Elepent

Apologies if the photos don’t show up properly; we’re having some technical difficulties. But we won’t let that stop us, will we?

Some surprisingly busy days landed on us after we got back from Michigan, and we’ve been driveway-surfing in Alabama for a couple of weeks, in Birmingham and then Montgomery. We tried to do another photo shoot at the Sloss Furnaces, but were stymied by a faulty camera battery and didn’t get a chance to rectify it before we rolled off to Montgomery (actually, Titus) for a few days.

Adventures always seem to happen when visiting my Uncle Roosevelt and Aunt Barbara. This time, we drove out to see the edges of the meteor crater in Wetumpka, Alabama. Though the city wants to make it a landmark, rapid housing development is making it hard to see the edges of the long-ago meteor strike. The foot of the Appalachian mountain range is also in Wetumpka; in case you wondered, the Appalachians end at a little used car lot that also sells golf carts. After that, we took our cousin and her four year-old daughter to feed carrots to some local horses. This is probably run-of-the-mill stuff for many people, but for city slickers like us, it qualifies as an Adventure.

The AEV was enlisted to fetch a deer for Roosevelt, too. It was determined that it was easier to wrestle the big, recently-taken buck onto the cargo rack than to try and get it into Roosevelt’s Explorer, and thus our Jeep became a fresh-venison transport. While driving out to pick up the deer, we nearly ran into a small herd–five of them, rushing across the road and young enough that they weren’t entirely sure how to deal with the danger. Thankfully, the only deer we collected was the one that had already been field-dressed. We got some deersteaks for our freezer, as well.

Speaking of food, culinary delight is also an integral part of visiting Titus. We had breakfasts of fresh catfish, grits and wonderful eggs’n’sausage courtesy of cousin Beverly. Dinner was more catfish, as well as ribs, homemade macaroni and cheese, and greens. There were also snacks of chicken gizzards from KFC (only available in Alabama, as far as I’ve seen) in there as well. No, Lexie didn’t have any.

For some reason, Alabama proved to be a good place to find used books; the thrift stores in Birmingham actually had a decent selection (most thrift stores will have several copies of Lee Iacocca’s biography, a smattering of John Grisham, Tom Clancy and Danielle Steel, and that’s about it. We also found a cool independent bookstore with a good collection of sci-fi, and traded some of our discards in there. The Incorrigible’s got a small bookshelf, remember.

As we headed out of Montgomery at the end of the week, following 80 toward Selma (following the path of the Selma-Montgomery civil rights marches of 1965 all the way back to the Edmund Pettus Bridge), I reflected on our situation, which probably looks much more exciting than it is. Living aboard the Incorrigible costs us about as much as living in an apartment, and it was sheer luck that we decided upon this course of action before financial circumstances forced us into an apartment. So, in spite of the adventures, we’re still on a shoestring (or thinner) budget, and counting our pennies carefully at every turn. Our original plan, to move every month, will probably be tweaked a bit so that we can make a longer stop in Austin to find part-time jobs, and rebuild some of the damage that 2008 did to our financial base!

Money woes aside, though, we’re making it work. Next stop: Vicksburg, MS.

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.