03-08-11 C’mon, Baby! Let the Good times roll!

03-08-11
Blue Springs - Clio - Brundidge - Troy - Montgomery - Tuskegee - Auburn - Opelika
C’mon, Baby! Let the Good times roll!
Started the day just before 6am. The sun was rising. I began the day with some wild turkey. Actually about a half dozen of them. Walking around gobbling and greeting the day. There was a bit of moisture on the tent and car so it took me a little time to break camp as I wanted to give the tent fly and the tent itself a chance to dry in the sun. The sun was short lived. Cloud cover quickly wrestled the sun’s warm magnificence out of the sky. By the time I has showered and paid for my night’s stay it was the same sort of murky gloom I’d encountered when I arrived at Florala. I went west through Clio which was a old small town main street that had seen better days. Many of the shops at it’s main intersection were out of business and seemed like they had been for some time. There were some nicely kept neighborhoods on either side of the “Downtown” area, but the area needed some new life in the form of some downtown re-development to resurrect this town to prosperity.
Brundidge was a more affluent community. They had a Hardee’s off a main multilane highway and the speeds were allowed to be above 25 mph!
Troy had a university that broadcast NPR programming (“Elites!” I hear some tea bagger shill yell) and many fast food and other businesses along it’s path to Montgomery.
Montgomery I actually bypassed. But I got a hint of it’s opulence even with the routing just before gaining the city proper. A true metropolis, even it’s outskirts seemed impressive. But then it’s another big city in a country full of them.
I wanted to get to Tuskegee to feel a since of pride about civil rights in the south. And Tuskegee had in in multiple ways. The town was a beautiful area and the visitors center run by the US Parks service was full of information and directions.. I saw the statue of George Washington Carver on the Campus of Tuskegee University and then went to his museum. He died at the relatively young age of 59, just a year older that I am now. But my, what he packed into his life. I became fascinated with his collection of 46 “Bulletins” he published. This is a link to find them at Tuskegee University Archives:
http://192.203.127.197/archive/handle/123456789/187/search
From there I went to the Tuskegee Airmen Museum at Moton Field northeast of the University. The Parks Service representative, Larry Patterson, was a font of knowledge, and I readily plumbed his depths of knowledge. He guided me to the various small details of the exhibit that might be missed but the passive eye.. I mentioned how effected I’d been upon learning that yesterday has been the 50th anniversary of the Selma March to Montgomery. He told me that he’s been there yesterday, in Selma to commemorate the occasion. And he knew all the details and people, places, dates and causes of that troubled time. We talked about how sadly, many of the events and madness of the past persist still today. How anyone can not see a living human regardless of skin hue or language inflection. He reminded me that the Irish were treated much the same - that a horse was considered worth more that An Irish man’s life, because it would cost more to replace the horse’s labor. And I thought about what the governor of Wisconsin is trying to pull off along with Governors in South Carolina, Texas and Nevada among other states.
Then three women who’d been following me around all day - actually we’d been just a step behind or ahead of each other at the Information Center - the Carver Museum (I stopped to take a picture of the Carver statue) and lastly the Airman’s Hanger. There delightful women from Grass Valley, California, Auburn, Alabama and ?, Georgia?
Anyway it was time to get a campsite, but I was wary or the rain thunderstorm forcasts. I got to Chewala State Park and found the Primitive sites even more primitive than my last night’s spot. (I have to say that with the exception of Meaher State park, I’ve been disappointed with the quality of the Alabama State Parks I’ve been to. The unevenness of expectation.) The developed spots were just a little better and certainly not 8-11 dollars (before they added tax!) I was worried about lightning, flooding, my car getting stuck in mud…so I looked into pricing a motel. I had to go to the next town but having looked up the cheapest prices on the internet I settled on Travel odge in Opelika. It came to a little over $40 with the taxes they add on, but I had a secure night to look forward to. And I forgot to mention Mischa. I didn’t ask if they took pets and they didn’t ask if I had one. We’ll be gone in the morning before anyone’s the wiser…I hope.
Oh, And It’s Fat Tuesday! Bon Temps Roulet!