Gunter Hill Campground

We travelled to Montgomery Alabama, camping at Gunter Hill Campground. The Legacy Museum is built on the site of a former slave warehouse. It tells the story of blacks from enslavement to mass incarceration. It is quite an emotional experience as numerous stories are told via film, holograms, and placards.

Legacy Museum

Interesting findings:

·       In 1730 half the population of New York city had slaves.

·       Savannah, Georgia was the arrival port to half the transatlantic slave traffic.

·       Two million people died crossing the Atlantic to become slaves.

·       Congress abolished the Atlantic slave trade in 1808.

·       The domestic slave trade separated nearly half of all black families.

·       The Reconstruction period after the civil war offered a brief hope of equality for blacks.

·       Over eighty percent of black males registered to vote during reconstruction in Alabama.

·       But a series of supreme court decisions allowed state laws to ensure racial superiority for whites. 

·       Blacks could be arrested for vagrancy if they weren’t employed.

·       By 1898, 73 percent of Alabama’s state revenue came from convict leasing.

·       From 1877 to 1950 over 4400 lynchings of African Americans have been documented.

·       We read a newspaper headline about out a lynching to be held the next day. Ten thousand whites showed up to hang the man and shoot him with bullets until it ended when a bullet hit the rope.

·       In the 1960s through the nineties the Drug War and “tough on crime” bills built many new prisons that were filled by predominately black inmates.

·       The projection for the 21^st century is that 1/3 of black baby boys will go to jail or prison.

Of course, the story of Segregation was also told. It was here that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and was arrested. The Montgomery bus boycott led by the young new pastor, Dr. Martin Luther Jr, lasted for 11 months, one of the early civil rights protests. A sampling of the videos is available on youtube. 

Suspended tombstones - one for each county

We then went to the Peace and Justice Memorial with its suspended tombstones, one for every county where there is a documented lynching.

Each lynching

We finished our day with some Alabama barbecue at Dreamland BBQ to have some ribs. 

World War II Museum, New Orleans

 

We had an interesting trip to the World War II Museum, we had thunder and heavy rain, the streets started to flood and twice a passing truck doused our car with enough water that we were temporarily blinded. We spent over five hours at the museum seeing five main exhibits. 

Cook books and ration books

The first exhibit was about how civilian life changed prior to and during the war. We went from most people taking an isolationist stance with a slow move to supporting Great Britain against the Germans and Japanese. When Pearl Harbor attacked there was a quick change of heart and quick enlistment into the services. Soon industries changed their purposes to make tanks, ships, planes, and munitions. Goods were rationed, and people had new cookbooks based on what wasn’t rationed. 

Ships and Planes on D-Day

The second exhibit focused on D Day, the largest invasion in history. 11,000 aircraft, 6000 naval vessels and 2 million soldiers, sailors and airmen from 15 countries.  We went on to the 4D presentation beyond all boundaries which presented numerous stories about the war. 

Hopping island to island

The exhibit Road to Tokyo made us realize how close we were to losing the war with Japan. A few courageous actions and luck ended the domination of the Japanese Navy and allowed us to hop from island to island to allow our planes to attack Japan. Still based on the “die for the emperor rather than surrender” on Okinawa and the emperors refusal to surrender despite the death tolls in Japanese cities, made the choice of the A-bomb a logical choice for Truman. Finally, we went to the Road to Berlin. The many videos available in each of these exhibits made the day more interesting than reading a lot of placards.

Bombing Japan

New Orleans

 

We’re expecting rain this afternoon, so we parked near the National Jazz Museum and walked through the French Market to Jackson Square. The French Market was founded in 1791 along the banks of the Mississippi. At 10:30 AM the market was just opening since their lifeblood today is tourists. Lots of drinks, food, and souvenirs. We looked over Jackson Square with its statue of Andrew Jackson who defeated the British here, not knowing that the War of 1812 was already over. 

Jackson Square

The St Louis Cathedral is the backdrop to the square. It is the oldest cathedral in the US. 

St. Louis Cathedral

We stopped at the Café du Monde for the obligatory beignets and café au lait. (I had to sneeze when I breathed in the powdered sugar accidentally.) 

Beignets and Cafe au Lait

We headed back to the Jazz Museum. It had lots of artifacts from famous blues and jazz musicians, but we were disappointed that it didn’t have more recordings. We did enjoy those they had. We learned about the invention of the bass drum pedal in 1907, allowing for the creation of drum sets where one drummer could set the beat for all the musicians. The highlight of the museum was hearing other visitors making rhythm on a Congo drum.  We also learned about Louie Armstrong playing trumpet when he attended the school for Waifs. We left about 2:00 just as the rain began.

