After 3 days in Nashville, it was time to visit state #30 on this trip: Alabama! Just like the famous song by Lynyrd Skynyrd, the sign as we crossed the state border said "Sweet Home Alabama."
Visiting "The Rocket City"
We were surprised when we saw the size of the massive grounds for the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, a state government-run museum that has rockets and other artifacts from the U.S. space program. It has over 1,500 space artifacts, and while we didn't go inside, there are a ton of spacecraft and exhibits about the planets that can be viewed from the outside grounds. One of the most impressive was the Saturn V Moon Rocket: we could see it housed in a building from the outside, but there's also an incredible replica of it from the outside. There are only 3 of these in the world--the other 2 are at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the Johnson Space Center in Texas (we'd seen the latter during our visit to Houston). The Saturn V Moon Rocket is the height of a 36-story building, and creates more power than 85 Hoover Dams!
Besides the artifacts, there are also space simulators, and a Space Camp, perfect for kids. While most kids have now returned to school, visiting the Center would have been a fun excursion over the summer for families (at least we think so)! One of the quirkiest exhibits outside, however, is the Grave of Miss Baker, one of a pair of squirrel monkeys sent into space aboard a Jupiter rocket, and brought safely back to Earth on May 28, 1959. She's buried next to her "husband," Big George. While most people will associate another city starting with H (Houston), with space, it turns out that Huntsville has an illustrious history with space history, research & development, sometimes called "The Rocket City."
Charming and Historic Huntsville
Huntsville has a lot of history and striking buildings, including the Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment, the largest privately owned arts facility in the US, with 153 studios for over 200 artists, as well as a performance venue and community garden. It was closed when we arrived, but we could see from the outside how this had been transformed from an old textile mill.
Not far from here is the First Baptist Church of Huntsville, another striking building that was built in the 1960s. What makes it unique is that has a huge mosaic and rocket-shaped bell tower, connecting the church to Huntsville's space age (a significant portion of its congregation were space scientists and engineers).
Big Spring Park is a lovely park that's clean, spacious and perfect for families. There's a few cool sculptures there, as well as a red Japanese-style bridge. Clearly kids also come to the park often, because by the water there's a ton of carp fish and ducks--and as soon as they sense someone approaching the water's edge, they come swimming as fast as they can towards you--evidently expecting food! We'd never seen fish and ducks scamper over so fast.
Antebellum Homes and Hardware
It turns out that Huntsville has the most antebellum homes in any city in Alabama, which refers refers to homes built before the US Civil War from 1861-1865. The Twickenham Historic District is where most of these homes are located, which were owned by early merchants, bankers and attorneys. It felt like we were strolling around the set of "Gone with the Wind", with so many grand homes in architectural styles including Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne. Many of the homes have a plaque denoting when the house was built, with some also detailing the history of the house and who has lived in it.
Close to this Historic District is also the Alabama Constitution Hall Park, a historical open-air museum with buildings including a law office, print shop, land surveyor's office, post office, cabinetmaker's shop and residence. It was also where Alabama's Constitution was signed in 1819, making it the 22nd state of the US.
One of the most interesting general stores we've been to is Harrison Brothers Hardware, which was founded in 1897 and still has a lot of the original design inside from over a century ago! The ladies working inside were really sweet and friendly, telling us about the history of the building, and showing us the original nails in the floors and walls. Plus they had the most melodious southern drawls that were so pleasant to listen to! The store still uses one of the original cash registers, and has so many artifacts around the store that it's like a scavenger hunt to spot the old fans, boxes, paperwork, and other relics from a bygone era, enmeshed with the more modern crafts, toys, kitchen and home items sold at the store.
As we were walking past The Poppy and Parliament, a quaint English pub serving classical fare like fish and chips, bangers and mash and mushy peas (and of course with a red English phone booth at the front), a couple of men came out, just as we heard the pub roar and react to what was clearly a soccer game playing inside. It turns out that one of the men was from Canberra in Australia (we could spot each others' accents immediately), who raved about Huntsville and gave us a few recommendations of what to do around town. Aussies can certainly be found everywhere around the world!
We drove southwest, leaving Huntsville after an essential laundry run, seeing the stunning sunset over a bridge ahead of arriving at a truck/Travel Stop. We'll be exploring more of Alabama tomorrow!
Route Map
