Day 50: Meridian, Mississippi to New Orleans, Louisiana. Days 51-54: New Orleans

Serendipity, that's the watchword for our stop in Meridian, Mississippi. We chose the town simply because it was the right distance for our day's drive on the way to New Orleans after our unforgettable experience at the civil rights sites in Birmingham and Selma. But, after we'd checked in to our microtel, Greg was popping around the internet and discovered that Meridian was the birthplace of a long ago singer -- Jimmie Rodgers, known as the "singing brakeman" because of his day job as a brakeman on the railroad. The somewhat obscure singer's name sounded familiar. Greg realized he'd read about Rodgers recently in a biography of Johnny Cash, Rodgers was an early influence on Cash's music. 

      .                   

Turned out Rodgers's memorial was located in a nearby county park. When we stopped by the next morning we discovered that "ghost town" syndrome was present here in Missisippi, just as it had been in Birmingham. Even though it was a lovely day, the park was deserted. It was just us and the geese. 

.                                       

We discovered another attraction, though. A beautiful carousel, closed by covid, of course. But we were able to peer though the window and Greg got a decent shot of it. Wikipedia details below.

                         . 

The Highland Park Dentzel Carousel and Shelter Building is a carousel and building in Highland Park in Meridian, Mississippi. Manufactured about 1896 for the 1904 St. Louis Exposition by the Dentzel Carousel Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the carousel was sold and shipped to Meridian. Highland Park Dentzel Carousel has been in operation since 1909 and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.^] It is the only remaining two-row stationary Dentzel menagerie in the world.

But, that wasn't all that Meridian had to offer. There's a webiste "Roadside America," which Greg often checks when we have a bit of time in the midst of our driving. It was there that he learned about the graves of the "King and Queen of the gypsies." 

                                           

.                      

(From RoadsideAmerica.com)

The graves of the King and Queen, but especially the Queen, are easy to spot in the cemetery; they're festooned with Mardi Gras bead necklaces, trinkets, flowers, costume jewelry, and offerings of whiskey and loose change. These are not tokens of affection, but are bribes left in the belief that they will entice Kelly or Emil to enter your dreams and solve your problems.

After a long day of driving, there's nothing like a hearty meal. 

Our next stop was New Orleans. It's kind of an odd experience to be in a place like New Orleans in the Covid era. Like many places we've been, the people working in hotels and restaurants followed CDC guidelines. The tourists . . . not so much.

                                

Here are some shots of the French Quarter where our hotel was located.  

          View from our hotel room.                                        Picking up our take-out dinner

.           

                                                                                                    

Greg's workplace . . .The Super Dome

                                                          . . .and mine.

As we headed out of town, trying to bank 4 hours or so to make a dent in the 24 hours of driving we'd do over the next two days to get home, we came across this rather interesting vehicle. It seemed emblematic of the style and flair of the city of New Orleans.

On the field: NFL Week 7, Carolina Panthers @ New Orleans Saints.  Drew Brees was almost perfect and Alvin Kamara had 148 total yards. A 65 yard field goal attempt by Joey Slye would have been a record falls just short in the final seconds. 

On the map: Distance from Indianapolis to New Orleans: 821 miles. 

Here's the map. The lines on some routes have grown fat with many journeys. I-87 to I-90 through New York and on into the midwest is a good example.

Day 49: Birmingham

Although I grew up in San Diego, which is about as far south as you can get on the west coast, I have never really visited "the South," with the exception of a short trip to Charleston, South Carolina with my mother many years ago. So my impressions are just that, impressions. There seems to be a different lexicon here that an outsider like me is unable to access, especially on a short trip. 

Given the historical moment that our country is in and the geographical location that Greg and I were in, we decided to seek out historical sites connected to the Civil Rights movement. Our first stop was Birmingham, Alabama. 

We started with The Birmingham Civil Rights Heritage Trail. The website explains it better than I can: 

The Birmingham Civil Rights Heritage Trail winds through downtown, marking significant locations along the 1963 Civil Rights march routes. The trail speaks to the valor of both common people and to the spiritual leaders who spearheaded the fight against segregation and other forms of racism.

The trail starts in Kelly Ingram Park. The park is dotted with statuary and monuments which are beautiful and devastating and very, very memorable. The photos below don't really capture the experience. 

                                   

                                                       Martin Luther King 

As you wind your way through the park, you stop at monuments that attempt to capture the terrible cruelty that marked this period in our history. In the metal sculpture below, you walk right through, just inches from the snapping jaws. On a plaque accompanying the sculpture, text and mounted photos show the real life scenes portrayed. 

Below, the metal sculptures portray the jailing of children and the use of water canons.

                          

As you head out of the park, the monument below makes you stop in your tracks. It is incredibly beautiful and haunting. The site of the tragedy, the16th Street Baptist Church,  forms the background in this shot. We stood for a long time, before we noticed the empty shoes. 

On September 15, 1963, a bomb explodes during Sunday morning services in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Carol Denise McNair (11). (from the History Channel website)

 

The heritage trail ended in a second park where, as it luck would have it, voting was going on, giving us a moment of hope for the future as folks lined up, masks in place and socially distanced, to cast their votes. 

After the heritage trail, we took a meandering drive back to the hotel. Birmingham has many beautiful buildings, most of which have an air of being from an earlier time. We found ourselves wanting to stop and take pictures and, because we weren't in a rush to get anywhere, we were able to do that. 

After Birmingham, we took a winding route on local highways lined with dense woods. Occasionally, we'd pull in and out of a tiny town here and there as we made our way toward Selma. While Birmingham felt like a fairly big city with all of the distractions that provides, Selma seemed to be very much a small town --with a powerful history, but not much of a hopeful present for those who live there.

 

 The Edmund Pettus Bridge crosses the Alabama River at Selma. 

It was a sobering experience to cross the bridge and stand where history was made by John Lewis and the other brave people who fought for civil rights.

Day 48: Franklin, Tennessee to Birmingham, Alabama

A random stop at a rest area featuring a Saturn 1B rocket inspired us to take a detour to visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Although the facility was closed, we were able to  appreciate the sheer scale of the spacecrafts. 

The Saturn V rocket was 111 meters (363 feet) tall, about the height of a 36-story-tall building, and 18 meters (60 feet) taller than the Statue of Liberty. Fully fueled for liftoff, the Saturn V weighed 2.8 million kilograms (6.2 million pounds), the weight of about 400 elephants. 

(source, NASA)

[Translated into football terms, the Saturn V was as tall as a football filed including the end zones.]

 

                                                                

 

        

This was an unexpected, but cool item. Apparently, Miss Baker was quite a monkey -- the first animal to travel in space and return alive -- and she had a much younger husband  to boot. 

As we got ready to head back to the highway for another 90 minute drive to our hotel in Birmingham, a jet passing overhead provided a photogenic moment.

Driving into the setting sun was a challenge and our detour meant that we didn't reach our hotel until quite late, but it was worth it. Nice to remember times when the U. S. was reaching for the stars.

Here's the map with our route down to Birmingham shown in yellow.