The Alabama birthday blowout! (edit: or how we fell into a burning ring of fire…or not)

What a weekend… sis and I toured the shops of small town Mississippi, hitting Tupelo and Columbus on Saturday, spending mad birthday monies together and hitting up her favorite italian buffet for lunch. I can always have fun shopping, but with birthday mad money, I did finally splurge on a couple things I just wouldn’t have gotten myself otherwise. Finished up our shopping with coffee and a trip to a bookstore, and it was a good day.

Or I should say, finish the day off with an evening of sitting on concrete “stands” at a dirt racetrack — Magnolia Motor Speedway, or just “the Mag” if you’re hip (Note: nobody called it “the Mag” despite their cool sign) — surrounded by many scary people who were smart enough to know to bring CHAIRS (unlike us), just so we could watch JamesT and Pete help set up fireworks with their infamous “mentor” in the fireworks biz, Gene, and essentially learn what not to do. An incredibly tense and scary… and yet somehow exciting and fun evening… since the dirt track racing was FASTER than I expected and so close by, and without those distance rules on fireworks… well, let’s just say the “Ring of Fire” at the racetrack was a vision to behold. Gene described his show as “4 minutes of chaos”, and it was accurate. Not only were there HUGE shells going off at only a 1/4 of the legal distance from us, but they were RIGHT beside the racetrack which at the time had a pace car leading VIPs (including the govenor) in other cars and the 20+ race cars on some parade laps… with all the stadium lights out, under the 4 minutes of chaos fireworks. Afterward Pete says, “you mean I could have blown up the Govenor of Mississippi with a misfire?” I of course replied, “Yeah, and the president of Coors Light!”

Add to that the one obvious malfuntion where a shell that should have begun spinning and then shot straight up instead starts spinning across the infield and is only stopped by one of the small signs with sponsor info from going across the track and straight into the crowd.

Add to that the “surpise” of shooting a couple shells for “the bombs bursting in air” line of the anthem which caused the quartet on hand singing to come to a startled stop until they realized what the ***BOOMS*** were.

Add to that our inappropriate amusement at the announcer who repeatedly welcomed all to the “Cotton Pickin’ 100” and who invited everyone up by the concessions where the “Jumping Gs” were — except with his accent, it came out as “jumping geezes” which to us sounded just like “jumping Jesus” and… well, sis and I never have had the best sense of when to shut up in public, and mostly unnoticed went the dirty looks we kept getting as we shouted, “Jumping Jesus, it’s the Cotton Pickin 100!” All in all, quite the full Saturday of fun.

Then for Sunday we geared up for a couple hours on the bikes, where we toured even more backroads from Alabama to Mississipi and back. Rode out to a nice joint by a lake called Proffitt’s Porch for a late lunch — seafood po’boys, num! Came home and rewarded all our hard “sitting on bikes” and “eating” with some nice key lime pie and coffee, to prep for our long drive home.

This week, well.. Rock Band 2, have you met us? Friday night, looks like an Oakland Cemetery tour and dinner at Six Feet Under, Saturday guests and pumpkins and carving, Sunday — hopefully– will be a day of fun in Chattanooga to see James’ little brother for his birthday and finally deliver his present. I’m hoping to carve a special pumpkin to take him, too, soon as I figure out an idea for either IronMan or a GA bulldog or something.

Anywho… you get the idea. Update complete. Enough babble!