Country Pride Buffet, Alabama.

Somewhere in Alabama, on our way to New Orleans, we stopped at Bridges Travel Plaza and Western Wear, a monolithic truckstop containing the most over-the-top collection of evangelical kitsch conceivable.

The large gift shop is packed solid with Bible Bookstore goods as far-ranging as this Bible Man superhero costume.


The length of the eaves is covered with tacked-up fading autographed glossies of Christian Cowboy bands, and this Christian wrestler. The photos alternate along the boards with cowboy hats and rattail caps.


Every surface in the building is covered with Christian bumper stickers, including the bathrooms, and this display case for a local sports team.

There were several cowboy statues keeping watch throughout the establishment. There was even a poster of Ronald Reagan in a cowboy hat hanging on the wall next to the TV (tuned to FOX News).

The most intense part of the travel center, however, was the enormous Southern buffet, Country Pride. The rhetorical impact of the food-related Bible verses and Christian stickers posted all around the buffet added up to one message: God has a plan for you, and that plan is for you to be really fat.


Off to the side of the buffet's main dining room was a huge meeting room with more life size figurines lurking in all corners.

There were also two gigantic glass display cases full of photos and memorabilia from the life of one man, DuWayne Bridges. There were pictures of him as a child and at many stages throughout his life, pictures of his family, photos of DuWayne as the pastor of a church with the words Revival Center in the title, as Trucker of the year, and now, as a member of the State of Alabama House of Representatives. Looks like Mr. Bridges as a politician gets an "A" rating from the NRA, and also introduced an anti-gay health care bill to cut off funding to any state university that provides employees with domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples. Oh, and he abstained from voting on some measure that would require elementary school students to take PE.

As we left, I saw somebody filling up a large fountain-drink cup with softserve. What a surreal afternoon.