That phrase has not infiltrated our vocabulary yet. I hope no one is disappointed.

We headed south from Montgomery on Route 31 through forested and farmland countryside in southern Alabama on January 20, 2020. Our campground was Wales West RV Resort in Silverhill east of Mobile Bay. It was cold – for the first time our water hose froze. The next morning was cold and windy. We headed in to Mobile and hopped on a trolley tour of the historic areas, including old neighborhoods, two tunnels, and a drive through of the USS Alabama Battleship Park.

The trolley driver told us that Mobile claims the very first Mardi Gras celebrations and parades. New Orleans came later. We didn’t argue. The trolley ride was a great way to see the city – there is more there than we expected, including several museums that would be worth returning to see someday.

After the tour we had more southern dishes for lunch at Felix’s Fish Camp Grill – grilled shrimp and oysters. The views of the gulf and back to Mobile were beautiful.

We went on to Pensacola Beach RV Resort on Santa Rosa Sound for the night. It was windy and cold there, too, but we walked the ocean-side beach to watch the sunset.

The next day we continued east along the Gulf of Mexico on Santa Rosa Island following the Gulf Islands National Seashore Trail. This is a beautiful drive along the area also known as the Emerald Coast.

Our next campground was Panama City RV Resort. We walked to St. Andrews State Park to watch the sunset – it was still cold – I wore my down sweater and mittens!

During our visit with Tara and Jim we enjoyed their southern hospitality and fine meals, both in restaurants and home-cooked. We had dinner at Vintage Year – tuna and beef cheeks! Breakfast included a new treat – avocado toast. Tara Cady is a talented artist and gave us a tour of her studios, where she practices and teaches pottery, printmaking, glasswork, and painting, and related arts. The studios are located at the back of an older home that she is renovating in accordance with historic zoning restrictions.

We also visited the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts where Tara was Director of Children’s Exhibitions. She saw the children’s wing through its original creation and also an expansion that doubled the space. It is a colorful, fun, and busy space. Her legacy is admirable and awesome.

Tara and Judy saw the movie Just Mercy while Doug and Jim monitored the football playoff games. Do see the movie if you have a chance. Jim prepared a delicious fried chicken and greens dinner and we ate chocolate and caramel cake – yum!

We visited the Monument at the Peace and Justice Memorial Center created by the Equal Justice Initiative. The experience brought about in us an increased awareness that lynching was and is as much a terrorist activity as any horror we are fighting in the so-called War on Terror today.

The approach to the Monument is a long walkway with sculptures of enslaved people.

We were stunned at the number of documented lynchings and killings that occurred. We also wonder at how little has been told about this history. As with the holocaust and apartheid, bringing it to light is important to begin to prevent further wrongs against people of color.

We started the first full day of our visit in Montgomery, a Saturday, going to the Curb Market with Tara. We tried boiled peanuts and bought greens, eggs, and chocolate and caramel cakes.

Back at the house Jim made a delicious breakfast using the eggs and greens (spinach) with toast. During our trip we passed the famous church where Martin Luther King Jr. had been the pastor and where he directed many of the early civil rights activities. The church was started by slaves in the 1880’s.

Maya Lin designed the famous Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. She also created a Civil Rights Memorial near the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery. This conveys many events in the history of the movement and commemorates many persons who sacrificed for the movement.

After breakfast Doug and Judy headed to the Museum of Alabama at the Alabama Department of Archives & History, where we were immersed in all aspects of the state’s history, from geology to economics to politics.

We drove south from our campsite in Pelham, south of Birmingham, through the countryside. A lot of it was timberlands, some cut and some replanted, and a lot of farmland. In Mapleville we saw a convenience store named “The Barking Frog”.

The National Park Service Interpretive Center in Selma is small, but effectively conveys the history of the Marches from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, with false starts and confrontations.

We walked across the Edmund Pettis Bridge out of Selma to a park on the east side with a variety of monuments to the marchers and to unknown slaves. The Lynching in Selma sign by the Equal Justice Initiative was the first clue we had about The National Memorial for Peace and Justice that we would see in Montgomery.

We returned to the Selma side of the bridge and set out along the historic trail from Selma to Montgomery. We arrived at the home of our friends Tara and Jim and had a delicious typical southern cooking dinner at Martin’s Restaurant in Montgomery.

We continued our civil rights education in Birmingham on January 15, 2020, in time for MLK day. The first stop was at the visitor center, where, as usual, the people were very helpful. The Museum of Art held an eclectic collection of glassware, paintings and photography. Dinner was at the Full Moon Bar-B-Que – the “Best Little Pork House in Alabama” – we recommend it! Our campground was in Pelham, south of Birmingham. The next day we returned to Birmingham and spent a good part of the day at the Civil Rights Institute.

