Southern Tour Day 6

We have seen enough football stadiums, student unions and greek houses for one trip so decided to enjoy a relaxing day in the cute mountain town of Helen, Georgia.  

It is the most adorable German village full of bakeries, candy shops and trinket stores. 

We met at this traditional Hofbrauhaus to meet Chris Balish and 2 of his kids for lunch.  They live in Atlanta and saw we were "in the neighborhood" so they were nice enough to make the drive up to see us.

We hadn't seen Chris since our wedding in 1997 and had never met their 4 kids.  It was great getting to know Will and Kate.

We sat outside along the Chattahoochee River and enjoyed a few hours to reconnect.

Chris also recommended this nice hike right outside of town.  When they headed back to Atlanta, we went hiking.  Chris said it was a short hike, but 5 miles later we were finally back at the car!

The weather was actually perfect and the sites were breathtaking along the trail, so a great way to finish off our vacation!

Southern Tour Day 5

We knew Bama would be tough to beat, but we had one more school scheduled on our road trip... University of Georgia, home of the Bulldogs!  I think going into the trip, Allison thought this would be her favorite.

 It was gorgeous like all of the others and had a real southern feel, but was very narrow and hilly, which Allison didn't love.

 More beautiful landscape,

 historic buildings,

a very nice student union

and a huge book store!

 We loved the architecture of the chapel

 and this building with a fountain in front!

The soccer complex was a far drive from campus which Allison didn't like either.  It was an amazing school, but didn't beat out Alabama.

 This archway separates campus from the downtown of Athens.  It is tradition that students are not to walk through it until graduation.  We saw lots of seniors taking their graduation photos near it today.

 Athens was probably our favorite college town of the 4 schools.  It is quite large and had the best variety of bars, restaurants, theaters, music venues and activity.

We also had a delicious dinner and found yummy treats here!

Southern Tour Day 4

So Ole Miss was #1 until we arrived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  University of Alabama was beyond amazing and everything Allison hoped it would be!

The Student Union was bustling with activity, great dining options and an awesome book store.

The campus is completely flat with the most gorgeous landscape!

 You could feel it's history and tradition everywhere you looked 

and she was wide-eyed the entire time.  

It was a pretty rainy morning so we had to drive around more than walk around, but we still managed to see a lot.  Bryant Denny Stadium is home to the national champion Crimson Tide football team and was so impressive!

Directly across the street were the biggest sorority houses we have ever seen.  This one is $13 million!

 Holy cow right?

 Fraternity Row was just as awesome!

 The soccer facility visit was not only really nice, but we happened to run into the head coach and goal keeper coach who spent some time chatting with us.  So cool for Allison!

The basketball arena

The town of Tuscaloosa was also her favorite! We walked along the riverwalk 

and got popsicles and Steel City Pops.

Each street corner had these quaint signs and we loved the architecture.

Lots of bars and restaurants and town was filled with people walking around and enjoying the evening.

We had delicious BBQ and Moe's Original Bar B Que and Allison is now trying to figure out how to make this dream a reality.  What a beautiful campus and town!

Southern Tour Day 3

Another early morning and drive to Starkville to tour Mississippi State University.  It was another pretty weather day and drive up to campus.

We spotted most of the sports facilities first.  This is the new baseball stadium that has yet to open.  It is quite impressive. 

 The soccer complex was pretty impressive too!

 So much green landscape and beautiful brick buildings everywhere.  I loved this chapel!

 Student Union

 Open quad in the center of campus

 Football stadium and home of the Bulldogs

 Brand new dorms

 and more crazy huge sorority houses.

 The town of Starkville is absolutely adorable, but there were no people out and about.  We couldn't really find a good spot for dinner or any activity which was disappointing so we drove about 20 minutes to Columbus, MS.

We stopped at this really cool bridge/riverwalk before finding a Cracker Barrel for dinner.

Matt loved this campus more than Allison and I did, but we were all pretty disappointed in the town itself.  Not enough activity for us! We got back to the hotel just in time to watch the news and a tornado warning crossing Starkville.  We had lots of rain, but no other weather to report luckily.  Welcome to the south!