Vance<\/a> is a small town on Route 11. Its claim to fame is that the Mercedes<\/a> plant takes up all the land between I-59 and Route 11 at Vance<\/a>. Do we (the U.S. taxpayers) own Mercedes now? I lose track of which auto companies the government bought. Anyways, there isn’t much on the Route 11 side. I put a photo of the Vance Post Office on its Wikipedia page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is a photo of the Vance Library. This isn’t much, but I love it. Downtown Birmingham had a beautiful library. Collinsville was having a quilt walk to fund their library. Vance doesn’t have much of a library, but it is a library – a place where a kid can read Treasure Island<\/em> or Harry Potter<\/em> or books about sports (what I read as a kid). Coaling<\/a> is another little town. It has a Dollar General store (the most popular business in America), a gas station, and a fire department. I put a photo of the fire department building on the Wikipedia page for Coaling<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cottandale doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. That is a surprise as it is bigger than Vance and Coaling put together. Here is a photo of some of the businesses lining Route 11.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/vancealabamalibrary-150x150.jpg\" "\\"vancealabamalibrary\\"")
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/cottondalealabama-150x150.jpg\" "\\"cottondalealabama\\"")
<\/a>Saturday traffic? This is a rural area outside of Tuscaloosa. In this area, Route 11 crosses I-59 (I-59\/20) a few times and there are another few places where a short drive takes you to I-59. This is Saturday and “country folk” “go to town.” Basically they avoid the more expensive local grocery stores to shop at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Tuscaloosa. There was no traffic early this morning, so I made good headway walking. Then about 11AM the “country folk” went to town. Heavy traffic (it is all relative) the rest of the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"