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Every time we tell people we've been to Alabama, people always ask "why on earth did you go to Alabama?" Well, we were visiting our good friends the Granades: Stephen, Misty and new arrival Eli.
Storme using Misty's iMac. Misty is a Mac freak, like all good people. Stephen is not, but I like to think he is a good person too so it is only a matter of time.Okay, you say, that is a cute baby and a really nice-looking house, but what is Alabama actually like?
Well, basically, we did not go out a lot because it is ridiculously hot and humid. Hailing as we do from the harsh lands of the distant north, we were ill-prepared for Alamaba's sultry atmosphere. Luckily, Alabama people seem to feel the same, because they have air-conditioning everywhere. So as long as you stick to buildings and vehicles you're generally okay.The view from a car looks like this.
Indoors, now, there's so much air-conditioning that it can get downright chilly. Sometimes it's necessary to hug an alpaca for warmth.
See?
Stephen and Misty have some comfortable chairs.
Eli drifts off into fuzzy dreams.
Finally, a picture of one of our hosts: the proud father and his TiVo. Oh, and child.
Misty and board-gaming friend.
Misty's display of paper samples.
Misty's artwork. Clearly a Mac user.
Towards the end of our stay, Stephen took us to the Space & Rocket Center. This is a model of a Saturn V rocket, as used in the Apollo missions.
Note tiny people, indicating scale.
This is either an A-12 or an SR-71. Some kind of spy plane, anyway.
Space shuttle!
And that's about it for Alabama. Stephen kindly drove us to Nashville, Tennessee, where we did not do any touristy stuff; that just happened to be where our flight was leaving from.I had selected our hotel in Nashville purely on the basis of a) free breakfast, and b) free shuttle to the airport. Our room turned out to be enormous, despite being surprisingly cheap. Seriously, getting out of bed to make tea (yes, we brought our own) was like a 50 yard walk. There were probably entire rooms in there we didn't even go into. I was so excited at the sheer value this represented that I was determined to sample every single item of food at the breakfast buffet the next morning. This included what appeared to be some kind of cold oatmeal biscuit, and turned out to be a frozen burger. You got to microwave your own burger! It was great.
So, fully refreshed, we got on a plane to Dallas, hung around the airport for a bit, and then flew to... Denver!