Merry Christmas!! (12-25-12)

Merry Christmas!!!

All Roads Lead to Orlando (12-18-12)

Orlando is what we call a “bookend”.  It’s a reservation we’ve had for a long time and as we meander in that direction, we decide where to stay and how long to stay there based on being in Orlando by December 21st.  We could, of course, take the direct route, the highway, and be there in about 2 days, but for the last week or so we’ve decided to meander along the coast and through some of the smaller towns.  We’re not doing anything exciting, just some shopping, exploring and biking.    Here are some snippets of what we’ve been doing:

The snowman cometh: Paul bought a snowman to decorate the front of the truck.

  






   

We heard that Tony’s Restaurant on Cedar Key won the National award for Clam Chowder 3 years in a row before the recipe was retired, so we had to check it out. After stuffing ourselves we can both attest to the fact that this clam chowder is definitely some of the best we’ve ever had.

After gorging ourselves, we biked most of the island of Cedar Key. Ok, we weren’t really supposed to take the bikes on this boardwalk but the “No bikes” sign was so old, the circle with the slash wasn’t visible.  Oops.

Manatee Springs State Park was on our route so we stopped in, just in case the manatees had arrived at their winter stomping grounds.  They hadn’t, unfortunately. The spring was pretty, but not as “swimmable” as Balmorhea in Texas.

The hiking trails at Manatee Springs involve boardwalks above the swamps.

It’s not often that Paul has truck envy, but when he saw the horns on this truck, he had to start a “honking” war. A good time was had by all.

The bike trail near Bushnell, FL, led us through a  regional park, complete with resident hawks.  The trail we biked was a “rails to trails”- a bike trail that was originally a train track.

A nearby sign posted the story of a long ago railroad tragedy. Two freight trains, loaded with perishables and dry goods  were headed towards each other on the same track. With no way of communicating, they collided  head on, at this spot, in 1956, killing 4 people. The local dispatcher realized the trains were going to collide, and sent the station agent to see what he could find.  By the time he arrived, the two trains had already smashed into each other. derailing 4 engines and 16 rail cars.  There is an irony to this story.  Aboard both trains were brand new radios. The engineers were part of a group that had decided not to use the radios until they were granted additional pay as Radio Operators. 

 
Way Down upon the Suwannee River….When I saw the sign for this river, I thought it was a different river from the one in the Stephen Foster song because that Suwannee is spelled Swanee.  As it turns out, he just misspelled it, and it IS the same river.  In fact, that song is the Florida state song.

…and then there were the beaches (12-14-12)

They don’t call this the Emerald Coast for nothing!

Gulf Shores, AL

 

The sand on the beaches here is the color of granulated sugar- absolutely gorgeous.  Why?  As the granite from the southern Appalachian mountains erodes and is swept down southern bound rivers, it is weathered down into its original minerals. Quartz is the mineral that survives longest on the trip down here, so the beach sand is made up of 90% Quartz crystals.

Pensacola, FL 

 

Destin, Florida  

We stayed at Henderson Beach State Park in Destin, FL for a couple of days, home to one of the largest fleets of charter fishing boats in the country. Although Florida bears the nickname “the sunshine” state, we’ve hardly seen the sun in the few days that we’ve been here.  In fact, it’s been downright chilly.  We spent one afternoon wandering through Harbor Town, a small area on the water with restaurants and shops.  We were pleasantly surprised by the appearance of the sun, and were able to shed our jackets for a while as we sat on the deck of a restaurant, enjoying an adult beverage.

Forts and more forts(12-8-12)

Both Fort Morgan and Fort Pickens were built pre-Civil War. Fort Morgan was placed to protect Mobile  Bay and Fort Pickens guarded  Pensacola Bay.