Wetlands Acadian Culture Center

 

Flat bottom boats designed for the wetland

Our timing problem came again today. We were supposed to visit the Oaklawn Manor, but it was temporarily closed (but it looks permanent). We went on to the Wetlands Acadian Culture Center. Run by the National Park Service, it just had a small museum and several interesting videos. I had hoped to do a boat tour of the wetlands, but none were scheduled for today. The video we watched focused on the Cajun culture through modern times, especially the music and the unique Cajon words, most borrowed from French.

We’re camping at St Bernards State Park, about 12 miles southeast of New Orleans. We passed ports and refineries to reach a forested countryside with signs: “Do not feed the alligators".  The campground is beautiful with great campsites – what a find!

Do not feed the Alligators!

Exploring the Acadia Region

 

Maison Oliver

We’ve been to the Acadia region of Louisiana before, so we’re planning to visit new sights. We started in St. Martinsville at Louisiana’s first state park, the Longfellow-Evangeline park, inspired by Longfellow’s poem. Here we visited the Maison Olivier built in 1815. An example of a raised Creole cottage. We went into town and had lunch under the Evangeline Oak, the meeting place of the two lovers in Longfellows story. 

Evangeline Oak

Then walked to St. Martinsville of Tours church. The town was built on church land and paid rent to the church.

St. Martin of Tours Church

In the afternoon, we visited the Rip Van Winkle Gardens. John Jefferson built his home here in 1870 atop a Salt dome. John Jefferson was an actor who played the part of Rip Van Winkle over 4500 times. The gardens were created in the 1950s by John Bayless. On November 20, 1980, a Texaco oil rig pierced the salt mine caverns underneath Lake Pigneur outside the gardens. The lake disappeared flooding the entire salt mine including the Bayless home.

Home in the Rip Van Winkle Gardens

Texarkana to Scott LA

 

We drove to Lafayette, Louisiana today. I had planned a stop at the Acadia Culture Center here, but it is temporarily closed (probably due to flooding. We arrived too late to visit the Vermillion village. So, we relaxed at the KOA in Scott, LA. It is a huge campground, but was only about 2/3rds full, probably due to all the rain in the forecast.

Talimena Scenic Drive

 

The Mountains of Talimena Drive

We started driving east to take the Talimena scenic drive through the Ouachita mountain range. On the way after stopping for gas, I noticed that the trailer had lost battery power. The gas station was next to an auto parts store. I asked the clerk if any repair shops were open, but it’s the start of the Memorial Day Weekend. He did have the battery clip I needed and a crimping tool for attaching it. After a couple of tries, the connection was made and we were on our way. The mountain range runs West to East and is 2000 feet above the surrounding land, the road goes up and down the top ridge, providing many beautiful views. We stopped that night at Clear Spring Campground near Texarkana’s, TX.

Clear Creek Campground

Oklahoma National Memorial

 

A chair for each victim

The Oklahoma National Memorial Park and Museum was an emotional visit. We started at the memorial with its chair for each of the 168 victims, each engraved with a name. The museum tells the story in photographs, video, interactive media, and witness stories of that fatal day in April, 1995 when a third of the Federal Building collapsed from a home made bomb parked in a rental truck next to the building. A normal day when people were working in various federal offices and children were attending day school changed dramatically at 9:02 AM. Rescue workers started pouring in within minutes often delayed by the threat of walls falling again. Investigators started looking for clues. By chance a state trooper arrested Tim McVeigh for a missing license plate. He was soon matched to the suspect drawing. Eventually he and his partner were found guilty.

Oklahoma Federal Building after the Blast

That night we had a violent thunderstorm at 2 AM and heard the tornado warning sirens. A rotating system was detected about 10 miles away. We made it safely through the night.

Museum of Treasures, Witchita, KS

 

The Dalton Gang

We traveled through Kansas and the turned South to get to Oklahoma City. Our stop for the day was the Museum of Treasures in Wichita, Kansas. The Treasures were quite diverse: Egyptian mummies, ancient statues from Mexico, minerals and gems, dinosaur skeletons,  uniforms and arms from World War I through Vietnam, and the true story of the Old West:

·       Most cowboys were Confederate veterans, over a half million were African Americans.

