Selma, Alabama

Spoiler alert:  As of the writing of this post, I have finished my tour of the South, a part of the country I had not been to before (other than New Orleans and North Carolina).  And of all of the places in the South I visited on this trip, I was surprised to discover that I liked Alabama the best!  Granted, I saw only two cities there, but I thought both were really neat and I got a good vibe from both of them.

The first was Selma, a small city in the middle of Alabama.  Although it's probably well-known for other things, a lot of people know about it because of the events of March 1965:  First the "Bloody Sunday" where 600 civil rights protest marchers were stopped on the town bridge and beaten with clubs and sprayed with tear gas; and second, for the successful march a few weeks later from Selma to Montgomery, where 25,000 marchers walked 50 miles to protest the lack of civil rights of Alabama.  If you remember the 1960s or took a history class, you'll remember that the Civil Rights Act was signed into law a few months later.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge

But Selma has more than just the famous bridge and a place in the history of the civil rights movement.  It's got a small and charming Old Depot Museum, with its collection of artifacts from all of Alabama's history (pre-Colombian era through the present).  It's one of those kitschy little places where the staff takes an enormous amount of pride in their work.  And the proprietor was happy to tell me about Selma and give recommendations for things to see and places to eat.

The Old Depot Museum

Detail of a quilt at the museum.

Most of the town (that I saw) was pretty blue collar, nothing too fancy.  The older part of the town, which I strolled around for a while, was pretty charming, but small.  For example, Selma's famous Songs of Selma park is only this big:

Yes, that's all of it.  I'm not sure what the big deal is, other than the great sign.  Don't get me wrong, it's cute, but um... where's the park?

I was pleased to find a couple of dining options with some real southern cooking.  My lunch was really tasty I was eating it, but I felt a bit queasy an hour later, probably because each item on my plate contained at least one stick of butter.  Yummy, but richer than I'm used to.

A lunch of butter, garnished with fish, fried okra, sweet potato fries, and hush puppies.  And sweet, sweet tea.

An interesting stop on my tour was the Brown Chapel AME Church, which was the starting point for the march from the aforementioned Selma-to-Montgomery march.  The church itself wasn't that interesting, except as a historically significant place in the civil rights movement.

But what made my stop interesting was there was one other person who stopped his car along the road to admire the church and its monument to Martin Luther King.  And this car was equipped with loudspeakers on the outside, blaring what sounded like a speech given by someone from the Black Power movement.  I really have no idea who it was, but it sounded like Stokely Carmichael or Malcolm X or someone, kind of talking up how the black man has been kept down by the white man and how he shouldn't put up with it anymore.  It sounded kind of old, like 1960s era.  Again, that's a guess, but an educated guess.  It felt like a movie, that as I was looking at one of the monuments to the civil rights movement, that some random guy drove up in a car to play for me my own personal soundtrack to my visit.  Wish I'd asked him what he was playing.  Ah, well.

Vicksburg

Vicksburg Battlefield along the Mississippi River, like Promontory Point, Utah, is one of those places that doesn't reveal that people actually did something pretty important on that spot in the earth.  Vicksburg was a really important battle in the American Civil War and, along with ... some other battle that dad mentioned... Gettysburg, maybe? ... was probably the turning point in the war in favor of the North (I'm sure some Civil War buff will tell me I'm wrong on this.  That's fine, I'm more a fan of war of the Classical World).  But other than about 200 monuments added after the war, and a single paved road running through the park, there is really no sign that people were there, let alone fought a really major battle on the spot.  It's just a lot of grass and a lot of trees and some gently rolling hills overlooking the river.

A post-war memorial

Another post-war memorial

Had I known ahead of time that the visitors' center showed a movie about the battle, I would have stopped there first instead of last.  Because just driving through the battlefield, I found it nearly incomprehensible, at least at first.  While there are markers all over the park indicating where different groups of soldiers fought or gained ground or lost ground or planted a cannon, I didn't know anything about the overall flow of the battle, and so didn't know the significance of any one gain or loss or herioc stand.  Apparently the movie shows all of that.  /sighs at self for not watching the movie/  By the time I was about halfway through the park, though, I started to get a feel for things.  I'd seen enough markers and read enough of my brouchure that at least I could imagine where the major front was, and where the major forts and tactically useful locations were.

