Birmingham 2012

hangin' on the porch

Cobb Lane B&B

Our day began with a lovely breakfast that started out with a delicious peach cobbler.  After a leisurely morning, since nothing opened until 1:00, we drove to the Civil Rights Institute.  The 16th Street Baptist church is across the street.  It's the church where 4 girls died when it was bombed. The park across the street has many signs directing visitors on a walk along the same routes the protesters marched along back in 1963.   It was about 96 degrees out, so we did not follow the full walk.  At 1:00, we were part of the first group to be let into the Institute for the day.  It began with a movie about the history of Birmingham (founded in 1900) and the civil rights movement.  Then we were allowed to walk through the exhibits.  Very informative.

Birmingham March Walk

16th Street Baptist Church

Next, we went to the Birmingham Museum of Art.  They had a show of Andy Warhol's car paintings.  It's a nice museum covering many periods of art, and it's free with free parking!  After a fairly quick tour of the museum, we headed off to Atlanta.  The goal was to get to the World of Coca Cola by 6:00.  We found the place, and then searched for parking.  We found a lot and rushed to the building.  Not easy from where we parked.  We got to the ticket window at 5:59, but everything seemed shut down.  I pulled out my phone to check the time again and it suddenly changed to 7:00.  Oops!  I forgot to calculate in the time change.  I think we're going to have to live without sampling 100's of coke flavors.

Wayne Thiebaud - Fish Circle

cute and creepy rat sculpture at the BMA

Tupelo and Birmingham

Mara at the pulpit

 We had an uneventful drive to Tupelo and when we got there, we headed straight to Johnny's Drive In for lunch.  It's full of Elvis artifacts and the owners enjoy talking with the tourists.  Next, we visited the birthplace and childhood church of Elvis.  Tupelo is very proud of their native son.  His second cousin gave us a tour of the tiny church he began his singing career in.

Elvis at 13 and Mara at 14

downtown Tupelo

After our fill of Elvis, we headed south to Birmingham.  Just as I was settling into my cruise control drive, I had a problem with depth perception and context.  I saw ahead of me what appeared to be a semi truck.   It was beige and rectangular and looked like a semi some distance away.  Only when I was a few car lengths back from it, did I realize it was actually a dishwasher plopped down right in front of us.  I was able to change lanes and avert disaster just in time.  A mile or two down the road, there were two pickup trucks, one with an empty trailer, pulled over to the side of the road.  I think they were the owners of the runaway dishwasher.  I hope they were able to rescue it before someone ran into it.  

Once in birmingham, we found our 1898 B&B and were greeted by the friendly host.  After settling in, we headed out for dinner and then to the Vulcan park where there is a huge Vulcan statue at the top of a hill.  We climbed 159 steps to the top and enjoyed some lovely views of the sun setting over Birmingham.

Mara practicing her wire routine

We Found The Little Rock!

pretty pit stop in the Ozarks

Atmospheric Perspective!

We left Branson at nine, and began our four hour drive to Little Rock, Arkansas. We took the scenic route, and stopped a couple times to check out the view. My general ignorance about U.S. geography allows me to be surprised when we get to drive through scenic mountains like we did today.

All About Socks

Mara in the Oval Office

CARPOOL/HYBRID PARKING

Mara and a big pig

When we arrived in Little Rock, our first stop was the Clinton Library/Museum. We saw an interesting movie and a lot of cool displays, and learned quite a bit about "Socks" the Clinton family cat. They also had a very interesting gift shop. Afterwards, we went on a miniature walking tour, where we saw the rock after which Little Rock was named, and got a nice view of the city from a tall foot bridge. There were also a lot of interesting stands around town, one which was offering ear piercings... needless to say, Mara had to get one. We also visited the Heifer International Global Village and had a brief tour, we were too late to tour their very cool green building, but we did score an awesome parking spot. They should have priority parking like this everywhere.  

Sara and a bunch of talking fish

For dinner we went to a restaurant called The Flying Fish which had "a lot of character."  Our hotel had terrible internet connections, so this post is being completed one day late.  Also, the room next to ours had an alarm clock go off and stay on, at about 1:30am.  It made for not the best night's sleep, at least of one of us....

Branson = WisDells w/o Waterslides

Mara in a big letter sculpture

Mara beween a smiley face and a confused face

Deborah Butterfield horse sculpture, they're everywhere

blurry buffalo

In Des Moines, we went to the Art Center and saw some interesting art by Tony Feher.  He makes art from the junk that piles up in your house, like old bottles and marbles.  We were unable to photograph there, so you'll have to look him up on your own.  We also went to the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park, where photos were allowed.  Interesting block full of art. We had a nice meal at the Drake diner near Drake U.


In the morning, we drove to Branson, MO.  The drive got more interesting as we drove past/over Truman Lake and into the Ozarks.  Truman Lake does not look like the lakes we are used to and the Ozarks are, well...hilly.