·       Westerns would have you believe that bank robberies were a regular occurrence in the old American West, but there were less than a dozen bank robberies in 15 western states from 1859 to 1900.

·       The notorious Cow towns of Abilene, Caldwell, Dodge City, Ellsworth and Wichita saw 45 murders from 1870 to 1885 among the five cities that’s three murders per year.

Wilson Lake State Park, Kansas

 

Campsite at Wilson Lake

We left Fort Collins and took US 34 west and CO 72 South rather than taking the toll road around Denver to get to I 70 through Kansas. It worked well with almost no traffic after Greeley. We spent the night east of Hays at Wilson Lake State Park. It was quite scenic.

Sunset on the Lake

Barcelos, Portugal

 

Barcelos Bridge and Count's Castle

Today, we’re visiting Barcelos along the Cávado River, famous for its medieval bridge which leads to a tower gate and the town’s wall. We walked the grounds of the Count’s 14^th century home. The symbol of the town is a rooster. The town is on the Portuguese Way and  legend says that a pilgrim was accused of stealing,  but proclaimed his innocence. Seeing the bishop eating a roasted rooster, he predicted that the rooster would crow proving his innocence.  They were about to hang him when the bishop came running, declaring a miracle brought about by St. James. We visited the church built by the Count, where we found some of the floats for the Our Lady of the Crosses Festival. 

Floats for the Festival

The story behind the festival is from the 15^th century. The town was suffering from a pandemic when a peasant dreamed that a cross was buried nearby. After uncovering the cross, the pandemic ended. We walked through the town, climbed a tower, then visited a cylindrical church which houses the cross of the legend. For the festival, it had several carpets made of flowers. The markets were open, and a carnival was in town. We had a delicious lunch of duck rice at a nearby hotel. After lunch the group practiced our painting skills by painting our own rooster.

Painting our own roosters

We had some time to pack and then we had a final gathering for a toast and to find out the times for our transfers to Porto airport. Our 6:15 flight called for a 2:30 AM transfer. It was a restless night.

This is a hard trip to summarize. The delays at the locks turned a river trip into a bus trip and at least 4 times we felt that we were rushed during our site visits. We were surprised that the riverboat couldn’t sail at night, and yet we only had one night of local talent. A 16-hour power outage closed restaurants, shops, and ATMs. This taught us to always carry several days cash, and then we had a minor panic when we got stuck in an elevator (only for 10 minutes).  On the positive side: the Douro is a gorgeous river valley and we enjoyed the free flowing wine. Our highlight sights were Santiago de Compostela, Salamanca Spain, and the Bom Jesus de Monte. We became close to several fellow passengers, and the guides we had were an outstanding lot. I was particularly impressed with our post-trip guides: Haya, Carlos, and Rafiela. Rafiela impressed me with her strong backup plan if we had a second day without power. The river portion of this trip needs improvement, but I cherish the post-trip.

A video of this trip is available on youtube. 

Our hotel in Braga

Braga, Portugal

Bom Jesus do Monte

We started our day by visiting the Bom Jesus do Monte. The bus took us to the base of the hill, where we took a funicular to the top. This funicular is unique in the world. They pour water into the top car to make it heavier than the bottom car, taking into account the number of passengers in each, and let gravity do the rest. The hill is designed as a Way of the Cross with 16 stations, each having its own chapel.  Since traveling to Jerusalem was so difficult, this was Portugal’s Way of the Cross attracting many pilgrims. It was meant to impress the pilgrim and tell the story of Jesus. It was built to counter the Protestant message of Northern Europe.  The final fountains represent faith (veiled woman doesn’t need to believe) hope (Noah’s Ark) and charity (a heart). The top fountain is a pelican feeding 3 babies. This UNESCO site was really interesting and unique.

Station for the Crucifixion

We then toured Braga, known as Portugal’s Rome because of its 57 churches. Its cathedral is the oldest in Portugal, it has been the home of Portugal’s archbishop since the 9^th century. It historically had attracted many pilgrims, until Santiago de Costella stole their relics. (The relics were returned in 1955.) We started at Republic Square from where you can see Bam Jesus in the distance. 

St. Barbara's Garden

St. Barbara’s Garden which is next to the bishop’s residence was quite colorful. The residence was built in 1450 and has windows from various centuries. Below the Residence is the city hall with a fountain with the sphere of knowledge (the state) surmounted by a pelican (the church). Nearby is the cathedral. It is quite plain inside with the organ being its most interesting feature. In the afternoon I explored further coming upon several musical groups celebrating May Day.