After finishing our quick visit to Huntsville, I had hoped to visit a couple more barbecue places in northeast Alabama, and so I used Google Maps to chart our way home. Then, unlike our “whatever happens” drive to Nashville the previous afternoon, I looked around Urbanspoon and hammered down two more places to try. This served as a “postscript,” if you like, for my “circumnavigation” of that state two weeks prior, hitting a few more places that I couldn’t have found at that time. Continue reading “Circumnavigating Alabama – Postscript”
Tag: barbecue
The Barbecue Dynasty of Huntsville AL
Ever since we started this blog, I have wanted to go back to the great city of Huntsville and pay a visit. I had only been here once before – like millions of kids around the southeast, I took an overnight middle school field trip to the Space and Rocket Center – and did not really remember anything about the city. What we found was a very charming and busy region, with a run of sprawl south of the downtown area along US-231 that’s pretty ugly but also decently managed, with a limited access highway running in tandem with the light-controlled avenues beneath it. We visited on a day with gorgeous blue skies contrasting the ring of the southern Appalachians that border the urban area, and it just felt peaceful and relaxed and, honestly, didn’t show us a bad side. Huntsville is the home of a couple of minor, minor league sports teams and a hospital with a monorail, and it’s where some of Big Bob Gibson’s kinfolk have carried on his tradition with some interesting barbecue joints. Continue reading “The Barbecue Dynasty of Huntsville AL”
CBQ, Smyrna TN
Our trip to Nashville did not go as planned.
Returning to US-41 in the town of Jasper, my idea was to drive at a leisurely pace and stop wherever the roadside lured us. In one instance, this worked out splendidly. We found the gorgeous Foster Falls near the town of Sequatchie, and a better distraction from a drive I can’t describe. We really enjoyed stretching our legs and spending a few minutes walking around there. Continue reading “CBQ, Smyrna TN”
Circumnavigating Alabama – Part 7
At last, my trip had brought me to Montgomery, and it was time to start heading home. I had decided to go north via US-231, which connects Alabama’s capital with the towns of Oxford and Anniston at I-20, and from there it would be just an hour and a bit home. Now, it’s with this last leg that I really do feel the need to kick myself. Back in part four of this story, I explained that it simply did not occur to me that the sun was going to go down and I would be driving part of this journey at night. Somewhere in Anniston, I am aware that there’s a barbecue joint called Goal Post that has one of the most amazing neon signs of them all. It’s a wonderful, animated thing that has a “football” travel along wires from the roadside sign to the restaurant. (There’s a pretty lousy twelve-second clip of it on YouTube. Hey, look at that. It’s next door to a Jack’s! I told you those things are all over northern Alabama.) I have said that I want to see that darn sign at night, and it just flat out did not occur to me to get directions and go see it as the last stop of the tour. I really am a numbskull. Continue reading “Circumnavigating Alabama – Part 7”
Circumnavigating Alabama – Part 5
When I woke on Saturday, I surprised myself by being a little hungry. After all that I ate on Friday, I didn’t expect that, but I also knew that I’d be eating a little less on this day, and light salads for a couple of days after. I also surprised myself by sleeping as late as six, which is seven on my Eastern Standard Time clock and a couple of hours later than I normally rise. Still, I had about an hour to drive before lunch and five hours to kill, so I puttered around and played online and took a very leisurely morning. Eventually, I pulled on one of my Georgia Bulldogs T-shirts, checked out, went back to Jackson’s main street to photograph the restaurant where I was unable to eat the night previously, and wound my way down the road toward Mobile. Continue reading “Circumnavigating Alabama – Part 5”
Circumnavigating Alabama – Part 4
So, the situation as I was leaving Tuscaloosa was this: the sun had gone down, I was completely full, albeit well under budget, I’d met some great people and enjoyed some terrific scenery, but I was on a time crunch, with another 130-plus miles to go before my destination motel, and three more restaurants to visit. I was also pretty sure that I’d be getting sleepy pretty soon, before I had planned to. I had to press on through the darkness of US-43, which runs parallel to the combined routes of I-20 and I-59 in a southwest direction until reaching the town of Eutaw, at which point it drops away straight south. Eutaw is one of those towns where travelers have to pay close attention to the signs, because the road makes some surprising and abrupt left turns. It makes a long and gentle westerly curve into the downtown area and then drops south after that. I’m a pretty seasoned road tripper and it surprised and confused me more than these things usually do, anyway. Continue reading “Circumnavigating Alabama – Part 4”
Circumnavigating Alabama – Part 3
I’d only been to Tuscaloosa once before, in June of last year, when we went through on our way to Starkville, stopping for a couple of meals on our way back. I’d like to linger a little longer sometime, and actually visit the University of Alabama campus and see its legendary Strip, maybe getting a meal at the renowned Rama Jama’s. This visit didn’t leave me time. Continue reading “Circumnavigating Alabama – Part 3”
Marie, Let's Eat! 