Day 14

 Day 14-Tuesday, May 4

We headed north today, leaving Wendy, Carl, & Jake behind.  Our first stop was in Panama City for some delicious Krispy Kreme donuts.  They were delicious, 190 calories per donut, just like eating pure sugar!

 

Our next stop was Monroeville, Alabama, the home of Harper Lee, the author of my favorite novel and movie, To Kill a Mockingbird.  Although the movie was not filmed in Monroeville, the courthouse there was replicated on a Hollywood sound studio, so you certainly felt like you were back in 1930, waiting for Atticus Finch to come through the door.  

We have been listening to the audio book of ...Mockingbird, so we were certainly in the mood to take in every detail and word about Harper Lee.  For a couple of former English teachers, visiting the courthouse was a thrill.

 Truman Capote, who was represented by the character Dill in the novel, spent several summers in Monroeville, staying with his aunt who lived next door to Lee’s family.  A separate room in the courthouse was dedicated to Capote who had a sad life, abandoned by both parents very early in his life.

 Leaving the courthouse we walked a few blocks to the Courthouse Café, Joni had a cheeseburger and I had Frito salad.  Both were delicious, but not really photo worthy,   however, the décor in the café was.

 

Leaving the café, we took a short walking tour of Monroeville.  It was 88°F, so our tour was short, but we wanted to see the locations of both Harper Lee’s home and Truman Capote’s.  Neither home is still standing and the charming street described in the novel, is now lined with abandoned gas stations, and other empty storefronts.

 

There are some beautiful homes in Monroeville, however, and we enjoyed an auto tour of those neighborhoods which are certainly well represented in the novel and movie.

 

Leaving Monroeville, our next stop was nearby Camden, where we picked up some fried chicken sandwiches for dinner.  That was the best chicken sandwich I’ve ever had.  The restaurant owner warned us that a tornado watch was about to go in effect in 5 minutes.  That was alarming to say the least, so when we got to the campground, I tried to position our van as far away from any possible falling limbs.  We kept checking the radar on the phones and hoped that as the winds and rain picked up we would be OK.  

In anticipation of the high winds I did not raise the pop top on our van,  so the temp inside the van was as high as 85°F at one point, but the thunderstorms and rain cooled us off,  as did the small fans that we bought two years ago from a Walmart in Beaufort, South Carolina.

 

We fell asleep listening to the rain and the Red Sox, and very fortunately we survived the storm.

Our mileage for today=276