Events of Friday, January 21, 2011

                This might seem pretty random, but I love strawberries. I am sort of in charge of our little strawberry patch at home and thoroughly enjoy the fruits of my labor, however small they might be. On our trip we have, sadly, been lacking this delicious fruit at our table. So when we stopped at a strawberry stand yesterday to buy strawberries, I was elated. This morning Dad asked me if I wanted some strawberries for breakfast, and I wondered why he even bothered to ask. Duh, I wanted strawberries. When he asked if I wanted them sliced for my cereal, I said, no! Why would you want to put them with a bunch of cheerios and murder them with milk? Anyway, I enjoyed a delicious breakfast with cereal, strawberries – separate of course -  and strawberry yogurt. Others had their strawberries in their cereal, but we all generally had a delicious breakfast. I was very happy as we went about getting ready to drive, all except for one thing – we had finished the strawberries!

                Soon we were ready to go and we drove across the Georgia border and into Alabama. While we were still in Georgia, we stopped at a little store for the restrooms. It turned out that this little store and its restrooms were unique. In the restroom, they automatic sinks, soap, paper, toilets, and automatic toilet paper dispensers. The automatic toilet paper dispensers were a new one for us. In the little store were Georgia specialties, one of which is boiled peanuts. A big vat held peanuts in their shells boiling. We didn’t know how they ate them, but we regretted later that we didn’t buy them and at least try a taste of this Georgia specialty. After about three hours of driving, we arrived at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site. By now it was time for lunch, so we had a delicious lunch – although we didn’t have strawberries – and then exited the RV. But, when we got outside, the first thing we realized was that we were not in Florida any more. It was COLD! The temperatures were in the low fifty’s when we headed inside the building nearby.

                We were immediately admitted to a tour that started just when we walked in. Our tour guide gave us the basic gist of how the Tuskegee airmen got their start. Most of them were from the Tuskegee Institute and entered a series of classes of training in order to become pilots. There were four main parts that made up the workers at Moton Field, where we were right then. These four parts were the mechanics, maintenance, record keepers and the cadets. We spent about an hour at the museum and found it all very interesting.

                We left Moton Field and headed to Montgomery, the capital of Alabama. After entering the city, we quickly located our destination for the day, the Civil Rights Memorial Museum. Still getting used to not being in Florida, we hurried to the heated building in order to get warm, but decided to pause first to view the memorial. On a large black granite wall were the words “…UNTIL JUSTICE ROLLS DOWN LIKE WATER AND RIGHTEOUSNESS LIKE A MIGHTY STREAM.  – MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.” Over this wall flowed a constant sheet of water. Nearby the wall was a circular table. This was also constantly flowing with water. Engraved on this stone was a timeline memorializing the martyrs and important events of the struggle for civil rights. After taking a couple of pictures and reading a timeline, we headed up to the museum. We entered into an interactive room with computers which took you on a little tour of the town and pointed out the historic areas. This was very convenient – we got a historic tour of the city from a nice warm building. Then we watched a movie that highlighted and commemorated forty people that were killed during the struggle for civil rights. Next we walked through exhibits about present racism and martyrs of recent times. The last room was a large screen that gave you a chance to pledge that you would work from now on for equal rights for everyone. We all did it and our names appeared, cascading down the digital wall of people who did the same as us. We exited the museum and headed to Birmingham.

                On the way, we watched a beautiful sunset and reached our campsite at about 6:45 Alabama time, 7:45 our body time. Soon we were settled and began the dinner preparation. We then enjoyed a delicious dinner of not so crispy chicken (our oven isn’t very good at getting things crispy) rice, corn, bread, salad, and, to top it all, not so crisp apple crisp. After dinner we cleaned up, got ready for bed, and headed to bed, ready to learn more about civil rights tomorrow.