Just my cup of chamomile on a groovy, mellow weekend in the mountains--

 

Just my cup of chamomile.

 The lady serving our breakfast at DeSoto State Park mentioned that she had some Christmas items on consignment at the "trading post" near Mentone, and we decided to check it out. This is what we found--
You need to know that quirky local funk is catnip when I am on a road trip. I could not resist the Moon Lake Trading Company. Okay, I didn't try. I mean, just look at it!

Directions included, "You will see the VW bus out front." Well, yup.

After all, it was Halloween weekend when we visited!

The garden supply area was loaded with personality, too. Rusty bikes for outdoor decor, please.

The business has no website that I can find (I respect that, actually), but here is Moon Lake's FB page

All Hallows' Eve



My loving husband and our Shetland sheepdog Bama. Bob made the Pac Man and ghost costumes. My Ms. Pac Man is still in progress.

Monroeville's People's Choice
decorated hay bale

Halloween is one of the cheesiest of holidays, in my book, and people either love it or hate it. Little middle ground with All Hallows Eve. We have co-opted a truly delicious mixture of religious faith and creepy superstition and thrown in more or less disturbing levels of the macabre. We have taken Celtic folk traditions of carving faces into root vegetables and dressing in costumes to ward off bad spirits and Mexican Dia de los Muertos decorated skeletons that honor deceased ancestors and turned them into trick or treating, jack o’lanterns, and haunted houses. The whole thing is set in the autumn for historical reasons, too.



My contribution to the season's cheesin'
Note the total lack of scariness. So deliberate.

You need to know that frightened is my least-favorite emotion. I don’t do scary movies. I don’t even like to be startled. My husband once bought a fake rubber rat with big teeth and hid it in my house—it WAS NOT FUNNY, as he came to realize. I can only take small doses of suspense. I can take even less graphic violence. Not even for a good reason, like Passion of the Christ. I know the story, don’t need to watch the torture. I think that goes back to some sibling thing from early childhood, and that’s another story.

But I DO like the harvest festival and dress-up portions of the American Halloween scene. The cheesy part. I like the Caspar kind of ghost, the Samantha Stevens kind of witch, the five little pumpkins, Monster Mash kind of sound track. My favorite costumes as a child were a blue bird and a lamb. So, yeah.

This is as frightening as I ever liked to be. Seriously. And it is still the right speed as far as I am concerned.



This was before clowns were scary. The good old days!

So here’s to you, folk tales in disguise. My cheese fix for this week: Ghosts at Rikard’s Mill in near Beatrice, Alabama. Organized by the Monroe County History Museum, this celebration takes place at a local historical site. The decorated buildings house story tellers spinning seasonally appropriate yarns, a local church (!) sells hamburgers and chips as a fund-raiser, and little ones can have their faces painted and play some carnival-style games. Just my speed.

Haunted cabin--The Tell-Tale Heart told here

A little creepy fun [Unlike me, Bob rather
likes the scary stuff]

The story told by this delightful local
character in the finest sense of the word

 

 

Monroe County's Miss Havisham

For those who like the more adrenaline-laden events, a haunted trail in the woods is available. The giggle-screams of the groups of adventurers punctuated the beautiful evening night. The entrance sign read, “ENTER IF YE DARE.” I was not even tempted.

At any rate, have a safe and happy Halloween.

And if you would, please “Follow” my blog!

For more about Christian roots of some American Halloween customs, including trick or treating, check out this link:

http://www.allaboutgod.com/history-of-halloween-christian-perspective-faq.htm

Eureka Springs, Arkansas--the whirlwind tour, Aug. 11-14, 2016. This trip gave me lots of grist for my new blog-mill, re-energizing my need to share observations from my cheese-mobile. Next article will give some highlights from the drive, and oh, boy! Are there some beauts! For now, though, I present "The Working Bunnies." I'll admit it, I sought this store out and made a purchase entirely because of the promise of receiving my merchandise and receipt from a live rabbit. East by West delivers what it promises. The owner even lets customers video the experience. That's my kind of place.

Watch the video--and please follow this blog! I would love your suggestions for places to visit in your comments!

The rich are different. They may even be cheesier.

Baldwin County, Alabama, has been a cheese hunter's heaven for a good long time. Residents refer to the area as L.A. (Lower Alabama, get it?) and proudly call it the Redneck Riviera. Where else would the Flora-Bama Lounge with its annual mullet toss be found? Where do you suppose you could find the landmark Souvenir City, an understated (?), tasteful (?) little shop that customers have entered through a wide-open shark's mouth for half a century? Well, not always through the very same shark's mouth, maybe, but this is the current incarnation so it can stand in for the lineage. Of course, beach towns are pretty much where such things spawn. These old-school Gulf Shores institutions came to town before there was a town. In recent decades, though, wealth has moved inland and so has the need for novel visuals. So, enter Bamahenge.

