Paint me a Birmingham

Wednesday I decided not to make the drive out to Nashville and spend the day a little less rushed. I started by driving out to Hanceville, AL to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament where the EWTN Poor Clairs' live and worship. The drive out was very enjoyable, about 1.5 hrs from Tuscaloosa where I've been staying, and the weather was perfect. The grounds at the shrine are fairly extensive and are fairly new as they're still doing a few improvements. It's a very peaceful and inspiring place; whom ever oversaw puting the shrine together did a very well thoughtout job.

Inside the main chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is available for Adoration you have a wall that seperates the Poor Clairs from the visitors since they're a cloistered order. As I was in silent prayer before mass they began singing the Chaplet of St. Micheal and it was just absolutly amazing to me how excellent they sounded and how it made staying focused in prayer just that much easier since it was so beautiful. Mass was down in the lower chapel and celebrated by a couple Franciscian Friars that are connected with the shrine and it was just as beautiful as the main church. I would have taken pictures, but there are signs that respectfully ask you not to so if you want to see the inside of the shrine yourself your either going to have to scour on line or visit yourself. I would suggest the visit, it's quite worth it.

After mass I walked around the grounds to the Castle of St Michael the Archangel, which was really cool, and inside was their gift shop. The gift shop was even well put together the religious art was very reasonably priced and very good quality and a lot of the books and other art work was very relevant. I then went on the walk through the Eucharistic stations which was inspiring and then lead down to their replica of the Grotto at Lourds. Having been to the real one in Lourds not many replicas really compare, but it was nice none the less.

Just before I had made my way to the shrine I stopped at the Hanceville Drug Co., which was a cool drug store with an old fashioned ice cream parlor so I had a Root Beer Float for brunch. On the way out I decided to see what Hanceville had to offer in the way of real food so I stopped for my daily BBQ joint visit and then headed to do a drive by photo shoot of interesting scenes in downtown Birmingham.

Tomorrow I spend the day traveling to New Orleans, so this will be my last post for a couple days.

Day 3 (Wednesday July 29) notes:

BBQ Joint: Luna's Hickory Pit BBQ
105 Main St NW, Hanceville, AL

• I finally found a place in Alabama that holds true to the tradition of serving authentic Alabama style BBQ ie WHITE SAUCE!
• I ordered the 1/2 BBQ Chicken Meal which was tasty even without any sauce on it
• The chicken was very well seasoned and much better then my expectations considering Hanceville had 3 places you could eat at (4 if you count the drug store)
• Awesome Sweet Tea
• Waitress's were very friendly, cute, and had great southern small town accents
• Served with Texas toast and you guessed it BBQ dipping sauce (tomato based)
• White Sauce was very tangy (my guess was that they used miracle whip as the base)
• Coleslaw wasn't anything much to write home about
• Beans were tasty
• Overall a very good experiance and a diamond in the rough