Blogs from Birmingham, Alabama, United States, North America

This entry covers our travel from Jacksonville Florida to the Great State of Texas. I have promised to my readers that we will share lessons learned along the journey as well as share interesting sites. The first photo was taken in Camping World where we had to deal with a generator that would not stay running. Electricity is a necessity for extreme telecommuting. Computers don't work very long without it. Non use of a generator will build up sludge. Thanks to Camping World we were up and running within a couple of hours. Of course girls have to shop so Sadie got a brand new raincoat. After all you can't get cold and wet on Denali. The second shot shows she travels well in her car seat. The first stop was in Pinson AL with Hal ... read more

When we had checked in shortly after 1 am the guy at the desk told me that there was one heck of a storm due in a couple of hours and would likely last until noon the next day. It was headed north from New Orleans so at least once it passed we would have seen the last of it. When we woke up it was still raining a bit but not badly and I had hopes of getting quickly on the road and arrive before 3pm in New Orleans. Caroline and Tyler tell me that there was much thunder and lightning as the storm came through last night but I slept through it all. Driving on 3-4 hours of sleep will do that, plus I am know to sleep like the snoring dead. Abs fought ... read more

I had a beautiful sunny day to make the drive from Benchmark RV Park in Meridian MS to Birmingham South Campground in Pelham AL, a southern suburb of Birmingham AL (population 212,237 in 2010). The trip of about 150 miles and 2 ½ hours on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 was totally uneventful. June! Really? I haven’t even left the Deep South, and it is already June. I’d better hurry north for, as the temperatures rise so does my latitude! I almost made a serious mistake by omitting Vulcan Park & Museum in Birmingham from my itinerary. If one wants a synopsis of the history of Birmingham, here it is. The Vulcan statue is the city symbol of Birmingham, reflecting its roots in the iron and steel industry. The 56-foot tall, 120,000-pound statue, which stands on a ... read more

Geo: 33.5203, -86.8115Leaving Asheville, even though it was going in the wrong direction, I decided to head southeast toward Spartanburg, South Carolina in order to do a quick sweep through some of the southern states. The moment I passed into this new state was a beautiful one - a passing rainstorm just starting to dissolve, revealing ghastly forms of footless mountains off in the distance. Greens and blues of all shades and everywhere in between, accented in a thin veil of moisture hovering in the atmosphere.Within a few minutes, however, I was back in the rainstorm. The kind where even the highest wiper speed can hardly keep up. A few minutes after that... THWACK!!! What the...? Ah, damnit - a rock had been spit up into my windshield, creating a new little spider web, adding to ... read more

Bombingham I woke up today near Birmingham, Alabama. This city was the place the civil rights movement exploded. The movement was born as a formal force in Montgomery, but it reached critical mass in Birmingham. I studied the history earlier (see ) but that can’t compare to being here. For long months in 1963, the city was a vision of horror as Public Safety Commissioner Bull Conner and the Ku Klux Klan waged war against Martin Luther King and other civil rights organizers. Today, I explore that painful legacy. I started in Kelley Ingram Park. This park is the actual location where marchers were met with fire hoses and snarling police dogs. On one level, it’s hard to imagine that type of violence, because the curre... read more