Elepent

Hellooo,  Birmingham!  We’ve gone from the Motor City, to the Music City, and now we’re in the Magic City.  Didn’t know that was B’ham’s nickname?  (Well, they used to call it “Bombingham,” too, back in the dark days of the civil rights movement, but every city gets that–Detroit’s been dubbed the “Murder City” for longer than anyone cares to admit, too.)  It got the name because it was a huge industrial boomtown back in the days following the Civil War, and though the industry has given way to big business, the city is still crisscrossed by railroad lines, streetcar routes and old-school brick skyscrapers.

I’ve got family in Birmingham (we did a lot of visiting for Christmas) so I’ve been here regularly throughout my adult life.  This of course means that I’ve never really taken a good, hard look at the city, or explored it that much.  And guess what?  There’s some seriously fun stuff here.  Since the University of Alabama’s in town, there’s a hip area called Five Points South (not to be confused with Atlanta’s Lower Five Points), and the city’s location in the crook of a valley makes for some gorgeous scenery.  The best views are from Vulcan Park, where the world’s largest cast iron statue (depicting the Roman god of blacksmiths and forges Vulcan, naturally) overlooks downtown and Birmingham’s suburbs.  The best view of Vulcan is from behind, because he’s not wearing pants and there’s something really funny about a 52-foot tall Roman god’s bare butt.

The Incorrigible’s hooked up closer to downtown than the remote Owl’s Roost park in Tennessee was, so we’re in a more urban trailer park.  The M&J RV Park seems to be a more popular stop for travelers, so there’s a lower percentage of permanent residents.   Our neighbors have shown much more turnover than in Tennessee, with what appear to be migrant electrical workers, seasoned travelers and a few massive half-million dollar diesel pushers overnighting at various times.  The site is flat and paved, and many of the slots have nice, new level pads which means that I won’t be slipping in the mud when it comes time to dump the tanks or walk around the RV, a fact which makes me quite happy.  The park has at least three black cats in residence–they’re outdoor kitties who no doubt keep the rodent population under control.  And yeah, it’s not on the nice side of town–there’s a dying mall nearby, and every so often we can hear some knucklehead who likes to go out in his backyard and fire off some kind of semiautomatic rifle for a while–but the park itself has proven to be comfortable and safe.

My absolute, unmitigated favorite thing about Birmingham is the Sloss Furnaces.  I’m actually disappointed that I didn’t find out about this place earlier in my life, because I’d have spent more time there.  What it is, is an early 20th-century blast furnace and foundry, that’s been preserved and left as a national landmark.  The whole thing is more or less intact, from the blast furnaces to the blower building and coke ovens, and it’s all open for walking tours, which are free.  Holy crap, it’s like an industrial playground!  There are catwalks, massive factory-buildings with all of the equipment intact for walking around, dimly lit steam tunnels, and even a few old steam shovels sitting around that, if you’re daring, you can climb up, on and into.  It’s completely child-unsafe (a fourth-grade field trip would almost certainly end in numerous broken bones and blood, and the kids would still love it) and magnificent.  For steampunk fans and anyone into the post-apocalyptic aesthetic (or just big machines), it’s an absolute must-visit site.  It’s reputedly haunted, too, of course, and there’s an elaborate Halloween celebration on the grounds every year.  Lexie and I took scads of photographs, many of which will be appearing here in the next week or two.

Lexie helped to organize an online steampunk meetup at the Sloss Furnaces as well (we’ve been there four times already), and we met another group of cool folks, this time from Huntsville.  Unfortunately there aren’t any gothy clubs that we’ve been able to find in town.  What, an old industrial town that’s full of old factories that would make awesome clubs but devoid of any goth-industrial underground?  For shame.

Funds are low at the moment, so we haven’t been able to eat out much or do much thrifting, though we’re hoping to at least check out some of the local BBQ joints and what purports to be “Alabama’s largest thrift store” over in Bessemer before we’re away on the next leg of our travels.  Watch this space.

Fans of recycling and low-impact living take note: life in the RV is all about efficiency.  This is not by choice (though it’s one I’d have made on my own anyway) but necessity.  It may be a very large vehicle, but a 34-foot motorhome is pretty small for a building.  It’s possible to be perfectly comfortable in our modest square footage, but it requires unlearning a lot of habits built after a lifetime of living in our big, American three-bedroom ranches.

Our wardrobe consists of one closet, two small cabinets and eight drawers.  That’s it, for both of us.  No walk-in closet on the Incorrigible.  We had to decide very carefully which clothes we brought with us, and a lot of what didn’t come along was purged.  Moving into the RV dictated a lot of interesting consideration as to what one really needs to get by and be happy.  The tiny wardrobe is just fine, because there’s even less space for dirty clothes storage.  Laundromat trips are going to be a frequent necessity.  Luckily, our hamper holds exactly one washload of garments so we’re not stuck waiting on machines for very long.  (In fact, this dispatch was inspired while I sat in a Laundromat.  Lexie was ill last week, so we’re washing all of the bed linens now that she’s feeling better.)

The average home has a forty- or fifty-gallon hot water tank.  The Incorrigible has six.  Those long, hot showers I used to take every morning are a thing of the past.  Oh, and running the hot water heater requires LP gas, of which we’ve only got twenty-four pounds on board.  That gas also has to cook our food and run the furnace, so we keep the hot water heater turned off until we need to heat up the water for a specific purpose, like showering or doing dishes.  When the shower’s running, many RVers will be familiar with the process of turning the water off while lathering up or applying shampoo or conditioner.  Anything that doesn’t explicitly require water flowing from the faucet is done with the water turned off, so as not to waste the precious hot water supply.

