I called it my Alabama Tour of old cemeteries and abandoned churches when I went on a trip last week.

Lane Berg went with me on the six-day jaunt, which also included visits with Andy and Greta Sharp in Mobile and Aunt Liz Morgan and cousins Johnny and Pam Adams in Theodore. They kindly provided bed and board and entertainment.

The trip took a turn, though, that I had not expected, and last Sunday I told my pastor, Charles Holden, “I really don’t need to be here,” for I had spent several hours the previous Tuesday in the Greek Orthodox Church in Malvis, Ala. It is neither old nor abandoned, and the sanctuary is breathtakingly beautiful. I had plenty of time to see it.

The sign welcomes everyone each day from 9 to 4:30, so Lane parked the Cooper in the shade and we went into the church. It was a bit after noon. We greeted the custodian and began to marvel at the marble and mosaics and carvings and paintings. Even the ceiling was painted with a majestic likeness of God, or as we may suppose he looks. It is entirely Baroque, like something from a European picture book. We admired the huge paintings.

But all too soon it was time to go.

Only we couldn’t.

The custodian had left and locked us in. He was probably at lunch, I thought. He’ll be back soon.

But soon came and went. There was no way out. We were captives in the Greek Orthodox Church! I used my time wisely. I knelt at the altar and talked to God.

I looked at the paintings again. I sang “Salem’s Bright King,” a Primitive Baptist hymn — probably a first in a Greek Orthodox Church.

Then I yielded to temptation. I’m one of those who, if a piece of paper says, “Do not write in this space,” I’m likely to write in it. So when the sign said “Do Not Enter,” guess what I did.

Then Lane, with his cell phone, called 911, told them what had happened, and the sheriff’s deputy found a man named Constantine who had a key and let us out. It was time well spent, I told him, for I had relaxed, prayed and sang — but  I didn’t mention going into the Holy of Holies.

The first stop on our tour was St. Andrews Episcopal Church at Prairieville, Ala., a church of country gothic design, painted red, built in the 1850s. Father Bob Saul, who was here at Christ Church for years, once told me to visit the grave of Mrs. Mourning Bocock, so I always pay my respects to the lady who died in the 1880s. A local historian told me that she married thrice — once for love, then for money and lastly for fame. Vicksburg’s Emma Balfour knew her and tried to make a match with her and one of Dr. Balfour’s kin, and though she was rich, the good man said she didn’t have enough money to interest him, so I presume she was hard to look at.

St. Andrews meets only once a year, which temps me to join it.

The primary destination was Troy, my mother’s home. (Wouldn’t it be neat if she had been named Helen instead of Eva?) Saw lots of kin at the reunion, most of whom I did not know. My hero of the meeting was Uncle Benton Morgan, who at 90 had driven up from Lakeland, Fla., with his lady friend. He hasn’t as many wrinkles as I do, he walks without a cane and is spry in body and mind. Maybe I have some of those genes.

Had to go see Cousin Alice Phillips, for she and I definitely have the same genes. She’s very Southern, so much so that when she came here two years ago she wouldn’t even consider staying at a place that claimed Grant stayed there. By the way, if you’ve tried the German Potato Salad recipe in “Moore Groceries,” it came from Alice’s sister Jeanie Dunn Roebuck.

Out from Troy, near Banks, Ala., (which is south of Lower Josie, where many of the kin live) we went to Carr’s Chapel, where my great-great-grandparents, both of whom died in 1883, are buried, and Grandpa Morgan’s tombstone has that quote often seen in old graveyards: “As you pass by so once was I. As I am now you soon shall be. Be prepared to follow me.”

I’ve heard the reply, the rhyme of which I can’t recall, but the message is, “I won’t promise to follow until I see which way you went.” Sadly, Carr’s Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has been abandoned for many years and is literally falling in.

I doubt seriously that Lane was interested in visiting my dead relatives, but I dragged him to a few more spots.

There was Wesley Chapel, a plain one-room sanctuary, no longer used, but well-maintained along with the graveyard. I have a letter from a Confederate soldier to someone in my family, and the lonesome, homesick fellow longed to be at the protracted meeting at Wesley Chapel to see all the pretty girls.

There are no longer protracted meetings of pretty girls. Kind of sad.

Not far away is Old Canaan Primitive Baptist Cemetery, finally restored by some relatives. Two more of my great-great-grandparents are there (we have 16 of them, you know, for every generation going backward doubles). The church has been long gone, and I have a boulder that helped hold it up. It’s in my Eva Garden — I call it the Church’s One Foundation.

We also went to Old Ebeneezer and Sandfield cemeteries. More dead relatives, literally hundreds of them. I had to pay my respects to my Great-aunt Alma, for it was she, when I was 16 and met her for the first time, who said, “Son, would you like a glass of wine? I made it myself.” Of course, I would not be so rude as to decline, but I did think my mother was going to have heart palpitations.

I’ve always liked signs, especially directional ones, such as the one at Uniontown, Ala., that says, “No Milk Trucks” and the one near Ferguson, Miss.: “This will always be a four-way stop.”

After we passed through Luverne, Ala., where a billboard proclaims it “The Friendliest City,” Lane observed that no one waved.

I had promised Lane some culture, so in Mobile we went to the city’s art museum where we could have stayed all day. A few days later, we went to Bellingrath Gardens, where we took the house tour and heard the story told by a guide who slurred her lackluster dialogue. The two miles of grounds were magnificent, even in a downpour that left 5 inches of rain, washing all the plants (and the tourists, though my umbrella made me feel secure until Lane pointed out that I had a lightning rod on top). Our tour maps were soaked; we were about the only ones there, and we found ourselves going the wrong way; according to the arrows.

We stayed at Theodore for a few days with my Aunt Liz, who has a wonderful, hair-raising UFO story (but that’s another story for another time). We came home by way of Biloxi so we could visit Beauvoir, spared by Hurricane Katrina, restored with over $4 million, and absolutely grand, a fine memorial to our greatest president. On a tour of the gardens and grounds, still undergoing restoration, we noticed that the arrows were pointing in the wrong direction.

I thought of Grandpa Morgan’s epitaph — “Be prepared to follow me.”

I hope he was going the right way.