Despite my thermal bottoms and socks I was woefully under dressed for the night and woke up at 5am absolutely freezing, well almost, the thermometer said 0 degrees. I had to get up and start the heater and since I was up I made a cup of tea and thought I may as well get an early start. If I hadn’t taken a shower Im sure I would have gotten away with the heinous crime of leaving the park without paying but the guy got me while I was having a much needed wash and left a note on my windscreen saying I should pay at 8am when the office opened. It was 6.45am and there was no way I was waiting around for over an hour. They have slots at the entrance where you can pay but the ranger saw me in the car park while I was taking dawn photos and took my $11 there and then.

I checked the map and in the next big town, Meridian, there seemed to be something slightly interesting, an Art Musuem but the map wasn’t very specific and after 20 minutes of driving around looking for it (or wifi) I gave up and kept going. I had a chance to get over to my second Columbus for around lunch time and then on to Birmingham Alabama. I was planning on emailing the guys in Birmingham UK and see if they wanted to go for a drink since I was in Birmingham too. I had to get there first and I was now thinking that I had maybe chosen a route that was a bit too long. I would have to see if I could trim a few miles off if possible. My searching for something to do paid off just outside Birmingham and I saw a sign for the Alabama Mining Museum. I turned off the main road and went through the suburbs for the 2 miles to get there. I knew as soon as I saw a piece of paper on the door that I had wasted my time and I was right. Probably the one time a year a foreign tourist turns up and the place is closed for the afternoon. I grabbed some interesting photos though and got myself entrenched in the gridlock of Birmingham.

So much traffic! I wasn’t used to it but the roads were jammed. I was going to see their statue of liberty but then I thought I would rather get away from the huge amount of cars I was sharing the road with. I found a Panera bread place to send my pointless email to my ex-work colleagues and then tried to get out of the city as soon as I could. I soon realized I was leaving at the worst time possible, evening rush hour so when I saw a billboard for Ezells catfish place I could do lot worse than get off the road for some proper food. It wasn’t bad actually and I was pleased to see they didn’t throw a huge portion at me. It was just enough food for my $12 and although I paid a premium to have it grilled instead of fried I still took a high in cholesterol by ordering deep fried okra. Delicious!



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