Sweet Home Alabama. . . er. . . Georgia

We were only twenty minutes from Alabama as we drove South on 85.  Cari suggested we drive past our Georgia exit and head into Alabama for lunch because we've never been there before.  Amazingly, the kids were all behaving, so I agreed that it sounded like a great idea.

Since we were heading into a new area for the purpose of lunch we ruled out any chain restaurant.  We wanted to drive just over the border, find a small town on the map, and get lunch at a local place.  Lunch in Alabama.

At Randy's suggestion, I loaded up Sweet Home Alabama on the MP3 player and played it as we crossed the state line.  Dorky?  Probably.  Most likely.  Yeah, a bit.  But we did it

We stopped off at the welcome center and looked at a map, went pee, and took a photo.  Our next stop was two exits into the state headed toward the town of Huguley, which I pronounced HUGE-ly.

There was no suitable place for lunch on the main road so we continued our journey into Lanett, Al.  We found a few chain restaurants but still didn't see anything that jumped out at us besides the huge textile mill.

Continuing down the highway we entered West Point and found a small downtown with several restaurants.  We parked and entered the Downtown Diner.  This place was great.  They had many items on the walls supporting their high school football and other sports paraphernalia.

As we sat at the table waiting for our food, I picked up a business card and studied it.  After a moment, I slammed it onto the table and pushed it toward Cari.  Here's the card:

Although we crossed the river to enter Alabama and had not re-crossed that river, the boundary between these states had jumped out of the water and across West Point.  We were having lunch in Georgia!  In fact, the owner of Downtown Diner pointed across the street and told us that Alabama was two blocks away.

While the food was good, eating in Georgia certainly took some of the excitement out of the meal.  I've eaten in Georgia dozens of times.  How plain.

Why oh why did that border jump the river?  Did Alabama lose that land betting on a football game?  Check this map and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Don't worry Alabama, we'll be back to try again.  Next time I'll be checking the address BEFORE ordering.