Just as Easter weekend was starting we found a little visitor all the way from London sitting at the table. This little guy was none other than a vintage postcard that Thom & Sean, from thomandsean.com, had sent us. Thom and Sean are currently packing up and getting ready as they head out on their ‘around the world’ trip this summer.



Here we are with our new little buddy as we welcome this Brit chap to South Alabama. Southern hospitality rules in this region and we did our best to meet this high standard. Here’s Mr. Postcard on his first day in town.

A Bit Of A Brit In Alabama

Rocking With Sweet Tea

It was such a lovely southern spring day that we ended up sitting on the back porch sipping on sweet tea out of a mason’s jar and watching the humming birds fly around.

Thanks for Thom and Sean for such a fun gift! Check out their blog as they get ready to hit the road and backpack around the world for a year!

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Roadside attractions and road-trips in America. The concept alone fills one’s imagination with nostalgic images of family road trips in station wagons, Route 66, and a whole assortment of 50s era postcards. I even get this image, and I really can’t be that nostalgic for an era that I was never alive in. But the icons and myths of America’s favorite pass-time is still alive and strong today, even if we mostly just drive on the interstate. John loves the idea of a road-trip, for him a dream trip would involve a classic car, a tear-drop camper and driving across the States stopping at all the classic spots. I love the image of such a trip, especially if we actually had a classic car or a cool camper, but the truth is I hate sitting in the car for more than an hour or two at a time. I don’t know if I’ve just become jaded from seeing so many places but for me the scene out of the car looks the same 99% of the time. Luckily I don’t get car sick so I always try to bring some “toys” with me to keep me occupied. If it’s a long trip my side of the car would feature books, sketch pads, camera, phone, and anything else that might distract me for a period of time.

However, since we are back in the USA for a period of time, I have decided to learn to love the road-trip. Specially since driving is still one of the easiest ways to maneuver around this giant country. In order to have a road-trip you really need a destination. But to have an even better road-trip you need some awesomely corny road-side attractions. These are harder to come by, so a little planning and research will go a long way to making your next road-trip a postcard worthy one. Check this website out for weird and bizarre things to see in your area: Roadside America. This is the site where I learned that in Gibsland LA, there is a museum and marker for where Bonnie and Clyde got ambushed and that in Fort Worth there is a tree full of Bicycles. Random? Yes, but the fun of looking for these odd-ball attractions can keep your road-trip entertaining and comment worthy!

A couple of weeks ago John and I were driving to see some friends who live in Hattiesburg, MS, my old college town. On the way there we had decided to stop just outside of Mobile, AL where years ago we had found the perfect road-side attraction: a backyard zoo! I’ve actually grown up hearing about homemade zoos, as my father’s family ran a road-side zoo from their home in Florida back in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. On our road-trips in Japan, my sister and I would always ask for the “animal farm” stories. That could be one of the reasons I have also always wanted either a monkey or a tiger cub for a pet.

The Mobile Zoo!

This zoo in Mobile, aptly named the Mobile Zoo is down a country road off of Highway 98. The main entry building is a cute barn where you pay $7 to get in and a few extra dollars buys you a big brown bag full of peanuts to feed the animals with. And TRUST me on this when I say DON’T eat the peanuts…

The zoo is much like any other farm in the area, just that instead of just having cows there are also deer, llamas, buffalo, miniature Sicilian donkeys, monkeys, bears, tigers, and lions. The surprising thing about this zoo is the amount and variety of animals it actually has!

Some Animals From Around The Area Are To Be Found As Well, Maybe He Jumped In For The Peanuts

So Graceful

These Sicilian Miniature Donkeys Were As Small As My Dog! (OK The Dog IS Rather Large…)

It’s Pre-Historic!

…And Quite Friendly

John Getting A Little Too Friendly With The Deer

I Just Loved This Guy’s Face, Too Cute To Be A Bull!

Pacing

A Curious Monkey

Snack Time!

There’s No Sign Saying NOT TO Go…

An Abandoned Fake Old West Movie Set???

Where’s Our Dueling Pistols When We Need Them?

Years ago when we first found this place there was also a Renaissance Town set up in one of the fields, though we hiked through several overgrown fields we couldn’t find it anywhere…

I would recommend anyone passing through the area to take the time to stop by Mobile Zoo, there’s just not that many backyard zoos like this anymore. But beware of the uber pissed-off Llama that had his mind set on messing with John. Here’s a video of John trying to give the llama some peanuts, only to be sneezed at, spitted upon and ultimately have the peanut thrown back at his face….Enjoy!

Any funky road-side stops you’d recommend?

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La mesa de la bruja

While living in a new place its important to learn more about the local culture and history.  For this museums are just great, and Cartagena offers several beautiful buildings outfitted with a variety of historical artifacts and relevant information.  Recently, we visited the Palace of the Inquisition which is considered one the most significant constructinos of civil architecture in Colombia.  Built around 1770 this building was the center for the Spanish Inquisition in Cartagena, where witches, heretics, and other ‘sinners’ met the infamous torture devices hidden away in the dungeoun cellars. Over 600 of the accused met their end inside those walls. Today it is a museum with some of the torture devices on display, and the building itself is an amazing piece of work but knowing what happened there gives you a bit of a chill. 