A tunnel built by Union soldiers -- one of the very few pieces of evidence that humans were around at the time of the battle.

Strangely, though, by the time I was through with my visit, I would have sworn that the South won the Battle of Vickburg, given how many signs and how many times my brouchure said something like "On this spot, the South pushed back a very weak Northern attack..." or "The North had 500 dead or wounded, the South had 8."  In the end, the battle became a siege and the South lost due to starvation rather than lack of military accomplishment, with the soldiers and civilians eating "mules, rats and even boiled shoe leather."  So the South won the skirmishes but lost the battle.

A Union gunboat that was sunk in the river during the war, and later salvaged and partially restored.

"Oh what a beautiful morning!  Oh what a beautiful day!"

Much to my delight, the Battlefield is home to one of the National Cemeteries.  It is the largest resting place of Union soldiers from the Civil War, although it is not the largest National Cemetery.  Interestingly, 75% of those interred in Vicksburg have never been identified, and are labelled with numbers only.  While this was not one of my favorite cemeteries on my trip, it was worth the stop since I was already at the Park.

Most of these are numbered, not named.

A Louisiana Antebellum Plantation

Louisiana was my first stop after leaving Austin.  I spent the night in city then the next morning took a very pleasant jog through its historic district.  Unlike the "historic districts" in a lot of towns I've passed through, this one was actually quite large and nearly all of the buildings dated from before the turn of the 20th century.  Lots of homes with big windows and big porches, and a lot of decorative flourishes.

My first and only "real" stop in Louisiana was at Kent Plantation House in the central part of the state.  What was once a 500-acre planation is now down to a few acres, with the original house and a few relocated outbuildings.

Slave quarters & kitchen

Did you know that there were middle class plantations?  Neither did I, until this visit.  But apparently there were, and this was one of them.

The original plantation.  Wings on each side (not in the photo) were added later.

As far as the actual buildings went, I didn't think this was the most interesting of house tours.  But I thought the guide was really informative.  Touring this house was more like attending a lecture called "Did you know ...?  Mid-19th Century America Edition." than going on a typical house tour.  I learned everything from how folks in the olden days kept the bugs off their furniture (they sat the legs in bowls of water, which meant that every so often the bottoms of the legs had to be sawed off, creating shorter and shorter furniture as time went on) to why baby christening gowns were pleated horizontally (so that as the baby grew taller, the pleats could be let out to make the dress longer).  And did you know that there were free black people in the old south who owned slaves?!  My favorite tidbit:  Learning that "Cajun" is a derivative of "Acadian" -- the french people who were kicked out of eastern Canada by the English.

Inside the kitchen house

The master bedroom, looking dark and creepy like a proper Louisiana plantation.

Interesting story about the house:  It's the only remaining antebellem plantation in central Louisiana.  Apparently, during the Civil War, and the North was either retreating or was conquering (I don't remember which), the army burned everything in its wake.  But when they arrived at the name plantation, the owner and his wife and family refused to leave the house, saying the army would have to burn them too if they wanted to set fire to the house.  The army's leader did not want to kill civilians, so they let the house stand.  look this up

Inside the slave quarters

In case you're wondering why I didn't spend more time in Louisiana or visit the very famous New Orleans, it's because I've been there twice.  New Orleans seems really cool (at least during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) but I didn't feel I needed to stop there on this trip too, when there were new things I could see.

Austin

Contrary to popular belief, I didn't die at the Alamo.  I've just been (surprise!) too lazy to write in the past several days.  Plus, this post is about Austin, which was one of my audition cities, and I therefore had to give my writing some thought.  Because I had to give Austin some thought.

I spent 5 days and 4 nights in Austin.  Austin contained the most eloquent and vociferous proponents of why I should move there.  Clearly, the people who love Austin really love Austin, and I'm glad I got to hear about the city from so many people who live there.

