{"id":1,"date":"2016-03-04T00:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T00:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/?p=1"},"modified":"2016-03-04T22:07:05","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T22:07:05","slug":"hello-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/?p=1","title":{"rendered":"Pitt Stop: Ave Maria Grotto, Cullman, Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have this love hate relationship with road trips. \u00a0I love all the planning that is involved in the weeks and months leading up to a road trip. \u00a0I love visiting places. \u00a0I dread the endless hours in the car. \u00a0We routinely make the 1,100 mile trip to visit my family and friends in Louisiana. \u00a0In order to break up the monotony of that long drive, we try to stop for a break at some point during the trip. \u00a0In December, we decided to check out the Ave Maria Grotto<\/a> in\u00a0Cullman, Alabama. \u00a0The grotto is located on the grounds of a Benedictine monastery called St. Bernard Abbey. \u00a0The grotto was created by Brother Joseph, beginning in the 1930’s. \u00a0It’s an amazing place to visit and stretch one’s legs. \u00a0It had been raining for the first 8 hours of our drive. \u00a0We decided to stop at the grotto and were fortunate enough to catch a break in the weather.<\/p>\n

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We entered the gift shop and paid $5.00 for each\u00a0adult (AAA Member Price) and $4.50 for each\u00a0child. \u00a0The path leading down to the grotto was paved and sloped down to the beautiful \u00a0creations. These creations include tiny replicas of historical buildings from around the world.<\/p>\n

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I found the details fascinating. \u00a0I read that Brother Joseph used found and donated objects to make his wonderful creations. \u00a0Upon closer inspection, I noticed marbles, tiles, small statues, and children’s toys were used to make lovely, whimsical scenes. \u00a0My kiddos and I plan on making our own Ave Maria Grotto inspired houses this summer for our garden. \u00a0We hope to stop again on subsequent trips. \u00a0It will be interesting to see how the buildings look in the summer as compared to the winter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have this love hate relationship with road trips. \u00a0I love all the planning that is involved in the weeks and months leading up to a road trip. \u00a0I love visiting places. \u00a0I dread the endless hours in the car. \u00a0We routinely make the 1,100 mile trip to visit my family and friends in Louisiana….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[3,2,5,4,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12,"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/12"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familycraftedtravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}