Road trip to Selma Alabama

I am not sure how exactly our interest in the civil rights movement got started but today we added another chapter to the book.  It seems when you travel in the south  you are confronted with so much history that pertains to the civil rights movement that it is difficult not to be caught up in the history of it.  Both Janet and I had good friends who were black at a very young ages.  I went to both a Junior High in Muncie, Indiana and Muncie Central High School in the late 60's and early 70's where racial problems were a frequent occurrence.  I even got a week out of high school for  a confrontation with some black classmates but for me race had nothing to do with it.  Some of my best friends in high school who I had known for years were black.   I wasn't expelled but just ask not to return for a week for my own safety.  They said get on your motorcycle (at the time I had a 1967 650 Triumph Bonneville)  and get away from the school for the next week.  My parents didn't believe that I wasn't expelled until they called the school for themselves.  Getting back to Selma.  It is a small town of about 20,000 people.  Registering to vote if you were black in the early 60's in Selma, Alabama was almost impossible and if you were able to register, actually voting as a black person was even harder.  Before voting you might be asked to tell the voting poll worker how many jelly beans were in a jar, or how many cotton balls were in a jar, or how many soap bubbles were in a jar of soap and water before you could vote.  Since no guessed the correct number of jelly beans, cotton balls, or soap bubbles no one got to vote.  Just think this is in a community where over half of the residents were black.  In 1961 only 156 of the over 15,000 African Americans in Dallas county were register to vote.  An event in February of 1965 that got people upset was the shooting of a young black man who later died who was trying to protect his mother and grandmother from a rioting crowd of people. What actually brought the racial conflict to the national stage was the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama on March 7, 1965.  Many people were severely beaten on the Edmund Pettus bridge which is six blocks from where the march started at the Brown Chapel.   While the march wasn't completed on March 7th some two weeks later 3,000 people started the 34 mile march again and 25,000 finished it a few days later.  The history is very interesting and it's hard to imagine that people were treated like that in this country less than 50 years ago.  Here are the pictures.  Hope you enjoy them.

 



If I could vacuum up all of the cotton from the side of the road on our trip today I could supply Warsaw with cotton balls for a decade.

This is the historic bridge where the Bloody Sunday confrontation took place that made national headlines.

 

 

 

The March started at the Brown Chapel which is about six blocks away from the Edmund Pettus bridge.

 

 

What would be your odds on being able to vote?

This is a neat little church we saw on the way back to Gulf Shores.

 

 

The primary business in this part of Alabama seems to be logging.

 





Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge

Today we didn't do a whole lot.  Got up and took the dogs for their morning walk and then we drove out toward Fort Morgan to the Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge to go for a walk.  We didn't see any thing unusual or too out of the ordinary today.  Yesterday while walking in the park we came across a snake but didn't have the camera.  Janet took a picture of it with her phone but I haven't seen how well it came out. 

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain so we are going for another road trip.  We are headed about four hours north to Selma, Alabama or the center of the civil rights movement of the 1960's.  Selma is a town of around 20,000 people but while not large was still considered the home of the civil rights movement due to the unfair practices that were in place as it pertained to voter registration and voting in general for minorities.  We are looking forward to the trip.  Hope to post some good pictures of the Edmund Pettus Bridge where the March 7, 1965 Bloody Sunday march took place which was from Salem to Montgomery to protest voting inequalities.  This march was pivotal to drawing national attention to the voting issues of the south and was key to the Voting Rights Act.  While the town is about 80% black in the early 60's 99% of the registered voters in Selma were white.

A tea cup yorkie that would almost fit in a tea cup.

 

 



Christmas Decorations

Well since we are going to be in Gulf Shores over the Christmas Holidays we thought we should put up a few decorations to celebrate the holidays.  Since we don't have much space to store decorations after the holidays we were looking for something either very compact so it could be stored easily or very cheap so it could be discarded or given away after the holiday season was over.  Today we went north of Foley, Alabama to a store where we scored the inexpensive discard or give away type decorations.  They had a one day sale on Black Friday that resulted in us buying our Christmas decorations for 70% off.  Our entire decorations cost us 90 cents for the star for the front of the 5th wheel, $1.50 for the snowman that is in front of the screened room, and another $1.50 for a holly arrangement for the window of the 5th wheel.   Three dollars and 90 cents and we are good to go and in the running for best decorations in the park.  Not!! but at least people do know we celebrate the birth of Christ.  Below are the pictures of our new decorations. 

Tonight we played a new card game called Pass the Trash with five other couples at our next door neighbor Bob and Gail's place.  We had a great time although we lost $4.00 which was more than the cost of our Christmas decorations. 

Here is a picture of the snowman without the flash

Here is the star we put on the front of the 5th wheel.

The poinsettia and holly arrangement doesn't show up well in this picture but it looks good during the day.

My Thanksgiving dinner.  Just think this tray is just like the ones I ate off of in elementary, junior high, and high school.  Kind of nostalgic Isn't eBay great. 



Happy Thanksgiving

Hello Everyone,

Today Janet and I would like to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.  This is our first Thanksgiving since our sons Gabe and Jason were born that we won't be spending it with them.  Today they have their own special someones to spend this day with and Huli and I have each other and our two furry ones Tanner and Sydney.  We are watching the Macy's parade and starting to get some of the preliminary things done for our dinner.  We are having the traditional dinner of turkey and dressing with all of the trimmings.  The exception this year is our turkey is much smaller than we have ever had before since there is only the two of us and secondly due to the fact that the oven in the rv is much smaller than the normal house oven.  We have been very blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving

Jack and Janet

P.S. We love you sons! Mom

 

 

 

 

 



Trip to Anna's Laundromat and the Pitcher Plant Bog

Hello Everyone,

Today is the day that Huli goes to the laundromat to do the weekly laundry.  I often help her do this but sometimes she prefers to do it by herself to get some alone time.  She goes to the same place each week where she has become friends with Jackie the manager of Anna's Laundromat.  I did end up meeting up with her later in the day in time to help fold clothes coming out of the dryers. 

