After a summer in Michigan we're ready
to get back on the move. We got a late start,Sept 3rd,
since we were busy attending volleyball and football games. We would
have liked to stay for the full seasons but it was just getting to
cold. We spent the first couple of weeks hitting some of our old
haunts and doing a few of our favorite things, a week in
Crossville,TN , a few days in Chattanooga and Huntsville,ALA.
We spent one nice sunny day walking
around the Huntsville Botanical Garden, the flowers were beautiful
and the gardens was decorated for Halloween, a few pictures below.
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| flower Pot House |
Then we planned on about an hour visit
to the Huntsville Veterans Museum, well we planned an hour because it
was on the small side but we ended up spending close to 3 ½ hours
there. My main reason for wanting to go there was that I noticed on
their web page that they had on display the very first Ford prototype
Jeep, serial number 00001. This was the handmade model that they
sent to the army to test, there were a few made but this is the only
one remaining, for some reason they were able to buy it from the
Henry Ford Museum. This would have never happened if Henry the 1st
was still around. But as it turned out the highlight was that we met
a man who worked with Von Braun, right from the start right up to the
moon missions AND BEYOND. We spent more then an hour talking with
him and hearing his stories about the different behind the scene
things that happened in the space program.
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| Bob cat |
And then down to Montgomery, ALA for a
week. Our first stop was at the Montgomery Zoo, we were probably 2
of 100 people there today so it was like having it all to our self's.
They have made a few changes, so good, so not so good, they have put
in a Sky way, which is a ski lift that gives you a ride across the
park for a birds eye view, but to put that in they had to change the
Australian exhibit which ruined the exhibit.
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| Slave Quarters (pretty fancy) |
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Brick Foundation from Original
Civil War Prison |
One day we drove over to Cahawba which
was the first capitol of Alabama, all the remains are some ruins and
foundations, it's now a state park and they are working on buying
back the property and restoring some of the buildings. We took the
bike and spent about an hour and a half riding around the park to the
various sites and then an hour in the visitors center talking about
the history of the town with the ranger.
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| Just a little ways down the road |
Another day was spent at the Lowndes
County Interpretive Center, which is a National Park site. It covers
the history of the Selma to Montgomery March in March of 1965. This
made me start thinking about how little I knew about this back in
1965 when I was a teenager, back then the local TV stations only
devoted 30 minutes in the evening to national news. If this happen
today with all the cable news networks it would be 24/7 with
worldwide coverage. If you're in the area this is an interesting 1-2
hour stop.
A week in the Foley ALA area riding a
bunch of bike trails and enjoying the weather. Then across the
panhandle and south to Wildwood where we are now. Monday we move
over to the Orlando area for a month and hopefully will get back in the Blogging habit again.
