The Tennessee Williams Road Trip:

Day 2

I’m a day late posting this because there is little to post—nothing at all literary.  A day of driving, outlet mall shopping and BBQ eating on a road often traveled.  From the NC border all the way to Tuscaloosa, AL.  And there’s nothing literary to report—no famous writer’s birthplace, no setting of a play.  Just interstates 85, 20 and 59.  And Atlanta--  I guess that’s GONE WITH WIND.  But the thing I love most about Atlanta is leaving.

I suppose the fact that CRIME AND PUNISWHMENT got banished from the CD because neither of us could concentrate on keeping the names straight is literary, but perhaps not something to brag about.  Dostoevsky was replaced by a collection of ghost stories by Joe Hill.  A bit of suspense and a tingling spine seemed more likely to keep us awake than a novel that demands total respect and complete attention.

So, here we are in Alabama, hotel room crammed with outlet center finds dreaming about the journey to come—a day of brilliant modern architecture and the birthplaces of Tennessee Williams and Elvis Presley.

Day 3

Any good road trip needs good food.  My vote for the best road food is a local restaurant serving the specialties of the region, ideally in a space that has been open for decades.  Such places are getting harder and harder to find as Cracker Barrels and other chains take over the American roadside, homogenizing the highway culinary scene.  But some still survive.  Day 3 started out at The Wayfarer, a Tuscaloosa shrine to biscuits, red eye gravy and University of Alabama football.  Ranked one of the 50 Best Places for Breakfast in the US by Esquire, The Wayfarer is a small red building, impossibly crowded with tables and customers.  It’s easy to miss on the first attempt to find it, but impossible to forget.  The breakfast is amazing.  Unfortunately being gluten intolerant, I had to turn down the biscuits, but they looked like perfection.  And the eggs, sausage, cheese grits, country ham and red eye gravy were all true road food wonders.

Leaving Tuscaloosa, Nick and I headed down a two lane highway.  Our first stop was Greensboro, Alabama and the beginning of our Rural Studio tour.  The Rural Studio is a stunning example of art, design and social policy combining to create brilliant architecture that serves a community.  Believing strongly that good design and beauty should not belong only to those who have money, I am a huge fan of these daring buildings in the midst of some of the poorest counties in the US.  From houses to public spaces, the Rural Studio works with its clients to create bold, unexpected designs.  Our first sighting was a social service center on Greensboro’s main street.  By late in the afternoon, we had seen chapels, skate parks, fire stations, museums, cultural centers and houses.  We had driven down red dirt roads to find towns so small they weren’t on any map.  Just when we thought we were lost,  a group of trailers would appear and then suddenly a home of such extraordinary design it would take our breath away.  Unfortunately, the Rural Studio’s offices were closed and the nice man at the Newbern Grocery had given away his last copy of the map, so we were left trying to navigate the Rural Studio’s not very user friendly website and using the GPS on my blackberry and an out of date article from the NY TIMES to try to find all we could see in day.  There are many wonderful projects we couldn’t see, but I am thrilled to see what I did in context and I am now an even greater admirer of the Rural Studio’s work.

But back to food.  Despairing of finding anything open, we turned a corner coming into Aliceville, AL and found The Plantation House-- an 19^th century plantation turned restaurant where hospitality and simple food made the supper an evening to remember.

From Aliceville, across the Mississippi border and into Columbus, we were dismayed to find Tennessee William’s birthplace under renovation and surrounded by fence.  But we snapped a few pictures, walked to the church where his grandfather preached and then headed north to Tupelo.   Now William’s Columbus home can get added to the list of famous writers’ homes that I haven’t gotten to see inside.  I’ve been trying for over a decade to see O’Neill’s Monte Cristo cottage.  Seems like I still can’t time a trip to Asheville to see the Thomas Wolfe house.  And I always forget the time change at the Georgia border when I’m driving back from New Orleans and have yet to show up when the Erskine Caldwell museum is open.

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