The entire exhibit is very thorough, detailed, moving, disturbing, and informative. As we were leaving we had a chat with a lovely woman who sat at the information desk answering questions. She had retired from teaching school in Birmingham and lived through all of the changes since the 1950’s. Things have changed in many ways, and have not changed in terms of attitudes. There is still a lot of educating to do.

Throughout the Freedom Walk park there are disturbing statues.

And recognition of people who tried to do good.

That last post about Vicksburg was pretty grim, so this time we open with another sign we observed: Marvelous Kutz Hairdresser. (groans)

As of January 13, 2020, we had driven the camper van over 5,000 miles and also had a small divit in the windshield, so we got it serviced and repaired near Jackson, Mississippi. From there we continued up the Natchez Trace to Tupelo. We saw many more small deer along the road (alive). There was a nature walk through a tupelo-cypress swamp.

The town of Tupelo was originally called Gum Pond. We arrived after dark in a driving rainstorm with lightning. Luckily, Doug is getting very accomplished at setting up power and water very quickly. The next morning we visited the Tupelo Buffalo Park – we could drive through the pastures to view the animals, including ostrich, zebra, camel, Clydesdales, yak, bison, anakole-watusi cattle, and long horn cattle.

We drove into Alabama in the rain and left Natchez Trace Parkway at Mile 321. Our campground for the night was in Tuscumbia, part of The Shoals Area. The next morning we drove through Tuscumbia and other towns in the area. The most famous person born in Tuscumbia at Ivy Green, so far as we can tell is Helen Keller. There is a lovely statue in the yard.

For years the Union Army tried numerous ways to gain control of Vicksburg, the last hold out of the Confederacy on the Mississippi River and known as “the Gibraltar of the Confederacy”. Vicksburg had high bluffs and the river as natural defenses. Finally in 1863 with the help of the Union Navy, General Ulysses S. Grant succeeded in surrounding Vicksburg and cutting off all the supply lines. For 47 days the Union forces bombarded and starved the town until Lt. General John C. Pemberton surrendered on July 4. This gave the Union full control of the Mississippi River and pretty much sealed victory for the north.

There were many more monuments throughout the park, including ones representing most of the northeastern states other than Maine.

The USS Cairo was sunk in December of 1862 by a mine. It was one of seven ironclad gunboats named in honor of towns along the upper Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. In 1964 (corrected from 1864!) the Cairo was raised out of deep silt and sand. It was restored and constitutes an interesting exhibit at Vicksburg because it is so well preserved.

In the journal is the following observation after our days touring Natchez, Vicksburg, and the Vicksburg National Military Park: “The South is still steadfast about its determination to win independence and the exhibits are certainly slanted to the Confederate position.”

We took a side detour from the Natchez Trace to visit Vicksburg and its National Military Park.

The first night was nerve-wracking, because there was a tornado warning for hundreds of miles around us. Leaving was not an option. Everyone from the visitors center to the campground warned us to find a place, just in case we received a warning. So the night in our van was largely sleepless, listening to heavy rain and being buffeted by high winds. Luckily, the tornados that did occur were not near us.

Saturday, January 10, 2020 was our day of museum visits – all the civil war, Vicksburg, and Mississippi information one can digest. We started at The Old Courthouse Museum with its eclectic collections of war memorabilia to household items, including huge sets of teacups, dolls, and old clothing. With each item was a placard indicating the history of the item and the names of the family members who donated the item. Undoubtedly the recognition added to the ease of obtaining the contributions!

We watched a reenactment of a post-civil war speech by President Jefferson Davis – he was not apologetic.

We saw a lot of history about the flags of the Confederacy, and later saw lots of examples flying throughout the south.

We also visited the Jesse Brent Lower Mississippi River Museum of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Although Vicksburg was a very important river port during the Civil War, for about a quarter of a century it lost its frontage on the Mississippi. There was a sudden, one day change in the course of the river in 1876. We heard various theories about how it could happen – an earthquake, or maybe flood waters receding – but no one seemed to have a definitive answer! In the early 20th Century the Army Corps dug a tunnel extending the Yazoo River to restore Vicksburg’s frontage.

This museum also houses Motor Vessel Mississippi IV in dry dock. The ship and museum display a complex plan to control the mighty Mississippi River. There is an outdoor flood model displaying the river and levee system. Finally, the Old Depot Museum on Levee Street, right on the river, houses many ship models of riverboats and other ships.

Our dinner was at the casino, where they serve traditional southern dishes.

On January 10, 2020, Judy and Doug started our travel up Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444 mile-long road that generally follows a centuries old natural travel corridor. The Natchez Trace was a significant highway of the old southwestern states. It runs through the traditional homelands of the Natchez, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations. Many travelers used the Trace to head westward or to return north after floating crops and livestock down the Mississippi River. The goods and the wooden flatboats were sold at Natchez or New Orleans and the folks walked or rode horseback back to home, many miles over many months, we speculated. Over time some lodging and food was provided at very rustic “inns” along the trail.