Palace of the Inquisition, Cartagena

No One Escapes the Spanish Inquisition

Interior courtyard of the palace

So during their reign of terror the Spanish Inquisition used a variety of twisted and sadistic tools to convert protestants, slaughter indigenious indians, and interrogate witches about the details of their craft.

 As you will see from the following photos, they were some pretty sick bastards.

The twisted things people do for politics and religion.

Torture device to be worn around the neck. This instrument slowly killed the victim with gangrene caused by infection of the wounds around the neck.

The Rack. Used to tear limbs from their sockets and waterboarding prisoners by pouring pitchers of water down their throats.el Executioner

Apparently, Cartagena was full of witches back in the 17th Century.  It must have been a big problem because the Inquisition had some pretty detailed records on how to tell if someone was a witch, how to cast spells and encantations, and how to kill a witch.  The process for determing witches was pretty scientific.  They placed the witch onto a giant scale.  Depending on how much she weighed the tribunal could tell if a woman was a witch and how powerful a witch she may be.  If you were too light then you were a witch.

Recipe for a Witch's Brew

Ingredients for potions

Witchcraft paraphenlia

The interrogation process for finding out a witch was pretty bizarre as well.  Here is the standard list of questions the tribunal would put to the accused.

1. How long have you been a witch?
2. Why did you become a witch?
3. How did you become a witch and what happened on that occasion?
4. What is the name of your master amongst the evil spirits?
5. What is the oath that you had to render to him?
6. Under what terms did you become a witch?
7. Where did you celebrate your wedding?
8. What demons and people attended your wedding?
9. What kind of food did you eat at your wedding?
10. How was it served?
11. Did you sit at a table?
12. Was there music?
13. Did you dance?
14. What evils have you caused?
15. To who and why?
16. What children have you given the evil eye?
17. What animals have you cursed to die?
18. How do you fly?
19. Who taught you to fly?
20. What words do you say to fly?
21. Do you fly fast?
22. How do you make a witch’s brew?
23. What worms and catepillars have you created?

Alyson at the Rack

A beautiful place with an ugly history.

While the gallows and the guillotine are sufficient enough for mortal men witches have to be burned at the stake. Thats the only way to make sure. The museum had a guillotine erected in the courtyard. Alyson and I were going to take pictures with it, but neither of us were brave enough to put our heads through. It all seems ridiculous until your standing up there beneath that giant rusty blade. Not a good feeling.Playing chicken with the guillotine

Sticking our necks out

Courtyard

Alyson makes a friend with a demon

she's a witch!

While witchcraft was a major problem for these “exectuioners of justice” natrually political opponents to the Spanish crown were finding themselves on the cord as well. It was not until the revolution and Cartagena’s declaration of Independence on November 11th, 1811 that the Inquistion was put to a halt. Though it breifly resurfaced with the ironically named Pable Morillo the pacifier, the Inquisition was once and for all exciled when Simon Bolivar’s patriot army liberated the city from the Spanish in 1821.

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Hi!
Well after a few weeks of pulling my hair out trying to figure out coding I have finally gotten a working blog up!! It will still be going through some changes over the next few weeks but it’ll do for now!

The reason for this blog is pretty simple, John and I are headed out on a “jaunt”. We are quitting our jobs, packing our bags, and leaving. For where? We haven’t gotten that far yet!! But we do know when we are starting.

In April, after selling off our few material goods people might actually pay for, we are piling into John’s trusty old F-15 ford pick-up and driving to the Gulf Coast. We will stop in Alabama for a few weeks to hang out with his family and then hitch a ride over to New Orleans. Our favorite city in America! We will, hopefully, be staying with John’s college roommate for a few days and meet up with some long lost friends for another farewell get together. John is from the south and I went to college in southern Mississippi so this area is pretty familiar stomping grounds. We had left the south a year and a half ago when I graduated and landed a job in Lincoln, Nebraska. He followed soon afterward and we tried our hands in living the “American Dream” in a house on adorable Apple Street! With a big yard, cool older houses, big trees, mothers walking babies and puppies, the only thing missing for us to blend right in was 2.5 kids! However, that really wasn’t us. We realized this fact after being there only a few months we began dreaming up fantastical schemes for adventure and sure poverty. With a good job and a secure lifestyle that we were building it would have seemed insane to the people around us that every other week we were hatching grand plans of escapade! Luckily we kept most of the out-there plans to ourselves. I come from a sailing family and thus I tend to be a little superstitious about voicing any plans too early…never know when the winds will change.

After a year of working and saving our money and paying off school loans we knew that we were close. But we still wasn’t sure of what. Having heard some of our plans and ambitions, my parents offered us to come join them aboard their 36ft steel sailboat in the Caribbean. While they were cautiously telling me about their offer on the phone I turned to John and asked “you wanna go sailing?” We looked at each other for about 0.25sec before I replied into the phone, “we’re on our way.”

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