"The Haunted Natchez Trace" by Bud Steed

After our trip on the Natchez Trace Parkway, I found a copy of Bud Steed's "The Haunted Natchez Trace".  Its definitely got me in the mood to do another, longer trip on the Trace.

Steed has done his homework, and he gives a lot of good info about history that has happened along the path.  Each section gives you some general info, some of it ghoulish.  Then, he gives some information about legends and hauntings.

Of course a lot of the sites are just creepy.  There are land pirate crime scenes, places destroyed during the Civil War, unknown Confederate soldier grave sites, and gators!

He covers a lot of ground, starting in Natchez Mississippi and making his way north towards Nashville.  He lets you know about some interesting towns along the Trace too, and ones that are a short drive away, but still worth your time to visit.

He covers the death of Meriwether Lewis nicely too, possibly the most well known and strange event to have occurred on the Natchez Trace.

The book is to the point and informative, making it an easy and enjoyable read.

 

Tennessee River Bridge of Florence, Sheffield and Tuscumbia, Ala

This card from several decades ago notes-

Magnificent $1,500,000 Tennessee River Bridge at Muscle Shoals, Florence, Sheffield and Tuscumbia, Ala.

Dexter Ave. Montgomery, Alabama

Road Trip to New Orleans... Part 3

I kind of felt like there was a little more to say about our road trip.  I love hitting the road, and just going.  I enjoy getting in a car, plugging in the Ipod, and driving somewhere new.....

Ofter, we will plan some stops, over night stays, and then move on to the next place.

There was a lot of time in the car on this trip.

I prepared some play lists for our adventure.  One of my all time favorite bands is Cowboy Mouth, FROM New Orleans.  I had a lot of their songs on my play list for our trip south.  Also from the state is Lucinda Williams.  Her song "Lake Charles" is one of the best, and saddest songs I can think of.  There is something special about listening to music associated with an area while you are there.

Also, I was able to pick up some Zydeco stations as we moved along the roads.  I am now hooked on Rosie Ledet!

Oddly, some unexpected stops on this trip became surprise highlights.  Birmingham Alabama and Hope Arkansas were both a lot nicer than we expected.

Vulcan the Iron Man, Birmingham, Ala

This old postcard of one of my new favorite attractions anywhere notes-

"Vulcan" is the largest iron man in the world.  It is 53 feet tall and is mounted on a 120-foot pedestal atop Red Mountain overlooking the city of Birmingham.  It was cast in a Birmingham foundry of pig iron, made from iron ore from the Birmingham district and sent to the 1904 World's Exposition in St. Louis, typifying the natural resources of the district.

Vulcan- The Iron Man- Birmingham Alabama

In all honesty, I wasn't expecting to be impressed with Birmingham.  And, frankly, this isn't the kind of town you tell people that they must go to.

In fact, you never hear people saying, "you MUST go to Birmingham."

To be honest, we sort of added it as a stop on our road trip to New Orleans just because of the towns rich baseball history.

My best buddy Adam is from Birmingham though.  I asked him about some of the other things to do in town, and he mentioned Vulcan.


He is one of the tallest statues in the US.  Plus, he is up on a huge pedestal and he just looks perfect.

He was made for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis to show off what Birmingham could do with Iron.

After the World's Fair, he was shipped back to Birmingham and shuffled around a little until he found his current home on Red Mountain in 1936.


He spent some time at the Fair Grounds before that, and he was used as a bit of a product pitchman, and he was seen holding various other items in his right hand at that time, including coke.

Now, when you visit Vulcan, you can take the stairs or the elevator to his observation deck.  The deck is a bit shaky.  It almost feels like scaffold, and you know you are up in the sky!  It is exciting and scary!

There is a great museum at the park too, detailing Vulcan and his history.  There is a display right now on items that have been made with Vulcan on it (statues, postcards, etc.).

We stopped by to see Vulcan during the day, then we went to a Barons game, and after that we went back to see him at night.  What a great way to spend a day in Birmingham!

I am definitely moving Vulcan to the top of my list of things a road tripper must see in their lifetime!

Road trip to New Orleans... Part 1

OK, I just got back from a nice road trip through 8 states, going down to New Orleans and back up to Kentucky.  We saw a lot in every state, though New Orleans was our main stop.

To be honest, we made this road trip in an effort to hit some states we had not been to before.  We are trying to visit all 50, and driving through this area allowed us to go to Louisiana and Arkansas, states we had never been to at all.  We changed planes once in Texas, so we had never REALLY been to Texas and we were able to hit Texarkana on this trip.  Mississippi and Alabama were states we have passed through before briefly.

So, in a lot of ways, we were going through some areas just to go through them.  Sure, New Orleans is one of those areas you want to go through at some point in a life time, but otherwise, we were going places just to go there.  And, after this trip, we are up to 37 states that we have visited!

Our first night on the road was spent in Chattanooga Tennessee.  If you have read this blog before, you know that I love Tennessee almost as much as I love Kentucky AND Chattanooga is at the top of my list.  We got an early start on the road after work and headed south!

We only had enough time in town to catch a Lookouts game.  I love minor league baseball, and this team and park are very special to me.  The season is over now, but make sure you go by the stadium next time you are in downtown.  Its walking distance and it is amazing.  We were able to watch a true Volunteer state game as the Chattanooga Lookouts hosted one of my other favorite teams, the Tennessee Smokies.

