fall

This was the first year that I decided to venture out into the Dia de los Muertos festival in downtown Birmingham.

I’ve always heard about it on the radio, in the Black and White, but have just never gone. Growing up, Hispanic culture was always of interest to me. We celebrated all of these festivals in our Spanish classes. And if you frequent this blog often, you know that Spain is my ultimate goal in life.

But for some reason, when I got to the festival, it was a bunch of hipsters (no offense if you are one…just not my scene) drinking. And just drinking. It could have just been me, but I felt like a festival honoring the dead didn’t need to serve alcohol. I don’t know how they actually celebrate the day in Mexico, but it just didn’t seem right. I mean, from picking up beer cans off the side of the alters, and having to hear people say “I’m important, please get out of the way,” (THAT HAPPENED!!), it just wasn’t for me.

But, the altars were beautiful, so I did get some great pictures of those.

My main gripe about this was that it was more about the food and the face painting than honoring the dead. Maybe I’m being too much of a party-pooper, who knows. Just sort of made me a little angry, and I was definitely disappointed.

I do hate saying that, because I do know that Birmingham is trying to get their -ish together and make it a better city, but I’m hoping that this festival will grow and maybe with it, more altars and less food trucks.

So two weekends ago, hubsy and I packed up the dog and the tent and went up to Mt. Cheaha in northeast (well sort of central-east) Alabama.

It is the highest point in Alabama at a whopping 2700-some odd feet. But it was gorgeous up there. And the Stell-dog seriously loved her some outdoor time. It was fun to put up the tent, and believe it or not, we had the whole semi-primitive circle to ourselves.

It was filled with a fun day of hiking to waterfalls, listening to AU football on the radio (come on now… you had to know that was coming), cooking hot dogs, and burning marshmallows to make s’mores.

So here is a little known fact about moi.

I am deathly afraid of the dark. And deathly afraid of things that the dark brings. Like bears. And serial killers. The more I thought about it, the more I thought how easy it would be for a killer to be hiding in the woods at a campsite to kill people. Trust me, I psyched myself out, and actually convinced myself there was a killer in the woods.

But there wasn’t. And we all survived. Here are some pics from the trip…

Best part of all…I saw two shooting stars…

Dia de los Muertos – Birmingham

Camping Fun