A trip to Tuscaloosa

Back in the winter Kelly and I planned to attend the Kenny Chesney concert in Tuscaloosa.  It was originally scheduled for the end of March but was then rescheduled for the end of May.  Even after they decided to move she said that she’d meet me in town for the concert so we kept looking forward to it.  It eventually happened that the concert was going to be the night before they were supposed to close on their house here but Kelly still said that she was going to meet me.

After the tornado’s Jason decided that it might be better if he and Charlotte came down with me instead of me coming down by myself.  Pretty much no one in my family was happy about me seeing the devastation when I was by myself and I was totally on board with that opinion so we decided that they would come with me.  So after Charlotte’s doctor’s appointment we headed down to Tuscaloosa.

We entered the city through Alberta City, turned onto McFarland and took it until Hackberry, and then drove Hackberry into campus.  I have never seen anything as horrific as the damage and devastation.  It was heart breaking and gut wrenching and I’m so thankful that I wasn’t by myself when I saw it.  I can’t even explain how bad everything looked.  I was overcome on a lot of the drive through but by the time we got to the 15th street intersection I had calmed down enough to snap these two pictures.  If you aren’t familiar with town they won’t mean much and they really don’t show much devastation at all but I do want to remember them so I’m going to post them.

After driving through the area we headed to the condo and got Charlotte set up for her nap.  Then I got ready to do some shopping for James!  Kelly met me a store into my shopping afternoon and we searched for James and Catherine (Kelly’s soon-to-be new baby girl).  We found a lot of cute things and enjoyed our shopping time together.

We got back to the condo and played with Charlotte for a little bit and then headed to dinner at De Palma’s and the concert.  It was very nice to get to have one last girls night before Kelly moves.  We will definitely miss them a lot and even though we’re going to try and see each other often when we see each other it won’t be the same so the timing of our big night out as their literal last night before they moved back to Mississippi was very nice!

While we were at the concert Jason had taken Charlotte to dinner at Moe’s and then they walked down to Denny Chimes.  She had learned to name Denny Chimes in one of her Alabama books the week before and so Jason said that she was so excited to see it in person!  She is still talking about how she saw Denny Chimes and how it’s a clock and it says “Ding, ding!”

Kelly and I got to our seats for the concert and were very impressed with the new amphitheater.  It opened this spring and is really nice and a great facility.  We weren’t super impressed with Uncle Kracker’s opening show but once Kenny took the stage the concert was great!  He puts on a great show (this was my 5th to see of his — I want to detail those later!) and this one was no exception.  It was really hot but that didn’t stop us from enjoying ourselves!  He did a good job of mixing old songs with new ones and it was really fun.

One of my highlights for the show was near the end when he talked about the Saban’s picking him up and taking him to their house for lunch that day and talking about everything that’s happened in Tuscaloosa.  He talked about how much he liked Nick and Terry and how nice they were and how much they love Tuscaloosa (big words coming from a Tennessee fan!).  And then he sang “My Home’s in Alabama” which was so special!

We did have a big trek back up a hill to get to our car that was almost more than these two pregnant momma’s could handle but we made it and joined Jason and Tripp back at the condo for one last evening of conversation.  It was a very emotional trip from the viewing of the tornado destruction to leaving and not knowing when we were going to see Kelly and Tripp again, but that sort of just made it more memorable and special.  Thanks Kelly for joining me for such a fun night!