While Janet was doing the laundry I got on the motorcycle to find something around this area to do outside, since it was so nice, and that you wouldn't find in many other places in the country.  In doing some research on the internet I came across just the place.  The name of the place is Weeks Bay Pitcher Plant Bog.  As the name implies it is the home of a bog but not just any bog.  This bog is known for the collection of Pitcher plants that grow here.  A Pitcher plant is a carnivorous insect eating plant kind of like a Venus flytrap except it catches the insects differently.  A Pitcher plant lures the insect into the pitcher and keeps it there by downward pointing hairs and very slippery walls inside the plant.  Once in the bottom of the pitcher the insect is digested.  The Weeks Bay Bog was near Mobile Bay and turned out to be about an 85 mile round trip. The weather was in the low 70's today so it was a perfect day for a ride.  

By the way I am not being a male chauvinist I have offered to do laundry by myself but this is one job Janet won't let me do without her supervision.  For those of you who have followed the blog for a while you already know this is one of her pet peeves and she has a very specific way of doing things.  Me shrinking one of her sweaters about 40 years ago to a size that would almost fit a Barbie doll may also have something to do with this.  I used to go along just to take a ride in one of the dryers but I'm too old to do that anymore... I think. 

Here are a few pictures from today.

Pretty neat shadows.  However it somehow magnified my width but shrank my height.

 

 

I need one of these little shrimp boats.

Pretty amazing. 



Golf and chillin

Well we haven't posted anything new in a couple of days because we haven't done anything worth posting.  I played golf Sunday north of Gulf Shores outside a little town called Elberta.  The course is called Soldiers Creek Golf Club which goes well with one of the two people I played with.  The course was long from the tees we played but I played fairly well for me shooting an 88 on a course I have never seen before.  I usually play better when I haven't practiced or played in a while. I played with two other guys one from the Gulf State Park and another who was the father of a friend of his who he had never met.  The man from the park was named Charlie and the other guys nick name was Alley.  We never did learn his real name.  We had a lot of fun.  Charlie is 66 and was in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968 during the Tet Offensive and still suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to this day.  While Charlie and I had only just met it seemed we had known each other for years when the day was over.  He told me stories most people wouldn't talk about until you know someone for years.  Alley was in his late 40's and works for the city of Foley, Alabama.  Alley loved sports of all kinds but especially Alabama football.  This made for some interesting conversation since Notre Dame became number one in the country that day and Alabama became number two in the nation. Who would have ever thought Notre Dame could wind up winning a national championship this year.  They still have to get past USC next week so we will see.  I just hope if they do play for a national championship they are competitive since many of the so called experts don't give them much of a chance against a team like Alabama

We also met a couple who moved in across the street from us who are from Plymouth, Indiana which is only about 30 miles west of Warsaw.  They full time in a Septor motor home staying in the south for the winter and going back to the Plymouth area for the summer. They work part time at Pioneer Seed Company in the summer time.  They have pretty much convinced us to follow them to the Okeechobee KOA in Okeechobee, Florida in late December between Christmas and New Years.  We were planning on staying here through March but they said this rv park we are going to is the greatest they have ever been to and they guaranteed we wouldn't regret it.  The park has a nine hole regular (not par 3) golf course on site, a pool that is open, hot tubs, and plenty of activities and entertainment at the park.  In addition we can ride our bicycles around the levee which apparently surrounds lake Okeechobee which is about 50 miles long and 50 miles wide.  This may take a few days unless they let us do it on the motorcycle.  I didn't know this but apparently there are only three places you can see Lake Okeechobee while driving around it due to the levee.  The couple said the weather is much warmer than Gulf Shores in January and February which we already knew.  The weather here so far has been very good with highs in the 60's to mid 70's but it will probably get a little cooler in January and February.  When we originally researched coming here we knew it was around 10 degrees cooler than where we were at last year in Florida.  We are looking forward to going somewhere we have never been to before.  We talked to the people who run the park today and they sounded great and said they had an opening if we want it.  

Here are some misc. pictures I have taken in the last couple of days.

 

 

This is our site with our screen room set up over the picnic table.  There is also room for three chairs and a tv set in this screen room.

 

 

This is our neighbor Bob and Gail Van Dam from Michigan

 



 

 

This is our neighbor on the other side who we don't know yet but they do have three young children.  Their fifth wheel has a bedroom in the front and back as well as two bathrooms.  We could tell it has two bathrooms more than likely because it has sewage pipe coming out from under the front and back of the unit.  We have also been in similar units at rv shows.

 

 

The following were taken on our evening  3.5 mile walk.  Our walk used to require us to follow a set course which we had measured using our bike computers but now we have pedometers that allow us to go anywhere to get our 3.5 mile walk in.   We started out this evening walking along the lake behind our fifth wheel.

 

 

This is the Gulf State Park picnic shelter which is on the beach on the Gulf of Mexico.  There is road between it and the lake at the south end of the camp ground but you can't see it in this picture due to the trees.

This is at the back of the camp store and is a part of the lake that runs behind our camp site.

It's actually much darker than this picture indicates.  We are on our way back to our unit.