Vulcan Death Grip

Friday was a long day. I don’t know what it is about being in the car but I was totally wiped out! After checking into the hotel we crashed for the night.

Saturday was the day of the graduation party but we spent the morning being touristy in Birmingham.

We visited a section called 5 Points but most of the shops were closed for the holiday weekend - bummer! We did check out this trendy record shop that was run by an old rocker guy and had such an authentic vibe to it.

After wandering around for a while we checked out the Vulcan statue, which overlooks the UAB campus and downtown Birmingham.

According to VisitVulcan.com the statue is “…the world's largest cast iron statue and considered one of the most memorable works of civic art in the United States.” I had no idea what it was until I just looked that up online. I was too busy posing for silly pictures while we were there:

It was a beautiful (HOT) day and after walking around for a few hours we were hungry! Mike and I requested that we find at least one local dive to eat at during the trip and thank heavens Dreamland was suggested to us.

This is the first time I have had barbeque in years and I ate the entire deliciously sloppy sandwich. I loved that there were only 4 menu items to pick from and that the “appetizer” was bread and sauce.

Mike obviously enjoyed his lunch too <3

A weird thing happened after lunch: my dad and I were sitting outside a store when some random guy with a dog asked if we would go inside and buy him cigarettes. Obviously we both said no and the guy was upset, claiming he was “20-something.” And then he asked if we could at least watch his dog, who did not have a leash. When he went inside, his dog took off down the street. We did not chase him. I was left with so many questions; why didn’t he put the dog on a leash before he left for the store? Why didn’t he just leave the dog at home? Odd.

After that we all headed back to the hotel to clean up and get ready for the party!