BAMA! -- Part 1, the North...

Tannehill Ironworks State Park

On Tuesday, March 6, we left South Carolina for the sunny climes of Alabama. We arrived in Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park in McCalla and quickly set up camp. This state park is the former site of the Confederate Army's largest iron producer during the Civil War. The original furnaces and several outbuildings remain. On Wednesday, we toured the old furnaces and took a long walk on several of the scenic hiking trails through the park. In the afternoon, we headed to Tuscaloosa in search of history or culture, but found only throngs of University of Alabama students and the Innisfree Irish pub where all thoughts of history were erased with a single happy hour pitcher of beer.

On Thursday, we made better use of our day and drove to Huntsville to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center where we spent the afternoon perusing space capsules, rockets, missiles, pods, suits, men, rocks, junk, and other sundry space items. The museum was fascinating and we even watched an Imax movie about the Hubble Telescope inventively titled "Hubble". The movie was really cool! Part of it highlighted the problems the astronauts encountered trying to repair the telescope over three different missions. The remainder of the movie dealt with the incredible impact Hubble has had on man's understanding of the universe, our origin, our planet's development, the sun's evolution, and the billions upon billions of galaxies that exist in the observable universe. Totally fascinating.

Another big section of the museum exhibited Wernher von Braun's contribution to the U.S. space program. The exhibit, "100 Years of Von Braun: His American Journey", illustrates his life after he surrendered to American forces following World War II through his death in 1977. It captures everything from his influence on popular culture (space toys, astronaut-themed games, cartoons, movies, etc) as well as his significant achievements with rocketry. We really enjoyed the tour.

For dinner, we drove to Big Bob Gibson's Bar-B-Q (awarded the "Best Barbeque on the Planet Award" for 2011) in Decatur, Alabama. Short on decor, but heavy on flavor, we each enjoyed the pork plate with two sides and split a piece of coconut pie for dessert. Yum!