rest stop

Yesterday I had to go pick up some medication and deliver it to one of the group homes I supervise.  So my husband decided to come along for the ride.  We rode and we rode and we rode.  If you have never driven the roads in north central Alabama, you need to hear what my Grandma said years ago when she and Grandpa came for a visit:

"Every time you take us to your in-laws, we go a different way!"

It only seemed like that because Grandma and Grandpa lived in Indiana where it was fairly flat, and being farm country, the roads were cut straight so as not to interfere with the fields.  In Alabama, the vegetation is lush, the trees are thick and tall, and the roads are curving up hills and down hollers (hills and hollows for non-rednecks), so it can be quite confusing.

Steve happened to know most of the country we were driving through and made comments on this place and that place:

"We hunt all that area on the right til way down there."
"See that shooting house? I built that and I have one over there and way down over there, but you can't see those."
"This is where we went to get fertilizer."
"There was a store there but it burned down."
"There was another store over there but it burned down."
"A woman lived there but her husband was in prison.  Her RV burned one week, and the next week her house burned."
"So and so's daughter was found murdered and dumped in a well not far from here, they still don't know who did it."

And that is the way the conversation went, we me saying uh huh and nodding from time to time and thinking I wanted to get out of this country where people seemed to die and have their places burned, way too often for my comfort zone.

So we were on our way to the group home, and Steve told me the Townley Rest Stop was just ahead and did I need to stop?  I said I sure did, and this is what he pulled up in front of:

I gave him the evil eye and pulled Big Girl out to snap the shot.  I just love his sense of humor.  

Even after 40 years he can still surprise me.