Hobnobbing With Alabama Politicians and World Travelers

The past week has been a crazy busy one for us at Hop & Jaunt! After a fun filled Easter weekend where we got to hang out with family and friends the weeks started in full blast. Since starting our little design firm we’ve been lucky enough to get new clients and projects rolling in. One of our current projects was designing a new site for Nomadic Chick, a travel writer and overall cool chick. It was a fun project and she was brave enough to give a lot of creative freedom. So if you haven’t visited her site yet, now’s the time to do so!

Nomadic Chick

After staying up unitl 4 am. working on a project one night the next day we had to wake up at 5:45 am. as we had been invited on a road trip to the state capital! A week earlier we had met and lunched with a couple of very nice ladies representing the local chamber of commerce and they had invited us to ride along with local businesses as they traveled to the state capital to grill lunch for the state politicians. Never ones to pass up on a chance to visit new places, specially with free food, we hopped on board the bus and joined the group for “Convington County Day At The Capital.”

Covington County Day’s Out

Unfortunately the weather was horrible, it not only rained the entire trip up to the capital but proceeded to pour down raining for the rest of the day! Luckily the tent was big enough to fit everyone and ,as it’s also election year, the politicians made an effort to come by and enjoy their locally made Snowden sausages. We helped up a little with the set up and as everyone was encourage to “meet & greet” we mingled with the crowd. While mingling we ran across Ms. Sue Bass Wilson, a Julia Tutwiler Impersonator who’s on a mission to save the Alabama state song. It turns out the Albama tourist board is thinking of changing the state song “Alabama” from state song to state anthem, using “Stars Fell On Alabama” as the official song instead. For Ms.  Wilson this was too much to bear and she donned the persona and clothes of Ms. Juilia Tutwiler, a poet and reformist from the late 19th century, who had penned the song. As Ms. Tutwiler, M. Wilson spoke to the state representatives urging them to respect her contributions and to preserve the song. Who would have known? She was kind enough to pose with me and was a very sweet lady, both as herself and as Ms. Tutwiler!

Alabama State Capital Building

We got these orange T’s to wear, I never lost sight of John that day…

Ms. Tutwiler

It was a great chance for us to meet people from the area, as we tend to get stuck behind on our computers during the day. We were able to talk to local business owners, government workers, and politicians. Most of the time everyone was so casual and friendly that you didn’t realize how important or not they were unless someone told you later. Which was great for me since I have zero ability to recognize people’s faces unless I’ve already met (at times more than once is needed). It was also nice to be recognized as business owners, a whole new sensation we’re still trying to adjust to! As the afternoon wore on, and there began to appear a dent in the massive pile of sausages and hotdogs, the sun finally began to come out. We managed to meet a wide ranging group of people, snuck off and took a bit of a tour around the capital, and also somehow managed to stuff ourselves with good food all in one day. Success!

The First White House of the Confederacy

The house was simple, yet elegant

We snuck off for a little bit and explored the area surrounding the capital building. We stopped in to tour the first White House of the Confederacy, where Jefferson Davis and his family lived during the first years of the civil war.

That weekend we drove up to Atlanta, a 4 hour trip, to attend our first “tweet-up!” Though sharing the road with spring breakers racing back to Michigan was a little hectic we made it to Atlanta early enough for a little stroll down town. I have only really been to the airport in Atlanta, and the truth is between jet-lag and the airport-yuck I didn’t have the best of impressions of Atlanta. I know, judging a city by it’s airport is not fair, but it happens! So now I must confess that I was very much impressed with how clean, vibrant, and friendly downtown Atlanta was!

After walking around a little we headed up north a bit and found the thai restaurant we were planning on meeting at. We arrived early and decided to walk around the neighborhood, as the entire area seemed so active and adorable. As we made our way around the block we heard a voice yell “Hey!!” we looked around a little confused and saw a blonde girl waving to us, so naturally we started waving back and yelled “Hey!!” back at her and her friends. She then yells out from her balcony “Would you guys like a beer?” Since my mother only advised against getting candy from strangers I yelled back “Sure!” and soon we were sitting on a small apartment porch with a group of friendly young people introducing ourselves. They were on a way to a concert, and we could only stay for one drink but it was a fun and random encounter!

Atlanta’s Friendly Ambassadors:From Left-> Jordan, Michelle, and Olivia!

Thanks for the beer girls!

We got to Surin of Thailand and met up with other traveling bloggers. There was Dwight, aka @insearchofsanuk, who is heading back to Thailand in a month to continue working on his non-profit group that helps teach English to the urban poor in Thailand. Check out his site to learn more about the amazing work he’s doing: In Search Of Sanuk. Dwight had just arrived from conference in town and had brought along Adam (@bruklin), a Brooklyn based theater man. He works for BAM, one of the oldest performing arts center in the U.S. He had also backpacked in different countries around the world and was a fun guy to chat with.

We also met up with Akila and Patrick (@theroadforks), from The Road Forks. They are from Auburn, Alabama and that makes them our closet travel blogging neighbors that we know of! They have a fun site where they talk about travel, food, and more food!!

The entire gang from the Q Family Adventures also showed up. We got to meet not only Amy (theqfamily), but her husband Ronald and their two adorable two kids! Amy writes about traveling with kids, from weekend road-trips and where to stay to planning on international travel with kids.

The Atlanta Tweet Up Group (That’s Akila and Patrick from The Road Forks up in the frame as they had to leave early!)

Thanks everyone for a great dinner. We had a blast! Now we’re looking forward to being in NY this June for the TBEX(travel blogger exchange) conference even more!!