We are halfway through
November so it must be about time to do some writing on this blog. We are
slowly working our way through the southern states and have arrived in Texas.
We’ll be checking into Palmdale in 14 days.
Leaving Birmingham wasn’t as
easy as you would think. When we signed up to stay for a week we decided it
would be a good idea to have our mail forwarded from South Dakota. Plenty of
time to get mail. Unfortunately I didn’t think of it until Tuesday… but still 4
days… it should be there by Saturday. I called the local post office in Hoover
where we were staying and they said they couldn’t accept General Delivery mail.
It would have to go to the main post office in Birmingham. So I called them to
make sure it would work and got the street address to make sure it went to the
right post office. We showed up on Friday morning prepared to get our mail and
see the highlights of Birmingham. No luck. Maybe it would be there in the
afternoon. We stopped by in the afternoon. Still no mail. They are closed
Saturday. We could pick it up Monday morning before we left town. Inconvenient,
but we still could do it. On Monday we packed up the camper and left it in the
campground, drove to downtown Birmingham. Our mail wasn’t there. We had checked
the routing number and knew that it was somewhere in Birmingham. We made them
track it. It was in a truck somewhere but they didn’t know which one.
We decided to pick up the camper and move it
to a Walmart in Alabaster, Alabama, about 20 miles south, and prepare to stay
there overnight. We would have to come back to the post office again later in
the afternoon. So we did that and had some time. We noticed a big AMC theatre
across the parking lost so we took in a movie “Truth” which, incidentally, is a pretty good movie.
As we were walking across
the parking lot after the movie there was a car parked right behind our car
which seemed strange as we were on the far side of the parking lot and there
was plenty of parking closer to the store. Then we noticed the car moving a
bit. We expected it to leave but instead it went into reverse and turned
sharply going up over a curb. We couldn’t tell at the time but it did manage to
hit the corner of our bumper putting a hole in the plastic and scratch the
side. So then we had to go through the process of calling the police, getting
an accident report and calling the insurance company. Fortunately, they had
insurance and when we get to Texas we’ll get the car fixed. The young couple
driving the car were really worried and wanted to just pay us to get the car
fixed. The young woman had been playing around with the gear shift and didn’t
realize what she was doing. She had her driver’s permit but no license. They
were greatly relieved that since they were on private property she wouldn’t get
a ticket. We still had time to get to town before the post office closed. When
we got there the worker checked and said our mail wasn’t there and then looked
at us like she expected us to just walk away. We explained that it had to be
there. She turned it over to her supervisor and we waited and waited. Finally,
a woman showed up with our mail. When we had been coming in to Birmingham from
the south on I65 we noticed the southbound traffic backed up and going slow all
the way to Alabaster. We figured there must have been an accident or something.
Not so. This is normal rush hour traffic going out of Birmingham. It took us
over an hour. The moral of the story is “Don’t try to get general delivery mail
in Birmingham and avoid having to travel south on I65 between 4:00 PM and about
8:00 PM.” I guess I should just be happy that I don’t have any bigger problems
than this.
The next day we headed down
the road to Montgomery but first we had to deal with our towing hitch. There are
plastic caps on the little things that pop up and lock the tow bar in place
when you start driving. It is very important for this process to work or one
side of the car slides in and out creating the potential for lots of damage.
When you stop, you are supposed to push down on the button to release the bars
so that the car is easy to disconnect. We have found that just pushing with
your thumb doesn’t do the job so we pop it with the hammer. Well I figured that
if one pop doesn’t work I need to hit it harder and if that doesn’t work,
harder yet. Well I smashed the damn thing to bits when we were in Alabaster and
when we started out it was not working right as I described earlier. Don did a
temporary fix with duct tape and we headed down to Montgomery. Actually we
stayed at the Wind Creek Casino in Wetumpka for 3 days. While we were there we
talked to the technicians about the hitch and they suggested using a tie strap
instead of duct tape so that is what we are doing until we can find a
replacement part. We’ve added a rubber
band as well.
While in Montgomery, we
visited the State Capitol building which is largely unused now and the first
Confederate White house which is across the street. President and Mrs. Davis
lived here where they originally planned to have the confederate capital
until
they decided that Richmond was a better location. When we arrived at the house
an older man was seated on a park bench under the trees waiting for the workers
to return from lunch and open the building. He was wearing a confederate style
hat and sporting a shirt with the letters NAACP with an X over the top made of
the stars and bars of the confederate flag. He said that he was waiting for
them to open so he could pick something up. He made me uneasy and we didn’t
engage in any small talk. We were a block down the street from The Civil Rights
Memorial and Center and 2 blocks from The Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist
Church.
I’m not sure if it is significant but I observed no security at the
Confederate White House but the Civil Rights Center had us go through a metal
detector and the guard was wearing a Kevlar vest. The Civil Rights Memorial is
a beautiful black circular fountain with the names of the heroes of the
movement etched in the surface with water flowing over the entire top. You are
encouraged to put your hand on the surface and feel the names with the water
flowing over it. My favorite place in Montgomery has to be the Dexter Avenue
Church which is across from the State Capitol Steps where the marchers came to hear
Martin Luther King talk. Governor Wallace wouldn’t let him speak from the top
of the steps so the Sunday school lectern that is still in use today was set up
on a platform and he spoke from there. I was given a tour by my tour guide,
Wanda. Wanda showed me the Sunday school lectern, we went into the pastor’s
office where he wrote his sermons and met with other leaders of the Civil
Rights movement. We then went up to the sanctuary, and I walked behind the
pulpit and put my hands on the same sides as MLK put his when he preached about
peace, love and nonviolence. Some day these things will probably be put behind
velvet ropes and in glass covered cases to keep the oily hands of tourists off.