Let's start with two of my friends from WoW:  Ron (Mabaroshi) and Jamie (Greela).  Ron grew up in Texas and Jamie just outside of NYC, so I got perspectives from a local and someone who relocated there.

Jamie & Ron

They both really like Austin.  Ron's favorite attribute of the city is that his house won't wash away in a flood, which is a factor worth considering when I choose a new home.  Jamie, on the other hand, likes all sorts of things about the town, especially the people, which she says stand out by taking so much pride in their home.  And in her experience, that usually results in people being really polite because they want their home to have a good reputation.  Based on my short time in Austin, I have to agree with everything Ron and Jamie said.  I especially noticed it in the behavior of other drivers; while the traffic could get pretty heavy at times, people let each other merge and I didn't see a lot of obnoxious driving.  I did hear a noticeably high number of horns, though, which in my experience is very rare outside of DC, Boston and NYC.  So... huh.

I met a couple of other Warcraft friends, too: Sam (Hornedup) and Tim (Schlitzkreig), who both also love Austin and think I should move there (their friends think so too).

Andy, Gaby, Sam, Celeste, Tim, Ron (terrified of cameras), Jamie, and the Skeptical Lady

Among the other things I liked about Austin:  There's a big university there (Texas, which I could never root for, but which brings learning and culture), there's a lot of variety in the people.  In fact, I'd say I saw more physical variations among the people in Austin than anywhere else I've been in the US.  I mean, all different races, styles of dress, hair, tattoos (or lack of), piercings (or lack of).  Austin, like Portland and Asheville, is one of those places that prides itself on being "weird," which usually means "accepting," and that seemed pretty evident.

It's a fairly liberal town politically (not the most liberal, but more left than right).  And being the seat of government, I expect my job prospects would be decent.  It's a big enough town that major entertainment would be easy to find, like Broadway touring shows, etc.  There's also a really wide variety of places to eat there.  Ironically, I was much more impressed with the Vietnamese and Vegetarian restaurants I went to than the barbecue place.  But my pals told me it was only "OK" barbecue, so I guess there'd be better if I went looking for it.

As far as the physical surroundings, I liked the downtown area a lot.  It was definitely bustling, but it wasn't full of wall-to-wall people or traffic.  There were lots of offices and places to eat and some places to live quite nearby.  Austin has some skyscrapers, but it's not a really tall city that completely blocks the sun.  And the streets are wide, adding to the sense of space and light.  It made me think that if life took me to Austin, I could find a place downtown and make a little life for myself and be content.

I did the usual drive-in-loop-around-the-city tour, stopping at shops and coffee houses and libraries, then walking around the residential neighborhoods.  This is where Austin failed to capture my attention, I think.  Although I made about 15 stops all around town (not counting downtown, even!), none of the neighborhoods really made a lasting impression on me.  Maybe it's because Austin is relatively new compared to the architectural styles I tend to like?  Because there were certainly some interesting neighborhoods, with both residential and commercial parts.  And more vintage, antique and consignment shops than I've yet come across (and which would normally make me like a place).  But they just didn't catch my eye or pique my interest the way a number of other places have.  Even a few short weeks after my stop in Austin, I'm having trouble remembering neighborhoods, whereas some other cities I've visited still stand out clear as day.

One of several super funky vintage shops in Austin.

And of course, there are some objective factors I wouldn't like about living in Austin, particularly the political leanings of the state generally and the weather.  If you've read my blog pretty much at all, you'd know that I'm a fan of cooler weather and cloudy days, and don't really love prolonged heat and sun.  And Austin has plenty of hot and sunny days.  But I guess I'd have the sun and heat to thank for keeping my house from being washed away in a flood.

In short, I liked Austin and found it comfortable in a number of ways.  I could see why many people like living there.  It just didn't do enough for me to be under consideration as my future home.

I Remember (My Trip To) The Alamo!

And good thing too, because it was two weeks ago and I didn't write about it at the time.