Yes, that's right, a model of Stonehenge is hidden in the woods near Elberta, Alabama. If you are not familiar with Elberta, it is near Foley. Not better? Well, then, Lillian? Oh, never mind. The point is, a billionaire living in Baldwin County had a full-scale fiber-glass replica of Stonehenge made and installed just a short jaunt among the trees from his quartet of dinosaurs. Oh, wait, did I forget to mention the dinosaurs? And the whole installation is rather close to the Knights in the Woods. No charge, just some lovely sculptures to make you look. Yes, for sure, the rich are different.

Bamahenge

For scale. I told you it was full sized. I may not have told you it is accurately situated according to the solstice markers and so forth.

What do you suppose he sees?

Look carefully--yes, it is a T. rex.

After Superbob was born--he was hungry!

Superbob in his original habitat



Superbob was born in Metropolis, Illinois, but  we were far from Sweet Home Alabama. Bob had visited Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky years ago, so he wanted me to see it. He's the driver, of course, so off we went.

bGrand Rivers is a tiny town with a great big American cheese farm called Patti's 1880s Settlement and Restaurant. The restaurant has good food and interesting décor, with wait staff dressed in 1880s apparel and hot bread baked in clay flower pots, served with breath-takingly delicious strawberry butter.




I must say more about the strawberry butter and flower-pot bread. Imagine the best strawberry ice cream you have ever had. Now imagine it at room temperature with the wonderful mouth-feel of butter. Spread it on warm bread. Yep. That's it.

Inside Patti's 1880s Restaurant. See those dresses?

In the absolute middle of nowhere as far as we could tell, Patti's Settlement has a garden with children's activities, decorations, a putt-putt course, and no telling what else. It would seem that the whole population of the town must work for Patti.


In Patti's garden

This trip was about six years ago, so some of my details may be fuzzy, but if I recall correctly, this was our first meal after the birth of Superbob. A final note: Patti's is 494 miles from our house. We liked it so much, we visited again just to eat. Well, we have family in Ohio, but Patti's is a bit out of the way to their house. I have developed a strawberry butter recipe of my own since our first visit. It is fabulous; however, Patti's is better. 


Bob LOVES pie!

What do Clark Kent and I have in common?

My husband Bob lived in Jefferson City, Missouri, for about four years in the 70’s and attended the University of Missouri at Columbia as a freshman and sophomore. For super-legitimate reasons, I wouldn’t let him drag me up there for just over 30 years. (If you haven’t figured out that I really need a sarcasm font, we may be in trouble.) Anyway, in 2012, Mizzou became part of the SEC. Bob convinced me I needed to go to Missouri and watch them play Bama, my alma mater. Since I was pretty sure we would win and therefore I would have a good time, I agreed. We really like road trips, so we took the long way home. I had never been in that part of the country, so I needed to see the Gateway Arch, an actual famous landmark in St. Louis. You have likely heard of it. It is rather impressive.

This is Bob



The highlight, though, and the reason for this long narrative, occurred quite by accident. We picked up a tourist information book at the Illinois welcome stop. In it was a short feature on the town of Metropolis. I read it out loud. No response from the

Superman

hubs. I read it again. Then, I pointed out a billboard: “See the world famous 15-foot tall Superman Statue on Superman Square.”  He finally said something like, “Did you want to go there?” Oh, yes. Yes, I did.

Metropolis was at one time named something else. I don’t remember the original name right this minute, and anyway, that’s not the point. The city fathers (and mothers, no doubt) decided to reinvent their little burg as Superman’s hometown. They have that great name, and oh, so much more.

Barbara and Lois Lane

So here’s to you, Metropolis, complete with your world-famous (?) 15-foot statue, a nice little tribute to Lois Lane, stores and a museum with tie-in names and displays, and best of all, one of those cut-out forms of Supermans’s body for Bob to stand behind for a photo op. And to REALLY tell you who we are, he took that photo and had a life-sized Superbob made by a local print shop that he used when he ran for office that fall. He won, too, by golly. A big thank you to Metropolis, the birthplace of this blog.

Superbob

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Let it speak for itself-Acta non Verba

Elephants, maybe?

My grandfather put a mailbox way up on a pole and labelled it "AIRMAIL" because he thought it was funny. I am sure he would like Acta non Verba. He probably would have created it if he had owned a hay farm on a highway.



Two views of the tin man

He is quite big!

One of my favorites!

One of Forkland, Alabama's 606 residents, at least, is apparently a kindred soul. This wide place in the road is home to an absolutely exquisite slice of American cheese. I do not know the artist in residence at this living museum, but I have watched in amusement and admiration for years as he has created hay-bale-and-junk-metal art in a field alongside Highway 43 in Greene County, Alabama. This singular attraction changes occasionally, adding new pieces as the spirit moves. The owner asks for no donations, simply brightening up the countryside with a wink and a nod. The on the right of way leading to the exhibit are three large signs bearing one word each: "Acta" "Non" "Verba"--actions, not words--written on three large signs in the style of the old Burmashave ads. I think I should leave it at that.