But for now they are still in use in this church that is very much alive. I
described to Wanda the old man that we saw at the Confederate capital and the
shirt he was wearing. She worriedly said that she heard that the KKK is
actively recruiting. I felt some alarm and reminded myself that she had locked
the door of the church when I came in for the tour…still plenty reasons to be
afraid, courageous or both. Wanda is one of those true Christians who make you
hopeful for humanity. She sings beautifully and made me join her in “This
Little Light of Mine” which I couldn’t really follow because she made it all
gospelly. We ended the tour with “We Shall Overcome” which I could follow
having gone to college in the late 60’s. She gives tours on the hour throughout
the day except for lunch time. The day I was there, she had 2 people before me
at 1:00, me at 2:00 and a couple at 3:00 while I left.
On our way back from
Montgomery that day, we stopped at Ft. Toulouse/Ft. Jackson in Watumpka. The
first Europeans to come here was DeSoto in about 1520. In 1717 the French
claimed this place and built the first fort. The French lost this territory to
the British who didn’t have much use for it. Andrew Jackson came through in
1814 – you know the song. He built another fort
and went about the business of
convincing the Creek Indians to give all their land to the US. While we were
there the place was getting set up for a big reenactment for the weekend along
with a lot of booths for selling wares. We, of course were leaving the next day
and missed this event. You would think that since we have no schedule that we
could do whatever we wanted but that is not the case. I can’t remember why we
couldn’t stay for the weekend.
So we headed down the road
to Mobile where we stayed at Johnny’s RV Resort in Theodore, Alabama. Now I
remember why we moved. It was the weather and our full tanks. We wanted to get
some place where we could sit still while it poured down rain and dump our
tanks. Johnny’s is a beautiful park. It is filled with hundreds of huge live
oak trees that provide a canopy blocking out most of the sunshine. And that’s a
good thing in southern Alabama. The trees also rain acorns at this time of
year. Part of our preparation for leaving was for Don to climb up and sweep
acorns from the tops of our slides before we brought them in. We also discovered
a couple of leaks in the camper during the rain storm so Don did the research
and learned how to replace the sealant around the sky light in the bathroom and
some places in the front. We will soon find out if the leaks are stopped
because we expect a couple of inches of rain again tomorrow. We took a couple
of “administrative” days to do the laundry, make granola, buy groceries, fix
leaks and wash the camper. We haven’t totally lost our industriousness though
we took time to walk around the small lake in the back of the campground a few
times and laid on the couch for one rainy day while I read and Don watched
football. We took a day and toured Mobile on their trolley and had lunch at Wintzell’s
Oyster House. We drove through the tunnel over to the island and toured the USS
Alabama, a huge WWII Battleship. The next sunny day, we drove to Dauphin Island
where we toured Fort Gaines which is where in 1864, Admiral Farragut famously
said, “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!” and managed to secure the Port of
Mobile for the Union. Sometimes when someone says something like that they
become famous. Other times it never gets recorded because no one that heard him
say that survives. After that we walked the trails of the Audubon Bird
Sanctuary.
We saw very few birds but the mosquitoes were ferocious. In case you
Minnesota people don’t know this, Alabama claims the mosquito as their state
bird. I think maybe they are right since they have a much longer mosquito
breeding season. On our way back to Johnny’s we stopped at Bayou La Batre and
picked up some fresh caught shrimp for supper.
We left Alabama on November
12
and went as far as Hammond, Louisiana, just north of Lake Pontchartrain,
where we stayed at Hidden Oaks RV Resort. Their campground had been recently
flooded and was kind of muddy but at least the camp site was level. The next
day we drove around the area south of the lake to see what there is of evidence
of Hurricane Katrina. The area we saw was pretty much rebuilt. There were a few
vacant areas that may have had buildings before the hurricane. We saw some
heavy duty levies recently built and areas where construction continues on the
levy. My brain is weary of being a tourist so I was content to drive back to
Hammond. On the way back we stopped at Middendorf’s Seafood on a remote tip of
a peninsula between Lake Pontchatrain and the lake next to it. They are famous
for thin fried catfish. We split an order of that. While it tasted good, it
consisted mostly of the cornmeal breading fried crisply and a tiny flattened
fillet of catfish that you could hardly see. We met a couple Yvon & Rose
who spoke mainly French from Quebec. Communication was difficult but we told
them about the French speaking Canadians who live at Palmdale in the winter and
encouraged them to come there. Hopefully we will see them again.
We stopped for a night at
L’auBerge Casino in Baton Rouge so we could shop at Trader Joes and stock up on
wine for the winter. We went into the casino to get our player cards and check
out the buffet. The player cards hook was that if you played for 30 minutes,
you could get a free buffet dinner. Friday night was all you could eat seafood.
We sat down at a couple of slots and I began to play. I was doing well but Don
did much better. His machine was broken so when he asked for help, they came to
fix the machine while he waited. He lucked out in a big way because they then
came and apologized to him for the inconvenience, gave him $5.00 and a $70.00
gift certificate for dinner that night. So I had to sit and watch Don eat crab
legs, butter running down his chin. My children know how this goes with all you
can eat crab legs. He never gets full because it’s so damn much work to eat
them.
We came here to Beaumont,
Texas on Sunday
so we could be set up and settled before the big thunderstorm
rolls through. This morning it was 75 degrees with 95% humidity when we got up.
My finger joints are kind of achy and the barometric pressure is changing fast.
Don calls it a “norgulfer”. That brings us up to date.