Fort Morgan was held by the Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil War, but the Union knew that taking Mobile bay was important to the outcome of the war.  One major battle was fought there- the Battle of Mobile Bay.  Union Admiral David Farragut arrived with his fleet of wooden ships and ironclad Monitors (small warships).  As the first of the vessels entered the harbor,  the lead ship quickly sank. It turns out the harbor was littered with torpedoes.  In the 1800s a torpedo was more like what we would consider to be a mine.  They were essentially bombs, sitting beneath the surface of the water. When Farragut was informed of the torpedoes, he reportedly made the decision that taking the bay was more important than the risk and yelled out “Damn the torpedoes- full speed ahead!”. Pushing through the Confederate defenses allowed the Union to get into position to capture the fort.

Fort Pickens is located on Pensacola Bay and was held by the Union for the duration of the war.  Across the bay, Fort McRee and and Fort Barrancas were held by the Confederates.  For months the soldiers in these forts essentially had staring contests, with no movement, skirmishes or battles fought. 

 In late 1861, the Union finally started the action by bombarding the two forts with cannon fire.  Unfortunately they were so far away that the cannon balls all landed in the bay.  Most of the damage that was done to the opposing forts was accomplished by the warships that arrived to help.  After two days of bombardment, over 6000 cannonballs had been fired, and in the end, the situation was essentially the same.  The following year the Confederates decided that the forts were not worth defending, and their troops were needed elsewhere, so they abandoned Fort McRee and Fort Barrancas.

Paul and I have seen quite a few of these pre-Civil War forts across the country, and it turns out many of them either saw no action, ever, or very little.  It has boggled my mind that time after time we find out that it took 12 –30 years to build a fort, and then that fort never fired a single shot in battle.  I got my answer at Fort Pickens on the guided tour we took. At the time these forts were built, warfare hadn’t changed in any essential way in 100 years, so these forts were built solidly and painstakingly to withstand the weapons of the day and were expected to be viable for years to come.  Unfortunately, by the time of the Civil War, advances in weapons had taken place that rendered these forts vulnerable and obsolete. One of the advancements was rifled cannons, which were much more accurate and could fire a projectile that traveled much further than their smooth barreled predecessors.

In later years some of the forts were modernized, creating a fort within a fort, to keep them viable for modern warfare.

What’s wrong with this picture?  Although it was 77 degrees the day we arrived at Fort Pickens, the following day the weather took a turn for the worse and the high was only in the low 50s.  Paul and I rode our bikes to the fort from the campground wearing our winter gloves, hats and jackets!

Freak snow storm hits Florida! (12-12-12)

  

Just kidding~these are pictures of the amazing beach sand down here in Alabama and Florida.  More later.

USS Alabama (12-6-12)

Continuing our military theme, we drove into Mobile to tour the USS Alabama, a World War II battleship that now lives at Battleship Memorial Park.  The Alabama actually had a pretty short active life, being commissioned in 1942 and de-commissioned in 1947, but she earned 9 Battle Stars-awards given for meritorious participation in battle.

 

   She has over 120 guns, including three enormous turrets like the one in this picture.

I was very surprised to see that the turrets were open, and we could go inside.  I sure am glad I am not the person who had to be in there when the fighting was going on!

I am sure sitting at the guns while wandering the “museum” ship feels a little different than it would have for the sailors during the war.








 

In the same park is the USS Drum, a World War II vintage submarine. The tour of this vessel felt like walking down a narrow tube, as compared to the battleship.  This ship was built in Portsmouth New Hampshire, a place I am very familiar with.

After first coming aboard, each seaman has to “pass a test” before he is considered to be a teammate, and to have any usefulness, by his peers. 

He has to learn every switch, valve, pipe and piece of equipment on the submarine, what it does and how to operate it.  Once he qualifies, he earns his Dolphins, and becomes a member of a very small, elite group of sailors/submariners.

The USS Drum is responsible for sinking 15 Japanese ships during World War II. This is a picture of an actual ship that she sank.

NAS, Pensacola, Florida (12-4-12)

We’re not staying in Florida yet, we’re actually staying in Summerdale Alabama, at an Escapee’s park about a half hour from the beach, but we took a day trip to Pensacola to visit the Naval Aviation Museum.

