Travel Tuesday

Well, it's Travel Tuesday y'all! 

We're at the beach, but took the long way here, stopping first in Atlanta to have a fabulous anniversary dinner at Ray's on the River. Did I mention it's our 52nd? Thanks, Sandy and Greg!!

We took off Saturday morning and made a couple stops along the way. The first was in Columbus, Georgia. I was very excited to see the "Lunch Box Museum." You know how we love "kitschy" stuff! 

This did not disappoint. It was so interesting. There were so many collections here--the lunchboxes were just the tip of the iceberg! Look at all the thermoses lining the ceiling! 

Of course we had to hunt for the girls' lunchboxes. We're pretty sure this was Sandy's. She loved Holly Hobbie--her bedroom was full of all kinds of Holly Hobbie stuff. 

Stephanie was all about Strawberry Shortcake. The one on the bottom is what she carried. I have a vague memory that she still has it. I need to remember to ask her.

For Mindy, it was "My Little Pony!" all the way! I still have her little ponies collection. It's about the only toys we have if any little kids come over--which is very rare. (Although Justin's brother, Corey, and family were just here a few weeks ago. I got the ponies out for Selena to play with).

Sadly, I could not find my one and only lunchbox. It was pink, of course, and Barbie. She was walking a dog, carrying the pink lunchbox of her walking the dog carrying the pink lunchbox of her walking the dog carrying....and so on forever! I loved that! Unusual, you know.

Then this happened. I was talking to the young, twenty or thirty something kid running the museum/store. He was telling me about his grandfather who owned all the stuff. This guy and his cousin ran the show. I asked him if they liked ALL the stuff. He said that they loved it and loved taking care of it for the old man.

As we were exiting, the 89-year-old grandfather showed up. We then had a conversation with him about how we had heard about his museum. It was so much fun--just finding unusual things and talking to interesting people. 

We backtracked to get a picture of the outside. You cannot see how far it goes back. The place was huge and had an entire antique store inside---everything owned by this one man. 

So many firsts in Columbus--like Nehi and RC Cola (more exhibits in the museum above), but more importantly, the home of Coca Cola! We stopped by the grave of John Pemberton--the inventor of Coke in May, of 1886.

It took us awhile to find his grave as we were looking for something a little grander. If it weren't for the Coke bottles, I'm pretty sure we would have missed it! It makes me wonder if he actually made any money on the Coke. It started out as medicine. I don't know how wide-spread it became before his death. At least I don't remember.

From there, we proceeded to Eufaula, Alabama for lunch in this cute little town. We stopped here once before, but the Cajun place was closed--it was a Monday. This time, The Cajun Corner was open. We had delicious seafood gumbo, crawfish ettouffe and shared a crawfish po-boy. It was all delicious, but nothing topped the bread pudding! When the waitress put it down, Butch said, "It looks like all ice cream." I turned up my nose and said, "It looks like they used croutons!" I am a connoisseur of bread pudding--it being my favorite dessert of all time and all! Yeah, there was more ice cream than pudding, for sure, but I was wrong about those croutons. Those crunchy cubes gave the pudding the most delicious topping. I'd go back just for that. Actually, I'd tell them to hold the ice cream and let me have a double dose of the pudding!

It was a delightful start to our trip. And then we got to the beach. OMGosh y'all. Now we know why we don't usually go to the beach during the summer. So. Darn. Hot. Can you spell h-u-m-i-d-i-t-y! Yeah, that!