Day Trip in Prattville, Alabama

Prattville, Alabama is a cute little town about 15 minutes outside of Montgomery, Alabama's historic state capital. It's an old, beautiful Southern town founded in the 1830s with a main street of shops that look upon an old, abandoned cotton gin mill.

I was helping friends move in Montgomery area this weekend and on the way home back to Birmingham we were able to stop through this beautiful old town. Here are my shots from that day!

 

 

Beautiful, huh!?!

Hail Birmingham!

Sometime in mid-June this year it was raining and all of a sudden the rain sounded really loud. We opened our porch door and hail was flying down at about a 45 degree angle.  Here are a couple pictures of the hail.  

This is hail at the bottom of my elephant ear plant, which got pelted by the hail! Each leaf had 5-10 holes in it from the hail - they flew clean through them like bullets and left clean circular holes.  

Downtown Birmingham

I took these at the McWane Science Center in downtown Birmingham and on the walk there.  I work just a couple of blocks from this beautiful church and about five blocks further is the McWane Center.  

This is St. Paul's Cathedral on the corner of 3rd Ave. N and 22nd St. N in downtown. 

This is an exhibit at the McWane center where you make impressions in large walls of plastic pegs.  I thought this one was amazing. It looks like trapped souls!! It reminds me of the movie The Haunting. 

Montgomery, Alabama

I went to Montgomery for the Southern Poverty Law Center's 40th Anniversary Celebration on April 30.  It was an amazing and inspiring event and was held all round Dexter Ave. and historic Montgomery landmarks like Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church where Martin Luther King, Jr. once was the pastor.  I snapped a couple of quick shots with my iPhone and here they are :)

Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. 

Right down the street from Dexter Ave. Baptist Church is the Montgomery Capitol building.

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Montgomery is a really nice city and is an easy hour and a half from me. I also get to stop by Durbin Farms in Clanton, AL on my way home, which has great food, ice cream and produce!

Farmers Market

The Birmingham Farmers Market is a really nice little market just north of downtown Birmingham.  They have great local fruit and vegetables like Chilton Co. peaches, big watermelons and cantaloupe, and fresh tomatoes and okra.  

This photo courtesy of Alabama Farmers Market website.

We stopped by the Farmers Market this weekend to get ingredients for fresh peach salsa (tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, peaches, cilantro, garlic, etc.). We also picked up a cantaloupe and enough tomatoes for a Caprese dish.    

I took some fresh basil I am growing, a slice of mozzarella cheese, and a slice of the fresh Farmers Market tomato and topped it with a homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Bird and Flower Design Door Mat

 I bought this cute door mat from Old Time Pottery, which is an amazing, huge store with great things and low prices, not to sound like a commercial... but it's true. I got this door mat for $2.99 and am using it out on my porch where we spend a lot of time.  I love the bird and flower graphic.

A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Fern......

This is a little nest with two baby birds we just found in the Boston Fern on my porch! We had a couple of birds flying around and hanging out in our two ferns, and when we switched the ferns we noticed the birds got a little antsy.  We didn't really know that anything was in there until Danny was watering the ferns and looked into the center to see two little birds staring back at him.  We got these great photos with an iPhone 4!

Spring Wildflowers

It's spring and it's beautiful in Birmingham.  It has been so sunny and warm and we've had plenty of chances to get outside.  There are wildflowers popping up everywhere and I've taken advantage of this to create fresh wildflower bouquets to lighten up my home!!

This is a wildflower bouquet that I gathered at Moss Park in Hoover.  Love it!!!

Here's the wildflower bouquet in a vase at home.





This admittedly is not a flower I picked - I bought this big, beautiful flower from a wild, homeless man in 5 Points in downtown Birmingham. I was out to dinner with a friend and he was selling these for a dollar! He was a hilarious, sweet man and this awesome flower lasted a week and a half in my living room.

New Orleans Inspirations

I went to New Orleans the week before Mardi Gras during all the parades. My friend and I had a great time walking around the French Quarter, buying art and seeing the mayhem of pre-Mardi Gras.  These are a couple of things I saw there that I loved.

This was an amazing door for an empty building.  This is seriously one of the most beautiful and intricate doors I have ever seen - I was really tempted to rip it right off that building.

This was a spray painted stencil on Chartres St. 

Perfect symmetry and very stereotypical New Orleans (at least for a tourist!). Art on Jackson Square with a horse-drawn carriage and a New Orleans police bus.  

Gator heads and claw back scratchers in the French Market...

Sloss Furnace

Sloss Furnace is an awesome, ominous, industrial landmark in Birmingham.  Photos of Sloss and it's blast furnaces, water tower and buildings are totally iconic in Birmingham.  It's an old blast furnace that was a big part of Birmingham's steel industry.  You are able to walk around freely and check everything out. It's apparently one of the most haunted places in the United States and they have events all throughout Halloween.  It's super creepy, and yet beautifully amazing, all at the same time.  Here are my shots of Sloss.

Entering Sloss.

Blast furnace.