Sunday, July 31, 2011

Baby Dedication

There are some things I could say about these pictures, but I think I will just let you look and enjoy.


Saturday, July 30, 2011

Georgia; Cloudland State Park

Our last day we set out for Chattanooga on the Lookout Mountain Scenic Parkway.

There is a beautiful fall at the bottom of this canyon. We were not brave enough to hike it, but we did have a little walk around the park on a nice pathway.

We came from Alabama, are in Georgia, on our way to Tennessee. Lookout Mountain spans 3 states.




 When we got back to the car, our air conditioner was not working again. We had it repaired in
 Huntsville, too.  (OK, they told us it was repaired) So instead of going to the aquarium in Chattanooga, we got to spend a little time at Firestone, again. Firestone was a big part of this trip. Judi and I also spent some time there in Little Rock, getting our brakes repaired and buying new tires. Can I just say, Jim Bass Ford in San Angelo, Texas is not the place to have your car checked before you go on a trip. They checked my brakes and rotated 4 rotten tires for me.
 


The manager was very  nice and he took us to a mall where we got a nice meal and a movie while he fixed our air conditioner. This time, it really got fixed. We saw Super 8 in IMAX. Mike in the Chattanooga Firestone is our guy!

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Mentone, Alabama

I had read about this cafe, so I was happy to find it still open when we arrived Sunday night. Their good reputation is well deserved.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

More Alabama...Desoto State Park and Ruby Falls

 The main attraction at this park is the falls. (They have a great restaurant, too)The first day we visited, we found these adventurous young people descending from the top of the falls on ropes and jumping into the river. They had a coach who stayed on the rope all the time, encouraging and instructing them. You can see her in the photo. They jumped from the point where she is. We could tell some of them had done it before and some had not. There are several youth camps in the area so they were probably from one of them. We thought about how much our grandchildren would enjoy this. 
We went back the morning before we left to get a  photo of the falls in better light.



Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Birmingham, Alabama

Judi and I drove to Alabama because I wanted my car while I was there and when it was time for me to come home, Basil flew up to drive back with me. After I picked him up at the airport, we spent a day in Birmingham. We heard there was a special "walk with a guide" on Saturday morning meeting at the Civil Rights Institute so we started there. Sixteenth Street Baptist Church National Historic Landmark is right across the street. This is where 4 little girls were killed with a bomb during Sunday School  in 1963.
 We got there early and found this park across the street.
This is the first black RN in Alabama. She started a camp for kids where they received health care.
These sculptures portray the events of the civil rights movement in the 1960's.

I confess to being largely ignorant about the civil rights movement. I was a young teen in those days and did not pay much attention to events that did not directly affect me. These dogs must have been extremely frightening.
"I ain't afraid is written under this sculpture. I know they must have been afraid, though. But sometimes you gotta do stuff afraid.
There were several large water hoses that looked like cannons pointed at these children.
"At the center of non violence stands the principle of love."

We are walking around the University of Alabama Hospital, looking for The Museum of Health Sciences which I was interested in visiting. We never found it. See the guy in the yellow shirt on the bike? He is a policeman. He stopped to help us but he didn't know where it was. He said, "I don't know how old this map is." We talked to a couple of other hospital employees who never heard of it. We eventually figured out it is in the library.The library was supposed to be open but all the doors we found were locked. I looked it up when I got home and it really does exist but is closed on Saturday. The University of Alabama is a 1000 bed hospital and occupies about 6 blocks of downtown. I was chronically lost while Jenny and I were there. Ask her about me driving around,  trying to find the discharge door and the transportation employee chasing me down the street.


We also visited Vulcan Park and museum. This statue of the Roman god of the forge is a tribute to the city's iron and steel industry and was created as a exhibit for the 1903 World's Fair and won the grand prize. When I saw this platform, I said, "Oh, please let there be an elevator. (there was)
 
Here is yours truly, talking to Jenny on my new cell phone. I entered the 20th century and purchased one for this trip. It took me about a month to learn how to answer it, another month to learn how to call someone and that is still about all I can do. I did download Scrabble, though and I am getting really good at that!

One of the things that I enjoyed most about Alabama is the flowers. West Texas is so dry, it takes a lot of effort to maintain them, but here they are everywhere and  yards are full of beautiful flowering plants like these rhododendrons at the park.