We slept the night in the Alabama Welcome Centre on US 20, and the weather was miserably cold and wet. We’d always thought of the south of the US to be warm, but when the temperatures are below 5C/40F, it is definitely not warm! We figured we’d cook dinner on the lee side of the building, out of the wind, but unfortunately for us, someone had decided to employ a miserable fat guard on the welcome centre.

He stepped outside for the smallest period of time necessary to tell us “the State would not allow that” and then went back in, out of the rain. After some conversation where I lowered myself to his mental level and explained things v-e-r-y simply, and there was no luck, I asked sarcastically if it was okay for us to cook out on the tables up on top of the hill, in the rain and wind, and he nobly granted permission, so long as we did not make a mess. I chose to restrain myself from choking him, on the grounds that he might wander out later in the middle of the night and make us move on.

The next morning, we’d planned on going down Lookout Mountain Parkway, along the Appalacian mountain chain, but the tourism officer told us he’d come from that way and he was not sure it was passable yet, perhaps the next day. We thought he was a little odd - it was cold, sure, but not that cold. Heading onto Anniston, we found … snow. Yes, snow and ice and all things bloody cold. We were stunned to find that it could be so cold down south, and although the locals assured us it was a little surprise for everyone and it’d be warm in a few days - it was not warm THEN! Trying to find warmth, we headed further north to Guntersville where we heard a horribly familiar sound - the left rear wheel was about to come off again. We stopped in time to prevent it from coming off, and went to call the AAA. At least there was no snow here, but the call to AAA was not much better than the last time in Florida.

It took only 15 minutes to get the call centre operator at AAA to comprehend that we wanted a person to come and help us, that we were in the AMSouth Bank carpark on the corner of highway 431 and Homer Clayton Drive in Guntersville. Quarter of an hour later, a tow truck showed up with the story that there was a grey van broken down in the middle of the intersection, with the wheel off and traffic was stopped in both directions.

He put the van up on the tow truck and took us to a tyre place in town that he recommended, checking that was alright with us. We were fine with it, and I laughed and said it was probably his brother. He smirked a little, but said nothing. We later found out that it was his uncle’s repair centre. Didn’t really matter - we had a good chat with the people there while we were waiting and got a special low rate, with the total bill coming to US$25.00 and at least we knew why it had happened - the last time had worn the wheel nut holes to a larger size and it was only a matter of time before it happened again. They solved the problem though (we hope!) and there’s been no further hassles.

Staying the night in Scotsboro, we cooked dinner out in the cold again and snuggled into bed early, trying to get warm. The next day, we went to the Unclaimed Baggage Centre (www.unclaimedbaggage.com) to see if there was anything worth buying. There was a big thick coat I nearly bought for $15 to keep warm and then decided I just needed to be a bit tougher and save the money, so I put it back on the rack. We ended up only buying a book and an ice-scraper for the windscreen since it was not getting any warmer.

Tried to check our email in Scotsboro, but the public library had a rule stating that you could not access any email such as Hotmail from there. We asked why and it was apparently due to a person sending an email from the Huntsville public library via Hotmail to the President, threatening his life. As a result of that problem, the board of the Scotsboro library felt it was safer to ban everyone from email access. Not the most enlightened thinking we’d seen, and very much like a rule that was made by those that do not understand how the internet and email work. Tried to check it at the only other place in town - a Dairy Queen just out of town, by the side of the highway to Huntsville but the connection was so slow, we gave up after five minutes of looking at the same screen.

Tried to check mail in Huntsville at the library and found that many people working there did not even know about the kerfuffle with the President. One fellow did though, and looked somewhat aghast at the memory of it all. Apparently they had federal agents there asking questions and everything. We were chuckling, thinking that if someone sent a threatening email to the Prime Minister of Australia, the relevant security people would probably just say “yeah, whatever” and pay no more attention to it. Could not check our mail there as it turned out, since Mailcity was blocked. Hotmail and YahooMail both worked though, so it was confusing. Perhaps the threatening letter was sent through Mailcity?

We decided to go eat lunch in the Botanical Gardens and found that there was a fee to get in. They took pity on us though, and let us eat our dinner inside the heated tea room (they were not serving food yet, just about to open it in April). First time we’d sat at a glass-top table, with classical music playing, overlooking beautiful gardens while munching on our sandwiches. Just as we were finishing, a woman working in the centre came in and we got to chatting. Turned out she had lived in Melbourne for a few years when she was a child, was the first white girl to climb Ayer’s Rock (it had just opened the day they were there) and she’d lived in Melbourne and knew where we were from. She gave us a pair of free tickets to tour the gardens, so we explored the whole thing for free as it turned out. I think the time of year was not the best for touring the garden since very few things were in bloom, but it looked like it would be an excellent place to wander in about 4-6 weeks time.

The next day, since we had to delay our arrival at Karen and Doug’s for a day, we headed north to the Jack Daniel’s distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. It is a free tour, which is kind of surprising, since it’s quite interesting, well done and informative. Very slow though, since that is the Jack Daniel’s philosophy, which got a bit wearing since I prefer to walk faster. Kind of strange to see the buildings and surrounds that are in the Jack Daniel’s television commercials, since they film those ads on the premises.

After the distillery, we took a detour through some Tennessee backcountry. Almost every road sign had bullet holes in it, and a high percentage of porches had rocking chairs on them. If there had been a guy playing Duelling Banjos, it would not have been a huge surprise. Why were we doing this? To find the township of Diana, which we did eventually. There were a few houses, a couple of churches and the enigmatically named Diana Singing Shed which we assumed singers gathered in to sing, rather than the shed actually doing the singing.

Today, came in from Athens, through the townships of Coxey, Grassy and Cloverdale. Oh, come on - with names like that, how would we be able to go past them? We arrived in Florence and located Karen and Doug without too much trouble. They were in the middle of installing a mobile home (it’s what they do for a living) so we got to go and see them install the first half of a large home. Very interesting - I guess I’d figured that they just lifted them off with a crane, not used a special truck to move them into position, then removed the trailer from under them.

Went and watched a softball game that one of the kids was playing in. It was very different to what we expected for that age-group, with the teams chanting and singing the whole way through. One woman in the stands about six feet away got smacked in the face with a foul ball and her face swelled up immediately. Gave everyone a surprise, not least the woman who copped the ball in the face. Came home and were in the middle of preparing dinner when it was discovered that the dog Yeager had decided that what he felt like for dinner were our steaks, so Karen had to go buy more meat in a hurry. We eventually ate as well as Yeager.

Heading on to Memphis tomorrow, though we’re not sure if we’ll go to Graceland or not. Seems tacky, which is the sort of thing we’re enjoying, but at the same time, the prices we’ve heard are restrictive. Besides, there’s not much point since it’s not like Elvis is dead - we saw him the other day at Walmart…

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001