#2 Ave Maria Grotto & Cullman, AL

To see the commentary, visit the first post about our trip.

Pictures from around Cullman, AL 

And now to Clarkson Covered Bridge....

#1 Ave Maria Grotto & Cullman, AL

E and I talked about going to the Ave Maria Grotto for a few years now. We are not Catholic, but do enjoy roadtrippin' to see something new. While on Groupon searching for a birthday gift for E (that's the number one place to look, right?!) I saw the Grotto had 'buy two tickets for the price of one' and that just seemed like the perfect idea. Of course I added on the birthday card that anything we did that day would be included in his birthday gift so it really turned into a nice gift. We finally found a nice day to get away - it's nearly a 2 hour drive. It was a beautiful day and we just had a wonderful time. We went to the Grotto first then drove around the campus. I was driving and E was checking out the sights so we didn't really get any pictures of the campus but see more here at St. Bernard Prep. It was then after noon and we were hungry so we drove around looking for a lunch spot. I spotted a Jim-N-Nick's and we were both salivating before we even got out of the car. While we were waiting for our food (which was de-LISH!) I searched Trip Advisor for more ideas in Cullman.  We had already hit the number one spot so when E said to surprise him for our next adventure, I picked the Third Street Promenade and Clarkson Covered Bridge. So we drive back downtown (it was on our way out of town) to check out the Promenade and had no luck finding anything open. So sad. There were antique shops and cool shops galore! Why in the world weren't they open on Sunday?! That's usually a high traffic day. Anyway. We did see neat buildings in our drive downtown. Then I realized I had just committed one of my pet peeves. We would have to backtrack to get to the Bridge. At least it was a pretty day. ;) We had to travel way out in the boondocks to find this Bridge but it was a very cool find. E loved it so that made it worth the extra leg of driving. Now!! For the pictures. ;-)

We did not make it to the Bloomin' Festival because we were too early but a man at work went and came back with such rave reviews that we want to go to the Festival in the near future.

We. Are. Here!

LOOK at those beautiful tiles. <drool....>

See the next post for our after Grotto explorations!