On my way to Austin, I stopped in downtown San Antonio, Texas for a few hours, mostly to see The Alamo and anything else I could squeeze in.  I picked a bad day to visit, because Something Special was going on downtown (I still don't know what) and even though it was a Sunday, pretty much every parking space in the city was already taken.  I finally found a spot down a mildly-shady residential street (shady as in dangerous, not tree-lined) so I got my spot without paying the outrageous parking lot fees.  Ahem.

Anyway...  The Alamo is just like it looks like on TV.  (In fact, the photo from the official website looks just like my photo here!)  It's pretty small, and you can go inside (but cannot take photos).

I rented the audio tour, which I almost always do because they are full of information.  So now I actually know what the battle for The Alamo was all about, what The Alamo actually was, and what the other buildings nearby were used for.  I also learned some about Texas's history as an independent country.

I usually dislike random people being in my photos, but the look on this lady's face is too great to delete.

And speaking of Texas being an independent country... a Google search for "Republic of Texas" returns a website explaining how Texas is still an independent country as the very first result.  Before the Wikipedia entry on the actual Republic of Texas!  Well, stuff like this does a lot to explain why I saw far more Texas flags than U.S. flags in both San Antonio and Austin:

The eyes of Texas are upon you.

Maybe at the next Republican, um ... "debate," someone should ask Rick Perry just how patriotic Texans can be, still flying their own flags and thinking they're a separate country and all.

Coming up next:  Austin auditions to be my next home.

Coolest Carlsbad Caverns

In the middle of nowhere in southeast New Mexico are the Carlsbad Caverns.  If you are ever anywhere near them -- anywhere at all -- I urge you to go visit.  Nay, I insist.

This is the land above the Caverns, for as far as the eye can see.

I'd heard about the Carlsbad Caverns before.  As in, I'd heard the name but didn't know anything about them.  But they were on the map of New Mexico and were sort of on my way to Austin, Texas, so I decided to stop and see them.  In my head, before arriving, I pictured something like the Luray Caverns in the Shenandoah Valley.  That is, pretty cool but something I'd seen elsewhere.  Boy was I wrong.

The entranceway, looking out.

As you know, I've been a lot of places this year.  And in the past two years, I've been even more places, including Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Forest and The Badlands, plus all the places I've blogged about here.  And I have never seen anything that impressed me more than Carlsbad Caverns!  They were ... amazing.  O.M.G.

Probably the inspiration for some H.P. Lovecraft stories.

The caverns are enormous.  There are two main caverns (and a few smaller ones), each of which is at least as vast as a football stadium.  Except they are completely enclosed, by rock.  I took the elevator down to the lower big cave, then walked back up and out through the other cave.  At first, I didn't see a whole lot, then all of a sudden, I had one of those moments where I stopped dead in my tracks and my mouth dropped open and I could only stare, the cavern was so big and magnificent.

Sadly, even the world's best camera cannot capture the magnificence of the caverns because it is impossible to light up the entire space.  My little point-and-shoot was certainly no match for the place.  :(  But I hope these close-ups of some formations give you an idea of how cool it is inside, even if they don't begin to show the scope of the caves.

Can you see the moisture on the rocks?  They were created from thousands of years of water slowly dripping down the walls.

My one small sadness at Carlsbad was that I missed the evening's bat flight, when thousands of bats come pouring out of the cave at sunset.  (So if you do take my advice and go see the Caverns -- and you should! -- be sure to plan your trip so you can catch the bat flight either the night before or the day of your trip.)  As a small consolation prize, though, I did get to see some 45,000 year old bat guano, just sitting on top of some giant rocks in the main cave.  Pretty impressive stuff.

This International UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico Is A Bit Silly

I don't really need to say a lot more, do I?

These guys move.  Just a little bit.  Just enough to be creepy.  Creepier than they would be anyway.

I did learn what the Roswell Incident was all about.  You can read about it yourself; there are several sources on the web.  But I will say this:  I don't think that the farmer who found weird stuff in his fields really found a crashed alien spaceship.  But I do think that if the U.S. Government had just ignored it all, no one outside of a 5-mile radius would ever had heard of anything.  But the dumb government made a big freaking deal about keeping the farmer's findings secret, thereby guaranteeing everyone would know he found something that the government didn't want people to know about.