Sweet Home Alabama

A couple of weekends ago, Brad and I had the opportunity to travel down to Opelika, Alabama to visit Corey and Jenny. We had an incredible time visiting with our old college friends, as well as visiting Auburn University, which is right around the corner.

Late Saturday morning, after an appropriate sleep-in, we crashed the Golden Corral buffet. We timed our brunch just perfectly so that we were able to enjoy the breakfast buffet, but also overlapped the switch to the lunch menu. So, once we were done with our breakfast plates of pancakes, biscuits and gravy, etc., we were able to make a second trip up to the buffet to grab mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, and southern vegetables. That Corral never knew what hit 'em!

Once we were sufficiently filled, we went to the Auburn vs. Vanderbilt basketball game. Even though our Nashville roots begged us to root for Vandy, we simply could not resist the call of the War Eagle. Brad and I both decked ourselves out in Auburn attire and waved the orange and blue shakers. It was a close game, but Vandy pulled ahead in the end. And despite our hoops and hollers for the Tigers, we were secretely a little pleased to see Nashville grab another win.

A few things became apparent during this game: First of all, Brad has decided that it is his goal to buy a t-shirt from every college in America. Auburn, check. Secondly, our lack of a college sports team affiliation was glaring. We've decided to put a few college teams in a hat and draw one out. The winner will be Our Team, and we'll be crazy for them and even bring our kids up to love them, as well. I believe we've narrowed the applicants down to four: Vanderbilt, Auburn, Alabama and Ole Miss. We'll see who will earn our dedication.

After the game, we walked down to Toomers Corner and enjoyed some signature, hand squeezed lemonade at Toomers Drugstore. I loved this little place. It felt very old school with the diner and drugstore feel. I must not have been the only person that loved it, because the place sure was packed!

Toomers Drugstore is located on the Auburn square, and this corner ("Toomers Corner," named for the drugstore, of course) if known for its toilet paper. Yep, it's toilet paper. Apparently, a long time ago, before everybody had TV's and access to the latest sports news, Toomers would listen to the Auburn away games in their drugstore. If the college won, they would notify the town by "decorating" the corner with TP. Now it's just tradition to roll the corner after every win. The police not only overlook the misdemeanor, they facilitate it by blocking off traffic after particularly important games! Even though Auburn lost to Vandy that day, there were still remnants from the previous weekend's win for us to witness.


What's a great trip with old friends without a few prime photo ops? We stopped by The Auburn Sign and snapped a few perfect pictures. We also got a great one of the boys in the Library, which has basically become Corey's second home throughout his grad school adventure.

To follow with our tradition, we ate at the Brick Oven Pizza place that evening, just like we had during our previous vist to AL. After devouring their incredible bruschetta, each couple split a perfectly baked calzone. Yum! After dinner, we went back to their place to veg out and spend time with our pups. Chester and Jackson were very pleased to have some unsupervised time to visit with each other again, but they managed to clean up the mess from the doggy party and put the Wii away before we got back home. The rest of the night was spent listening to various Christian artists on their laptop. Believe me, Corey and Jenny have quite an extensive musical library. Brad and I came home with two new burned CD's.

We had such a great time visiting with old friends. We can't let it go this long again before our next reunion!

Complete Alabama Trip Album