The next day we drove to Birmingham for more minor league baseball (counting the AA Barons current park which just opened this year, there are THREE historic ballparks in town!).  We did go to a Barons game at their new stadium, Regions Field, which is perfect.  It offers a great view of downtown (I love a stadium with a nice skyline view).  AND you can see Vulcan from the park!  In a game that could only ever occur in Alabama, the Barons hosted the Montgomery Biscuits.

Back to Vulcan......  Are you familiar with Vulcan?  I wasn't until recently, when a pal from Birmingham told me about it before our trip.  Vulcan was definitely one of the coolest things we saw on this trip.  MUCH more on Vulcan later, but this is a very under appreciated tourist stop.

We left Birmingham and went to the Vicksburg Mississippi area.  This is another one of those places you do want to hit at some point in a lifetime, but we were sort of expecting something similar to Gettysburg.  We enjoyed the National Park at Vicksburg, but the town is not Gettysburg.  Oh, and the USS Cairo was very cool, that alone was worth the trip to the area!  Where else can you see a somewhat reconstructed shipwreck from the Civil War?

We walked the streets checking the area out and we just didn't have the same experience we had in Gettysburg.  We saw a cola museum that looked cool from the outside.  After going in and spending a few minutes, we realized that the "museum" was not cool (it was small).  We left Vicksburg.

The next day we drove to Louisiana.  I must say that I had large expectations. 

Our first stop once we crossed in to the state was at the welcome center right off of 55.  The place looked great.  I love welcome centers.  I always pick up brochures of places we are going to, and places I might want to catch on another visit.

We walked up to the center and noticed a sign that said "free smiles and free coffee."  Both sounded good right about then.  We walked to the door and it was locked.  We looked in and saw people sweeping.  Then I realized that the sign said they opened at 8:30.  According to my cell phone, it was 8:28.  It was obvious that the casual sweepers inside knew we were out there, but they were not going to open up a minute early.

I thought about the friendly staff I always encounter at the visitor centers in West Virginia (I almost feel like some of those guys are old friends).  I also thought of the time we stopped at the Hallmark visitor Center in Kansas City.  We were there 15 minutes early and the very sweet person running the center came out and excitedly let us in early.  That obviously would not be happening here.  Not cool Louisiana.  We left before they could open the door.  We would not be taking advantage of their free smiles.

Cathedral Caverns Alabama

We found ourselves driving from Huntsville Alabama to Gatlinburg some time ago. We had picked up a brochure about this cave somewhere on our journey. It sounded interesting form the description.

To be honest, this was a "maybe" on our trip. Its one of those things that looks fun, but because of other things on the schedule, you could take it or leave it.

We had left Huntsville a day earlier than we had expected. Plus, we started seeing a lot of signs for Cathedral Caverns, so we thought what the heck. We had time.

Cathedral Caverns was easy to locate, and it wasn't far off of the main road. There were signs up everywhere, boasting of their many world records (which, I have read on other web sites, are mostly exaggerated records, but they were still impressive).

We got to their main visitor area/cabin. It had a very informal feel. There were a couple of staff people who sold us tickets, and then casually chatted with us while we waited for our tour to start. We set on the cabin porch, calmly talking, and rocking in their rocking chairs.

The main cave entrance is really right next to the visitor center/cabin. It is very convenient. I have been to many other show caves where you have to buy a ticket at a visitor center, and then hike up hill a ways before the tour even starts.

We had a very casual tour with a great tour guide named Penny. She seemed to love the cave, and told us a ton of history on it.

Somehow, there is a sharks tooth stuck in the ceiling of the cave at one point.

There are many cool formations here that look like other stuff. They have a lot of cool lighting too that creates the formations.

Penny told us there was a crystal room that you would have to cross a rocky area to get to, and you would have to be pretty small to squeeze into the opening leading in to the room. The room was not on the tour, and even veteran staff at the cave had not attempted to go there.

There was a Disney film taped inside the cave at some point too.

Oddly, even though this is another of many show caves we have visited, it really stood out. The cozy visitor cabin is a great place to relax while on the road. The walk through the cave was not too strenuous. It was pretty flat compared to most. Also, we didn't have to go out of our way to get here. This was, by far, the highlight of our Alabama trip.

Huntsville US Space & Rocket Center

I am not that great with history, but if I understand correctly, you can almost pinpoint the start of the Cold War to a few moments after World War II. Right at the end of that War, the Russians and Americans raced to a little area in Germany and plucked out their best scientific minds. I think both countries took whatever rocket scientists they could, promised not to hold that whole Nazi thing against them, and brought them to their countries.



In American, many of those scientists hung out in the Huntsville Alabama area doing rocket stuff.



They still do a lot of rocket research there. They also have the really cool US Space and Rocket Center.



Check out their website to read about all of the cool space artifacts on display. They have many rockets there. In fact, as we drove up to the area, the site of huge rockets pointed to the sky is a little scary. It reminded me of some apocalyptic movie.

The center has every bit of information you might ever want to know about rockets and space exploration.

They also do "Space Camp" here. I thought that looked pretty fun. We did see a few groups of kids running around in blue uniforms. I wasn't sure if they appreciated what they were getting, but Space Camp looked fun to me!













http://www.spacecamp.com/museum/