Welcome to Alabama

We left Barre Saturday, Feb. 25, arriving in Wilkes-Barre, PA, at around 3 pm.  The last 20 minutes of the drive were simply awful - thunder, lightning, heavy rain, and - worst of all - hail.  I had to pull off the highway twice, something I've never done before.  There was a lot of truck traffic, and even the truckers stopped.  There were emergency vehicles standing by, which was reassuring.

Sunday morning, we headed south amid much quieter conditions, stopping in Camp Hill to visit my college friend Madelyn and her husband, Jim.  After all these years in the north (45?), Jim still has a heavy Georgia accent.  I was happy to see Madelyn doing so well as she has stage 4 cancer and was using a walker most of the time the last time we saw her.  She was walking well and looking forward to hearing details of her latest MRI.  I'll call to get the scoop after we get home in a few weeks. 

After brunch, we heading on south, stopping overnight in Harrisonburg, VA, and near Chattanooga.  We made it to the Alabama line Tuesday morning and were greeted by this camellia bush at the Welcome Center.

From the Virginia line on down, we saw increasing signs of spring - daffodils, forsythia and cherries in bloom, buds forming on trees.  It seems to be an early spring for some, but in Alabama the daffodils have already gone by.  Jim wasn't going to be home until about 4:30, so we headed over to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts to see a special exhibit of Alabama quilts.  They had paired antiques with more modern quilts, many from the 1980's and 1990's.  I thought the contemporary ones were really uninteresting, but the antiques were beautiful.  Here's a sweet baby quilt which had some amazing quilting.

The sashing was a print that was fussy cut, and each block was about 4".  This is a very nice museum in a lovely park setting, complete with walking trails, picnic areas, a Shakespeare theater, and an Elizabethan garden which was planted with lots of herbs and pansies.  Azaleas are also blooming throughout Alabama.  Quite a sight for these northern eyes.

After a cozy evening with Jim, which included dinner at a Greek restaurant, we headed on our last leg of the trip, down to Fairhope by Mobile Bay.  It was muggy and cloudy, so I didn't take any pictures, but it sure was nice on the pier.  We had lunch there - gumbo for Paul and fried green tomatoes with shrimp for me.  Now for a few weeks of doing next to nothing - aaahhh!