Roll tide

We are at a Cracker Barrel  in Opelika, Alabama (map).  Our travel plan yesterday had us stopping in the vicinity of Columbus, Georgia, but we simply could not find a place to stop for the night.  We pulled in to the Walmart in Phenix City, Alabama, just across the Chattahoochee from Columbus, but it was a small lot and posted No Overnight Parking, so we continued on to Opelika.

There's a Walmart in this town, too, a bit further along the route.  But this let us stop fifteen minutes sooner at the end of a long day, and we did not want to take the chance that this Walmart might also prohibit overnight parking.  That seems to be a disturbing trend in this state.  We don't care for Cracker Barrel's dinner offerings, so we went in this morning for breakfast instead, a decision we may regret later in the day. We had a quiet night in their parking lot and the weather cooled down enough for us to sleep with the windows open, a nice change from the roar of the air conditioner overhead.

Today's drive will take us northwest across the state on US-280 and US-78, through Birmingham and Jasper.  We'll stop for the night before we make it to the Mississippi state line.