Traveling through Alabama, Missisippi and Louisiana - January 2010

Finally - we've had a fun couple of days doing what we have so needed in our lives. A break doing something fun and life fullfilling.  Yesterday we started our day at the great mecca of all things weird and wonderful.  The Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Panama City Beach, Florda.  WOW!  This is the fourth time I've visited one of these museums.  It was expensive ($35) but so worth it. We took 3 hours reading every single thing we could

This is what the Panama City Beach looks like before Spring Break.  It's beautiful!  We ate in a diner in Panama City Beach and enjoyed dipping our toes in the sand and ocean.

We woke in Alabama today.  In my last post I wrote I could get from Florida to Louisiana but Alabama and Mississippi were in the way.  We jumped on Route 10 because of the fog and just boogied through those states.  A few interesting things we noticed was seeing a dead armidillo and then a bit later seeing a live armidillo - that was fun!  Probably like seeing a Moose in New Hampshire.

We did see 4 dead dogs in a just span - maybe 5 miles or less.

Another thing we saw was one of those giant, giant flags you can see for miles but it was a Rebel flag.  We noticed the bill-boards have taken over the South.  We did see some great red-neck humor written on the back window of a car, in white shoe polish.  It said "Baby on Board - Stay off my Ass!"

We liked the spin put on the general area by the State of Louisiana = "American's Wetlands".  No Kidding!  Another thing we noticed were several of the billboards referred to insisting on local shrimp vs. imported shrimp.  Wasn't a problem I had ever thought about but must be an issue here.

We had hoped to see far more road-side flea markets but I haven't had too much finding any.  We did stop at one today where I bought a pair of sunglasses.  This was the first day I even realized I had forgotten mine in NH.  The weather has been rotten.

Our first official folk art stop of the day was at the UCM Museum.  (Say it quick - U-see-em)  It was inspirational.  This guy was definately obsessed.  More tomorrow.

We were searching for Dr. Charles Smith of Abita Springs, Florida.  I had heard about this attraction on the http://www.narrowlarry.com/ website.  Anyways, we feed the address to our Droid which we've now named Agnus.  We landed in Abita Springs which was a sweet little village.  We stopped to ask if anyone knew this fellow and couldn't find anyone who had even heard of him.  This town had a wonderful brew pub with a quirky, friendly waitress, a well maintained museum in the RR depot, a bandstand with a striking bronze statue of an Indian and a nice large park with all sorts of families hanging around. 

Noone knew this fellow tho so I dragged out the laptop and did my research finding my target - Dr. Charles Smith's house on East Louisiana Road.  We found him!  Here he is.