Monday, May 13, 2019

How many of you

watch Home Town?
[For those who don't know it's an HGTV show out of Laurel, Mississippi]
{{And yes, I still go 'crooked letter, crooked letter' etc. 
when I write it out... Don't you?!?}} 
I've loved this show since before the beginning when I would occasionally drop into Erin's blog and see what they were up to...
 So we decided to drive through on our way south a few weeks back - and we realized that we had, in fact, been to Laurel at least once when on the way to either New Orleans or Biloxi and had declared it a podunk 
[yes. it's a word -
"Po·dunk/ˈpōˌdəNGk/nouninformalUS noun: Podunk
plural noun: Podunks a hypothetical small town regarded as typically dull or insignificant." -
- Even *I* am surprised the word originated from the Northern states...]
town right off the interstate - but to be fair, we'd only taken a quick exit off for food...
We never really got into the city... 


We did ZERO research... and had no idea what to expect...
But somehow we expected it to be bigger... or smaller... 
Or more filled out... and less spread out... 
Does that even make sense?
As we explored a bit we realized, it's DEFINITELY not podunk, as it's really quite a big place.
It's just that the residents [and businesses] have spread away from downtown... To me it's typical southern downtown that's seen better days...
Trying to revitalize with a few boutique shops and restaurants...
And with my travel to different areas of my state, I've seen an awful lot of those. 
I don't what the answer is to get life back downtown. 
But I know they are making a great effort to do this in Laurel.
It kind of reminds me of the downtown area of Sheffield or Tuscumbia with the spread out areas of Muscle Shoals... all combined. We saw nice neighborhoods, re-vitalized neighborhoods... and some neighborhoods that have seen better days...
 It was good to get out of the car and walk around a bit - and we DID meet the nicest people including someone who actually grew up in our neck of the woods and Judi Holifield who's played a major part in Laurel's growth these last few years...
[I wanted to ask if I could drive by her house... but I didn't. Ha.]
And we enjoyed shopping at both of the stores associated with Ben and Erin Napier -
But they are so much smaller than I had envisioned...
As we traveled on we took some 'back roads' towards The Gulf
and stopped along he way to meet up with Smokey...
And dip our toes in the surf...
 Those are oyster shells, y'all.
All. Over. The. Place.
Y'all know we like to add a little bit of fun along the way ---
I'll share more about our stay in Mobile
and one of our favorite places to eat in another post...
Oh - I'll go ahead and say it's Neighbors in Tillman's Corner 
[what used to be our little neck of the woods when we lived down that way many moons ago...] If you like your seafood fried... THIS is the place to go...

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