Machine tour this summer.  We stop in a bunch of places she's playing, just no way to match the schedule.  Can't believe we were not consulted when her schedule was planned.

On to Louisiana, then Houston, San Antonio and Austin.  Really looking forward to the expansion of Banger's in Austin.  When we were there a year ago, they only had 106 taps of craft beer.  Fortunately, they were expanding and adding another 101 taps.