Branson does indeed look like Wisconsin Dells without all the watersides, but they do have a bumper boat attraction.  We had tickets to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede.  Instructions were to arrive one  hour early.  We were not sure why.  Turns out, they have a "free show" (pre-show?) before the real show.  We had front row seats for a juggler.  He happened to be pretty talented and he has some amazing balance skills as well.  We were not allowed to take pictures, so use your imagination.  When we sat down for the real show and dinner, I was sure they said "no flash photography", so I snapped a few blurry shots of buffalo before Drew, our server, politely told me to put my camera away.  The show was entertaining with many horses, long horns, pigs, chickens and doves.  We sat on the north side and cheered for the union soldiers/dancers/riders.  Sadly, at the end of the show, the south was victorious.  Only in Branson.

Mara and a stampede horse

Dixie Stampede

Sara and some doves

road trip 2012 - The East and in-between

Here's this years itinerary:  Des Moines, IA, Branson, MO, Little Rock AR, Tupelo, MS, Birmingham, AL, Atlanta, GA, Macon, GA, Okefenokee Swam (Waycross, GA), Jacksonville, FL, Savannah, GA (lots of time in Georgia), Charleston, SC, Wilmington, NC, Richmond, VA, Baltimore, MD, Wilmington, DE, Atlantic City, Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, NJ (with a few other Springsteen stops along the way), New Haven, CT, Providence, RI, Boston, MA, Portsmouth, NH, Portland, ME, Waterbury, VT, Buffalo, NY, Cleveland, OH, Muskegon, MI, Milwaukee, WI.  That's it!  We'll be home three weeks from today.  We are not spending the night in all of these cities, some are drive-by's.

The photo is a taste of what's to come, circa 2014.  This year there's only one driver and it's not Mara.

Last days

Tuesday morning we walked to our bus tour. I had booked the tour about a month before, thinking we might need something to do during our extended stay in Amsterdam. We rode on a big double decker bus, with separate morning and afternoon tours. The morning tour guide told us we were going to go to a cheese farm and a clog factory. Sounded a bit familiar, but because we were on a big tour, the destinations were much larger and more touristy than our stop on the bike tour. One of the stops was in an area with lots of wind mills and we were able to go up into one and enjoyed some nice views.

We drove back to Amsterdam and then got on another big double decker for our second tour. This one took us to Delft where we got to see certified Delft ceramics being made. Then we went further into the city and were able to walk around. I discovered that this was the town Vermeer lived in and I would have loved to have had more time to explore the streets where he painted. It is a very quaint town with canals and bridges like Amsterdam, but everything on a smaller, quieter scale. We drove through the Hague and had many important buildings pointed out to us, but we only stopped briefly at the Peace Center. We rushed through all this so that we could get to a miniature city. A rather odd place that would probably go out of business, if not for big tour buses pulling in. It was an interesting day, but we probably won't do many more of these package tours.

On Wednesday, we stayed near our hotel and walked to the van Gogh museum. The museum was very interesting with his works arranged in chronological order. We had lunch in the park and then went to the Rijksmuseum. You could see the roof of the museum out our hotel room window, so after many long walking days, we enjoyed staying nearby. It was great to see all the Rembrandts and Vermeers. We enjoyed the gift shop as well. After that, we walked to Vondelpark and enjoyed some nature. For our final night, we went back to the area we had been to our first night and had dinner in an Irish Pub. I got the Shepard's pie I was hoping for in London. It was an enjoyable final night in Europe.

Amsterdam

On Sunday, Shelly headed home and Mara and I went to Gare du Nord. We had reserved seats in first class and enjoyed a nice snack and then lunch on our way north to Amsterdam. When we arrived, we got on a tram toward our hotel. It wasn't clear how to pay, so after watching several people ask the driver directions, I finally asked her where we should get off and how we should pay. She said we wanted the next stop and not to worry about the fare. We easily found our hotel about a block from the stop and went to check in. Smooth sailing so far, but that was about to end.


I had paid for three nights in Paris that morning and my credit card was turned down when I tried to charge our next 4 nights in Amsterdam. My other card worked so we were in. When we got to our room, it was still dirty, so we headed back down and asked for another one. The second one was also dirty, so the clerk asked if we would like a larger room that he was certain was clean. We said sure! It was nice, but had no towels. The cleaning woman said she would try to find us some.


Then we went out to check out the area and get some cash, we had less than 10 Euro between the two of us. Every card I tried was declined at the ATM. We bought a couple cheap burgers and headed back to the hotel. It seems my two hotel bills had been all the money either card thought I should have in one day, so we would have to try again the next day. It would be a long four days with just a bit of change to live off of.


Monday we walked back to the ATM, my first card was turned down, but with the second, it gave me money! I was so excited, I put my card in again and got some more. We had some breakfast and then walked to Mike's Bikes where we joined a group for a biking tour around the city. Pip, our guide, took us through a nice city park and then through a man made forest on the outskirts of town. We stopped by a windmill often painted by Rembrandt and took some pictures and then we went to a farm where they make clogs and cheese. Very interesting place with nice, friendly cows. We had lots of cheese samples and then rode back through Amsterdam. After our tour, we walked to Ann Frank's house and stood in a very long line, but it moved along quickly. The tour was very interesting and well done. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at Sara's for a pancake dinner.