This same frugality applies to water usage.  When not connected to an outside water source, the Incorrigible only carries a hundred gallons of fresh water.  Seems like a lot, but it doesn’t last forever.  Even with an efficient three gallon/minute showerhead, that’s barely enough for three ten-minute showers.  Not only will our freshwater be quickly used up by frivolous wastage, it also means more frequent trips to the sewage dump station, since all of the RV’s wastewater is self-contained.

The little compromises we have to make have made us much more aware of the impact we have on the environment, not just in terms of the gasoline our cars burn but in every aspect of what we do.  The environmentalist in me is happy, because we’re definitely using less electricity, water and fossil fuels with this new lifestyle.

Now, if only there were an easier way to find recycling centers…Alabama doesn’t seem to have a single one, and they’re piling up in the back of the AEV…

Who knew Tennessee would be so cold?  We pulled up stakes and headed for warmer climes, specifically Savannah, Georgia.  Since it’s so far south it’s practically Florida, we figured to find warmer weather as well as all the cool stuff that one goes to Savannah to find in the first place, usually featuring the adjectives “antebellum” or “haunted” or both.

The trip offered the chance to spend some significant dry-camping time–that is, the Incorrigible wasn’t hooked up at any trailer parks for the better part of a week.  We wandered from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart, basically, with a stop at a Camping World along the way.  “RV-friendly” businesses don’t mind letting motorhomes park overnight, so long as you don’t make a mess, act like an idiot, or spend a week taking up five parking spaces.  It’s not a bad deal, obviously; if you’re in Wal-Mart’s parking lot, where else are you gonna shop?

The real challenge isn’t finding the Wal-Marts, it’s making sure we don’t fill up our limited wastewater tanks, or use up all of our water.  Running the generator for an hour or two in the evening charges the batteries up enough that we can sit up late reading (movies aren’t an option, as the television eats battery power and the generator interferes with the signal if we leave it running), and we’re far south enough that the cold won’t kill us if we leave the furnace off overnight, either.  It’s been chilly, but we’ve been conserving LPG and keeping the heat off most of the time.  Sound dismal?  It really wasn’t.  Six days on the road really nailed home the feeling that the Incorrigible is home, no matter how the scenery outside changes.

We’re low on funds, so treasure-hunting was kept to a minimum.  We poked into a few antique and thrift stores between Knoxville and Savannah, but didn’t make any significant purchases.  There was a brief layover in Atlanta to hang out with Lexie’s friend Chet, and then we crossed a vast expanse of featureless Georgia pine forests and swamps to Savannah.

The city’s gorgeous, of course.  With a high percentage of the buildings downtown dating to the 1800s and before and a layout that includes open, tree-filled squares every few blocks, Savannah doesn’t look much like anyplace else.  Spanish moss drapes everything, giving the city a hoary, mystical look, especially on cloudy days.  There’s a touristy stretch along the cobblestoned waterfront, of course, home to cheesy gift stores and seafood restaurants, and then the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) is in the middle of downtown, offering a college-town influence to the retail and social experience.

Of course, the real draw for Lexie and I was the ghost tours.  Savannah touts itself as the “most haunted city in America,” the American Institute of Parapsychology agrees, and tours of the city spotlighting the myriad haunted corners are plentiful, even in the off-season.  We had no fewer than seven to choose from, including tours led by paranormal expert Shannon S. Scott and a “haunted pub crawl.”  We eventually chose Cobblestone Tours’ Haunted History Tour, and met our tour guide at the entrance to the Colonial Park Cemetery.  It was a perfect evening for it; cloudy but in the mid-sixties, without a hint of a breeze and on the eve of a full moon.  The tour group consisted of me, Lexie and a twitchy fellow from Florida who introduced himself as R., and proceeded to blurt extremely odd and off-putting questions like, “Are there any vampires in Savannah?”

When we listened to the story of Anna, the poor pregnant serving girl at the 1790 Inn who leapt to her death when she realized that the father of her baby, a sailor, was not coming back to marry her, R. burst out, “Which window did she jump from?”  I’m not going to say that R. wasn’t well–he suggested as much himself, when he informed everyone that he had been institutionalized for a paranormal, precognitive experience that he’d had.   We all nodded and edged a bit farther away from him.  This was, interestingly enough, the exact opposite reaction we had to our tour guide’s telling us about her experiences with the ghost that haunted the carriage house where she once had an apartment.   In any case, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when R. abruptly departed in the middle of the tour.  We went on to hear about ghostly cats, children’s voices that ring out in a local bed and breakfast, and the mysterious cigar-smoking gentleman who roams around inside and outside another historic home.   Great fun.

The ghosts were the thing that brought us to Savannah, but landmarks like the Pirate’s House restaurant and inn also kept us entertained.  The establishment dates to 1753, when it was an inn that became a meeting place for pirates and sailors.  These days it’s a restaurant with a delightful Southern buffet lunch and a pirate-themed atmosphere that stops short of being campy.

Savannah was a nice, lazy detour, with the only downside being that some lout backed into the AEV.  No damage was done to the Jeep, but he/she put a significant twist in our bike rack, and didn’t leave a note.

We were having so much fun in Savannah that we didn’t manage to get out to scenic Tybee Island, another destination point in the area, before it was time to head back west toward Birmingham, Alabama.