Sweet Home Alabama
Here we are, just outside of Birmingham by a small town called Childersburg. The girls as usual have their share of school work to do. Not too bad this week because of parent teacher interviews. We are staying at a place called DeSoto Caverns. It’s pretty cool. It has the caverns of course and an amusement park within a stones throw from our trailer.
The first couple of days we would go after the girls were finished with their homework…but some of the rides were always broken. It’s kind of old fashioned manual rides..but still fun none the less. So Wednesday we told the girls to go in the morning just after it opened and before all the schools arrived for their field trip. This way the rides that were always broken (and by broken I mean tires are out of air and there is no juice left in the motorized bathtubs). So they did and they had a really fun time. We took a tour of the cavern. It was not as big or as nice as the ones in Carlsbad. This one was had definitely been handled a lot more. The interesting thing about it was the different shades of colours as compared to the ones in Carlsbad. DeSoto caverns in my opinion are OK…but as you can tell I prefer the ones in Carlsbad.
So as you seen the girls had pretty good report cards so we treated them to crab legs at Red Lobster. They love crab. I’ll feel sorry for the guys who date them…because that’s where they like to go for food given the option. (Or I guess now you can ad Logan’s Roadhouse…but that’s a far trip to get there :0)
We also toured the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham and boy what an eye opener. I new about the Mississipi Burning from the movie and new there was racism in the south but not to this degree. The museum did a great job of portraying many of the events that took place and provided lots of video for back-up. What a sad state of affairs. The blacks didn’t let segregation stand in there way of proving themselves to be just as competent or more so than the white folk. They had there own community built up of doctors, lawyers, dentist, etc. They were very successful. It was very sad to see what hurdles they had to go through to have segregation stopped. They were beaten, they were killed, they were fumagated, they weren’t served in restaurants, they were arrested for nothing, they were given less in any situation. If you were a teacher they had a classroom size of 43 as compared to the white teacher who had 24. In the hospitals for example, the number of infant deaths before would be whites 31 out of a 1000 and blacks over 60 out of a thousand. A bit of a difference. Roza Parks made a big difference in history for standing up to a white person and not moving from her seat in a bus that was designated for whites only from the middle row up. This girl was fifteen. The blacks boycotted the busing industry for over 6 months before the companies decided that anyone could sit anywhere. They had to do this because it was black’s that rode the bus the most…and they were losing a lot of money. I also love the idea of the black’s forming these sit-in groups at white only restaurants. I just couldn’t believe that this was all happening in the 60’s and into the 70’s. Where was the rest of the country when this was happening…where was the rest of the world? I was upset with what I read and saw. When we went to leave Kevin asked a security guard (who was black) if this was still happening. He was a very kind man but didn’t know what to tell us so he directed us to another gentleman who worked there and I guess was the historian. (He was also black) he was a soft spoken gentleman that talked to us about some other events that took place even into the eighties. He says that it’s not obvious to people in general…but racism is still subtle. Like you may not get a mortgage…because of your colour. It’s hard for us to understand how this can still be around…but even worse for the girls to see the fight they had to battle to become part of today’s society…they were shocked. I’m told it’s mostly in the southern states that racism still lingers…but who knows. People are great at hiding what they really feel.
Oh…yeah, forgot to mention that Tuesday while the girls were busy with school work and Kevin busy with his work, I asked a maintenance worker here for a rake. I hate sitting around and doing nothing…and frankly there is only so much cleaning you can do in a trailer that I decided to help the grounds crew do their fall clean-up. It was great exercise and I love doing it. It reminded me of raking the leaves at our cottage growing up. Kevin says I probably raked 3 acres. It was fun. I had a lady come up to me and ask me if I worked here. I said no, just camping here and wanted something to do. We chatted for a bit and she finished off by saying “that it looked great”
Last night we went and picked up some yucky KFC and had a picnic in the truck as we waited for the drive in movie to start. It was a small drive in theatre that had two screens (facing opposite sides of course) We went and watched the movie “The Bee movie” It was great and tied totally into what Gina is learning in science. Interesting to know also that bees are becoming extint which would suck because without pollination we would have no more fruits and vegetables, no flowers, no farmers fields of wheat/straw, etc. Scientists are checking to see that if it’s the waves from the cell phones screwing things up with the bees. I personally think it’s all the chemicals people spray in their yards and in their fields that have gotten into the bees bodies that are killing them. Just like in people…where with all the chemicals in our foods and in everything, people are getting sicker and sicker…be it more asthma, cancer, deformities, etc . It’s time to go back to the basics. Look at me turning into (as Kevin would say) granola munching, environmentalist. It’s just been good to see on our trip all of the pollution and the effects and think…there won’t be much of a planet for our kids or our kids kids left. Nothing too desirable for them will be left. So long and short…if you see a bee…leave it alone, it’s got a job to do.
One other thing about Alabama the countryside is very beautiful and the people here are really friendly and very polite. It’s obviously how the southern states are. It’s growing on me…I even answered Kevin, “yes, sir” when he asked me something. :0)
We are leaving here tomorrow and heading to Montgomery, Alabama. I’m looking forward to the Roza Parks Museum, the home and church of Martin Luther King and hoping to take a tour of the Hyundai manufacturing plant.
Have a great week.