Goin' south

Day 9 of our road trip found us heading 300 miles straight south. We drove through Kentucky and then Tennessee. Our first stop was at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. It was a beautiful campus set high on a hill overlooking beautiful countryside. This is a view of the main fountain. On the University  marker, Lindy thought this quote was thought-provoking. We continued driving south. Our GPS wanted to take us through Nashville in the worse way but we wanted to take more of a direct route trying to avoid the freeways. As we drove we saw some large farms with beautiful houses and white fences, but we also saw many trailer homes and dilapidated houses. Here, like many places, there is a definite line between the haves and have-nots.

Lindy was hoping to see some horses, but because of the heat, many of them were off in the shade someplace. We came across a small farm with some horses right along the road. I pulled up some grass and coaxed them to come over. Lindy fed the one some grass. As we left, they all stood there staring at us feeling cheated. They were beautiful though.

As we traveled through, we kept seeing Dollar General Markets. We finally stopped at one in Shelbyville, TN. It was the regular Dollar General plus a grocery store. They had very reasonable prices. I wished they had these closer to us as mangoes were 50 cents and avocados were 35.

Continuing on, we made our way to Fayetteville, TN. A sign said to visit the historic downtown so we decided to take a little detour. Going in, there were a number of old mansions with huge magnolia trees around them. In the center of town was the courthouse surrounded by a town square. This is a common layout of many towns. I was first struck by the old movie theatre still showing first-run movies.

We parked and proceeded to walk around the commons area by the courthouse.

There were some beautiful crape myrtle trees. These grow all over the South and come in many colors. It is one of the signs that you have arrived because they are not hardy in the north. 

There was a big memorial to the veterans that had fought in the wars with the POW-MIA flag, the US flag and another flag that wasn't confederate, but I think it was meant to suggest it. In one corner was a statue of a soldier. 

In front were two old cannons.

As we looked closer at the statue, we realized it was honoring something from the past.

This corner of the park was all about the real South.

As we walked around the commons, there was another interesting statue.

Dedicated to:





I guess some feelings never go away.

We were close to our destination of Huntsville, Alabama which is just over the Tennessee border. The US Space and Rocker Center is located here, but we didn't go to it. We could see one of the spaceships from our hotel window, though.

We arrived at the Westin Hotel.

It was very beautiful and was adjacent to an open air shopping mall with many more upscale stores and a number of restaurants. Our room was very nice but to get the view we wanted we had to have separate beds. 

A nice feature of the bathroom was the double-headed shower.

Lindy described it as: "Two heads of pure pleasure, that is, shower heads." She said she was sure Buzz would comment on that one.

We had a great view of the Cypress Alley going to the mall and the lake surrounding it.

There were also paddle boats and gondolas you could ride on. We thought about riding on the gondola, but you had to paddle it yourself, so between the heat and not having a gondolier singing Italian art songs we passed. We ate at P. F. Changs. It was delicious except my Szechuan Beef was spicy so I had sweat coming out of the top of my head. We stopped at the Chocolate Crocodile to get something sweet to have in our room. Lindy had a peanut butter cupcake and I had German chocolate layer cake. We also got a praline just in case we got hungry during the night! Tomorrow we are off across the northern part of Alabama and Mississippi to Tupelo.