The Museum has two hangars full of airplanes,memorabilia and historical displays.

The NAS (Naval Air Station) in Pensacola is also home to the world famous Blue Angels.  Although we didn’t get to see them practice, I did watch two of them take off and fly around.

 

Inside the museum there were many Blue Angel displays, and interactive exhibits.  There were several cockpits that we could climb into….

This is me in the cockpit of a vintage Blue angel plane.  There were also several flight simulators, but you had to pay extra- anywhere from $5-$20 depending on what you want to experience.  We decided it wasn’t worth it for us.

I admit that I pretty quickly had information overload.  Paul has more of an interest in military information than I do, but this display, part of a larger Vietnam exhibit,  brought back memories! The case is full of MIA-POW bracelets that were sold back in the 1970s.  Each bracelet is engraved with the name of a Vietnam vet who was either a POW, or Missing In Action.  A bracelet would be bought and worn by someone (lots of teenagers bought them) until the soldier came home.  Over 5 million bracelets were sold.

My favorite part of the day was the trolley tour.  Our driver, Dave, is retired military and had a great sense of humor.  As we drove around looking at planes, he not only told us the history and significance of each aircraft, he told us many anecdotal stories about them.  Of course, he also told us that some of the stories may not be true.

This plane is the SNJ Texan, which was flown during World War II.  The story is that before the U.S. entered the war, Canada asked us to sell them these planes, but we felt that politically we needed to maintain a more neutral stance so we refused.  However, soon thereafter, a small fleet of these planes was flown north, close to the Canadian border.  The pilots then took a lunch break, leaving the planes alone- and when they got back, the planes were gone!! Dave said he wasn’t sure if the story is true, but said years ago he gave a tour to a veteran who said he was there when it happened.

When landing on an aircraft carrier, a plane goes from 150 mph to zero in about 2.5 seconds. Its really more of a controlled crash than a landing.  In 1963 the Navy wanted to find out if a C-130, with its 130 foot wingspan, could land on a carrier. They borrowed a plane from the Marines to use as a test, and, off the coast of Massachusetts, were actually successful landing the C-130 on the carrier 21 times, clearing the on deck control tower by only 15 feet.  The Navy concluded that although do-able, it wasn’t practical, so no other C-130 has ever landed on an aircraft carrier.(This story IS true, and this is the actual plane that did the landing)

When this plane first took to the skies in the 1960s, the government received numerous phone calls that told about a UFO that had picked up an airplane and was flying off with it.

We spent most of the day at the museum and didn’t see everything.

Meridian MS (12-01-12)

Spending time in the “deep south” has been an interesting learning experience.  Having grown up in Boston, there was really only one war as far as we are concerned- the Revolutionary War. 

Spending time in Mississippi and Alabama (even though it’s not a lot of time) I see how proud the people in these states are to be from the south. 

There are many places where the confederate flag still flies, including inbedded in the Mississippi state flag.

A plaque in one of the many confederate cemeteries reminds people to remember that these soldiers paid the ultimate sacrifice, and fought for something that they believed in.

One of the quotes in a museum really struck me- it was the thoughts of a southern lady about slavery. This is what Kate Stone of Madison Parish, LA, whose family owned 150 slaves, thought about slavery:
 “…my first recollection is of pity of the negroes and desire to help them.  Even under the best owners, it was a hard, hard life:  to toil six days out of seven, week after week, month after month, year after year, as long as life lasted; to be absolutely under the control of someone until the last breath was drawn; to win but the bare necessities of life, no hope of more, no matter how hard the work, how long the toil; and to know that nothing could change your lot.  Obedience, revolt, submission, prayers-all were in vain.”

