Hells Bells

I readily admit that iced tea is my beverage of choice.  But, hells bells, something is wrong with this country when you can't buy a decent glass of the stuff outside a restaurant.  



Heck, I live forty-five minutes from the city that made ice tea famous and it's almost impossible to pull into a gas station or convenience store for a decent glass of the amber liquid.  Seems most places around here have gone to using those bag-in-the-box mixes and I find them to be just plain nasty tasting.  And, those bottled teas are a close second for terrible taste.  Doesn't anyone besides me expect their tea to be fresh brewed, icy cold and served in a giant glass.  


Now, I admit,  I would prefer my tea in a large glass made from real glass, but, that just makes a big mess when traveling.  So, depending on whether I am the driver or the passenger I will take either my big purple Bubba or one of the Old Salt's preferred insulated tumblers (sometimes both) into my pit-stop for a refill.  But, regardless of what container I use I expect to fill it with some good old fashioned fresh brewed iced tea.
      

That is especially true when I am in the South! Doesn't everyone in the South have sweet tea at the ready?  Apparently not.  I just returned from a trip to Alabama and can't believe the number of places we stopped along the way that did not carry fresh brewed tea.    It took two stops in one Kentucky town.  The gas station did not serve tea at all so we had to go across the street to the Burger King to fill our jugs.  It got so bad in Tennessee I finally went into a grocery store and purchased a gallon jug we could carry to refill our glasses. While visiting my Aunt in Dothan I visited six gas stations and could not get fresh brewed tea at any of them.  Five had that nasty bag-in-the-box stuff and one no tea at all.  Can you believe that in the state best known for it's sweet tea and southern drawl, the tea was either not fresh or not available at all?  

found this tea container in a shop window

 I had to hug and bless the heart of my dear cousin Margaret (who lives on Pine Mountain in Georgia) for seeing to it that we left her house with every container we had filled to the brim with her amazing fresh brewed tea and a Styrofoam cooler so that all we had to do was fill up on ice every so often.  What a difference the drive home was not having to go on a tea hunt.  


Guess I've ranted enough about my tea trials of late.  Now I know how it feels to see something I always took for granted fall by the wayside,  another victim of payroll cuts and that "pay more for less" mentality that is permeating the retail market these days.    

I will leave you with this photo I took of the t-shirt a lady was wearing outside of our hotel in West Memphis, Arkansas on the ride down.  It certainly reminded the Old Salt of what he could expect during our stay down south.