Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

Today I walked 16 miles. Still no rain on me – sunny all day today with temperatures from 75 to 89 degrees. It is muggy in the morning and hot in the afternoon. I try to finish my miles by 3PM to avoid the heat and any afternoon showers. The heat accumulates on the asphalt and by 3 it is hotter coming up than it is coming down from the sun.

I am still walking through a narrow valley. I can’t find the name of it anywhere. I am surprised to see homes and walls built from stone. I didn’t know there was that much stone near the surface this far south.

I walked through Collbran, Portersville, and Collinsville, Alabama. The wide spots in the road don’t have signs like in Virginia and Tennessee. They appear on Google maps, Bing maps, and Mapquest, but no signs on the road.

This is all of Collbran, Alabama (to the right). I guess it used to be a store.

Next was Portersville, Alabama. This little building has a handwritten sign on it proclaiming it to be the Post Office. I am not sure, but I doubt it is the post office. I went to high school in Loranger, Louisiana. Our post office there was the same size as this building.

The highlight of the day was Collinsville. It has an old downtown section that is one block long. I put a photo of downtown on the Wikipedia page for Collinsville. Most of the store fronts have something in them, but not much. People are trying to make a go of the downtown area. I had a cup of coffee at Nessa’s – a place that serves lunch a few days a week.

There were two big events today in Collinsville. The first is the Quilt Walk. It is sort of a tour of homes. Tickets get you into several of the old homes in town to look at the quilts and the homes. Proceeds of the walk go to supporting the new Public Library. The Library just moved into a building downtown. I am delighted to see people in a small town move their library downtown and all gather together to support it.

The second big event today is homecoming. People lined the streets of the town to see the parade. Kids from K through 12 were in the parade. Here is a photo of the floats gathering at the school. The entire school all in one place.

Homecoming at Collinsville

The surprise of the day was the Hispanic influence in Collinsville. A good portion of the store fronts downtown had signs in Spanish. See the photo on Wikipedia.

Small towns in America are great. It is great to be walking about in Real America.