homeward bound

i am going to lump the last three days of my trip into one post, since i spent most of them in the car. wednesday i headed east from waco, driving the 10 hours to tuscaloosa. of course, that's just driving hours, and that's without the rain i ran into, surely the same storm that had bothered me in texas. most of this drive was on i-20, taking me into shreveport, la, and the straight across to mississippi, where i stopped for a nap in the 90 degree, 80% humidity weather. needless to say, i didn't nap long. for the record, both the louisiana and mississippi visitor centers i stopped at were as good as the one in new mexico, with a helpful staff and even coffee, which was great. the bridges to the left are the new (left) and old (right) bridges over the mississippi, from the ms side. in case you haven't driven across it, this is a big river--on either side of the river, even, the bridge continues for quite a ways because it's all swampy marshy stuff, prone to flooding. an impressive river, and easy to understand why so many writers have been inspired by it. (see my mississippi post from the early portion of my trip in missouri).
i made it to tuscaloosa, about an hour west of birmingham on i-20, by about 9 at night. i was quite exhausted, and so collapsed into the free bed of a fellow student in the american studies program. the next morning i ran all around town doing errands--buying a mattress, making a payment on an antique desk i bought, getting the key to my apartment. and through all of this, excuse my language, it was humid as hell. i was wet through after about 10 minutes outside. luckily everything went well--that's the denny chimes to the right, the most recognizable thing on campus other than the football stadium. it's a beautiful campus with building in a classic antebellum style, though,, only three building survived the war. it's all (or almost all) brick building with white columns, very southern. the entire town of tuscaloosa bleeds crimson, but it's got a great downtown, newly revitalized, and a fantastic river-front with parks and such. i'm actually living just across the black warrior river near a little town called northport, where i had lunch on thursday at a about 100 year old place called the city cafe. this is one of those old-school places where they make a set list of menu items each day and you pick what you want. this is what my plate looked like, and it was all absolutely delicious, and only about $5. i am really looking forward to getting to know everyone in this area, as long as i can get them to accept me despite my outsider status. i think i will have a lot of fun and learn a lot too while i am here: it really seems to be a great place.

i left tuscaloosa just after lunch, headed toward clemson, sc, where a friend of mine is getting a phd in math (why are all of my friends so smart?). on the way i passed through birmingham, which i am excited to be so close to. i hear that's it's one of these new south cities, kind of like austin, but less hippie and in alabama. and it's also home to a lot of civil rights sites, so the historian in me is happy. that's a picture i stole off the internet of the city below (see, it actually is a city). since i lost an hour--for some reason alabama is on central time--i hit rush hour in atlanta, but i still made it to clemson by dinner time. i had a great time with andy: we had at texas roadhouse for nostalgia's sake, and i left by about noon on friday to drive the last 5 hours back home. i finally arrived back home by about 5--i drove like a speed demon, but there's no avoiding summer traffic to the beach on a friday. it was sooo good to be home, again: to eat real food and sleep in my own bed, to see my family and friends.