It’s a totally different perspective of the Civil War, here in the south. Being here somehow makes it more personal, less of a history lesson and more of a peek into a different culture.
One of our stops along the way was Meridian, which was once the largest town in Mississippi. For our purposes it’s history began in the mid 1800's, when Paul's ancestors showed up on the town's 1860 census.
Meridian is where he lost "the scent" in his quest to discover his family history.

He knows his great grandfather was born here, but not much else.  We spent two days going through old records and realized it would take weeks to sift through everything there is, so we tried to look at the most likely places to find information about weddings,  and deaths.  Unfortunately the Civil War started during the few years that his family lived here, so official records are hard to come by.

Between bouts of researching, we enjoyed the small town of Meridian.  We walked some of the long trails in the local park, and were impressed with the amenities. Along the trail there were fitness stations, allowing for a complete workout all in one outdoor setting. There were multiple trails, some as long as 5 miles.

We also happen to be in town during the evening Christmas parade, and got to watch Santa’s float meander down main street. It put me in the Christmas mood, and soon thereafter, we got out the Christmas decorations. That’s as far as my mood took me though, so the decorations have been sitting on the couch for the last few days.  Paul did put up the outside lights and has already gotten more than a normal amount of compliments. 

The Siege of Vicksburg (11-28-12)

41% of the continental United States drains through the mighty Mississippi River. It has long been a major conduit for trade goods and raw materials, and continues to be one today.  During the Civil War of the 1860s, it was also used by the Confederate army to move munitions and troop supplies.  Abraham Lincoln knew that he needed to split the confederate army apart by gaining control of the Mississippi River.  By the end of 1862 he had gained control of most of the major towns along the river- except for Vicksburg, Mississippi, a very difficult town to conquer.

   

   In addition to the benefit of being on the river, Vicksburg has the advantage of resembling a natural fortress. It sits high on a bluff surrounded by deep trenches, making any enemy approach, whether by land or water, virtually impossible.
Abraham Lincoln sent General Ulysses S.Grant to take Vicksburg, telling him that “Vicksburg is the key.  The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.”
For months, Grant tried multiple approaches to capture Vicksburg and all were reasonably easily rebuffed.  He tried a full frontal assault, a multi-pronged assault, and even dug tunnels, loading them with explosives to blow up the confederates and clear the way for his men.  Nothing worked.  What DID work was patience.  Grant eventually surrounded the city and waited.  Within 6 weeks, the soldiers and the townspeople faced severe illness and starvation. On July 3, Grant met with General Pemberton, commander of the Confederate side, to discuss surrender terms. After much negotiation, Pemberton surrendered on July 4, when Grant met his terms of parole for the confederate soldiers in Vicksburg.
Upset with the timing of the agreement, for many years the citizens of Vicksburg did not celebrate the 4th of July.  The date of surrender was not a coincidence, however.  Pemberton chose that time frame because he felt he would secure better terms for his men on Independence Day.
The battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg occured at almost the same time, and both had significant impact on the outcome of the Civil War.  

  We took an auto tour of the battlefield, with many stops along the way where we could dial a number on our cell phone and hear a short blurb about why that spot was significant.  I liked it when we  got to each spot where  an actual battle took place because I could visualize it. The blue plaques represent the position of Union soldiers and the red ones (at the top of the hill) represent the confederate army.

Its scary how close together they were.

One thing we noticed were all the trees there were in some areas. Where there were rolling grassy hills, it was easy to imagine the past, but in the areas with trees, we wondered if they had been there at that time or not.  It sure would have made things more challenging for everyone!

It turns out the trees were not there.  They were planted years later by the CCC to help with erosion problems. 

In recent years they have started the process of returning the land back to what it was.

Once we’d had our fill of the Civil War. we headed to the Lower Mississippi River Museum, which teaches about life in and around the Mississippi River. This is a brand new museum whose main attraction is “The Mississippi IV”, a retired Army Corp of Engineers work boat.

There will be a lot of interactive displays once the museum is finished, including a simulator, aboard the Mississippi IV.

I love the parking signs around town!