Harmony Park Safari in South Huntsville: If you live here and you’ve never been, GO. It’s a riot.
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Posts Tagged ‘Huntsville’
As Pictured Below: Where the Wild Things Really Are
Posted in As Pictured Below, Huntsville, Photographs, Travel, tagged animals, fun, Huntsville, iPhone, safari, ToyCamera, weekend, zebra on November 10, 2009| 2 Comments »
So you don’t want to sell me an appliance today
Posted in Home, tagged appliances, big-box stores, competition, credit card, customer service, economy, home, home improvement, Huntsville, kitchen, remodeling, repair, shipping on November 9, 2009| 3 Comments »
You’re the manager of a big-box home improvement store and the economy’s hit bottom. Do you cut employee hours across the board, so much so that potential customers can find no one to take their money?
It looks like you do.
I spent 20 minutes in the appliances section of a huge home improvement store yesterday, waiting with another lady who kept pressing the “please come sell me something” button to no avail. I had the exact make and model of the appliance I wanted in hand, on a printout given to me a few weeks earlier by one of the store’s employees. All I needed was for someone to order the appliance and charge a large amount of money to my credit card.
But no. The section of the store in which NOTHING is priced UNDER $500 and most everything is priced OVER $1200 was completely unstaffed on a Sunday afternoon.
What’s funny is that the OTHER big-box home improvement store had already pulled a similar stunt with me and my remodeling dollars several weeks before.
I’m not begging anybody to take my money. If showing up is half the battle, you guys LOSE.
What a boon for the local mom-and-pop stores that have survived the competition. I bet bad customer service experiences get more people through their doors than anything else.
Every appliance in my kitchen is going to have to be replaced in the next couple of years. It’s very handy to have a list of the stores that don’t really want to sell me anything.
Coffee Tree offers a sweet taste of home
Posted in Eats, Huntsville, tagged alcohol, beignets, books, bookstore, cafe, Cafe Du Monde, chains, chicory, coast, coffee, Coffee Tree, conversation, Crescent City, customer, customer service, friends, Gulf Coast, home, Huntsville, hurricanes, IHOP, music, New Orleans, powdered sugar, street musicians, tattoos, used books on October 27, 2009| 4 Comments »
Last week, I wanted beignets. More than that, I wanted to sit at the Cafe Du Monde with friends at 1 a.m., drinking coffee and chicory and listening to street musicians. I wanted to try to convince my husband that I really did need a tattoo, and have him remind me that I only say that after I’ve had too many hurricanes. (For better or worse, BTW, too much alcohol for me involves not that much alcohol at all.)
I spent approximately 25 years of my life within a couple of hours of New Orleans. Now the Crescent City is an entire day’s drive away, so spur-of-the-moment trips just aren’t happening anymore.
But I did find beignets. A Huntsville friend was kind enough to introduce me to the Coffee Tree Books & Brew, located at 7900 Bailey Cove Road. Every Saturday morning, they serve beignets until they run out – and they DO run out. And I’m talking authentic beignets, perfect in size and shape and coated in about three times as much powdered sugar as necessary.
Honestly, I had worried that I was dragging my husband out of the house before noon on a Saturday for a big plate of disappointment. Right after we moved up here almost three years ago, a seafood chain claimed to be serving real New Orleans-style beignets. And they may have been delicious if they hadn’t been coated with caramel-flavored syrup.
Powdered sugar AND syrup? That’s IHOP, not dessert.
The Coffee Tree did not disappoint, however. As a bonus, my friend knew the proprietors and had told them we were coming in just for the beignets, so they were extra eager to see how we liked them. That said, they seemed eager to be sure that ALL their customers were happy.
The used bookstore attached to the cafe area is lagniappe.
No chicory, no street musicians, but I persevered.
Good coffee, good conversation, and good beignets – really, other than that elusive tattoo, what more could a girl want?
UPDATE: I’m told that there IS chicory available if you ask. This just gets better and better
As Pictured Below: Cupcake Crescendo
Posted in As Pictured Below, Eats, Huntsville, Photographs, tagged alabama, cake, childhood, cupcakes, flavor, food, Gigi's Cupcakes, hangover, hipsters, Huntsville, Magnolia Bakery, sugar, trends on September 3, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I know, I know. Cupcakes have to be reaching their peak on the trendiness scale. They’re served at weddings and corporate retreats. Hipsters line up outside Magnolia Bakery at midnight to get their buttercream fix.
Fine. Just give me a moment to enjoy the newly opened Gigi’s Cupcakes in Huntsville, Alabama.
I don’t remember eating too many cupcakes growing up. The ones I do remember were nothing special, just cake on a smaller scale. Today’s cupcake offerings, however, are as fancy as any pricey wedding cake ever was.
I brought home two cupcakes from Gigi’s: Lemon Dream Supreme and Strawberry Short Cake. They both packed a light flavor that didn’t give the first hint of artificial flavoring, and they were topped with what was, frankly, way too much icing for most people. I love too much icing, however, especially that penultimate bite, when I realize that I’ve consumed more sugar in one dessert than I usually eat in two weeks.
Oh, the buzz. And the hangover.
To camp or not to camp
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged adventure, alabama, animals, Bonnaroo, camping, coast, coyotes, hotel, humidity, Huntsville, insects, mississippi, South, travel, vacation, weather on June 12, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Since moving to Huntsville in 2007, I’ve been invited to go camping by everyone from co-workers and classmates to new friends and virtual strangers.
I’ve explained time and time again that as natives of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, my husband and I don’t camp. We rarely even discussed camping until two years ago, except to mock or feel sorry for those who felt the need to brave the sticky humidity, frequent rain, biting insects and frightful fauna of Southern Mississippi and lower Alabama.
Usually, these victims were fathers of Boy Scouts, lured into the wilderness by well-meaning but misguided troop leaders. Those who ventured out once got our pity, but those who went the next year after lodging a week’s worth of complaints about the first year’s mosquito-ridden disaster got nothing more than a good mocking.
Seriously, hotels are all around us. Use them. Love them.
The weather in Northern Alabama is admittedly more hospitable to camping. The humidity is lower (don’t even bother griping about the humidity here – I’ve been to Nicaragua in August), and at night, the temperature actually stands a chance of dropping below 85 degrees. There are still big checkmarks beside the boxes for biting bugs and snakes, however, plus coyotes seem well-represented up here.
There are, I suppose, a few events that could be made more fun by camping. I could get a really early start at the really awesome Tyrolean Traverse in Desoto Falls State Park. I could make it to some caves in Tennessee that local grotto members start exploring at ungodly times on Saturdays. Heck, I might even find myself at Bonnaroo next year.
I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m talking myself into camping. My love for indoor plumbing supercedes many adventure possibilities. You’ve got more selling to do, North Alabama.
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