After months of planning, it’s time for our second snowbird adventure! Our first adventure took us to North Carolina back in 2022; now, two years later, we’re headed a bit further south, to Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky. It’s a six-week trip, timed to hopefully miss lots of cold and snow – we did endure January in Chicago which gave us some record cold temperatures and enough snow that we are NOT sad to miss any that might fall in the next six weeks!

These trips are always a bit tricky since RoVer Too is coming out of winterization and the weather in Chicago determines how much can be done before we leave home vs. en route/at our first destination. Fortunately, we had some 40-degree days just before departure, making it much easier and more comfortable to load everything in and start the de-winterization process.

Since our first campground is in Northern Alabama, it’s much too far to drive in one day (about 600 miles)…so we found a perfect halfway point for a one-night stop – a Love’s RV Stop – Love’s truck stops have added these in some locations, offering full hookups, Wi-Fi, and a safe and convenient place to stop for the night. It was in the “Kentuckiana” region, near where Kentucky and Indiana meet (not to be confused with Illiana or Michiana!). The odd part that messed us up a bit was that it was in the Eastern time zone, so we left home in Central time, spent one night in Eastern time, and then back to Central time for the rest of the trip. Nothing like “jet” lag to start a trip haha!

Thursday Feb 1^st and Friday Feb 2^nd were both long travel days, ultimately getting us to Cullman, Alabama, about 60 miles south of the Tennessee/Alabama border (Alassee? Tennbama?). The weather was wonderful for both days and we arrived safely at our campground Friday afternoon. The campground appears to be home to many ducks, and they are not the typical mallards – lots of interesting black, white, and red combinations!

Mark had one repair project to tackle; there are two sliding barn doors on either side of the bathroom, and one of them managed to crack and break at the top so that it would no longer slide all the way. Very grateful that Mark is so handy – a quick stop at Lowe’s and some screws and glue and it was good as new (he might describe it as being a bit more involved, but that’s the gist of it!)

On Saturday, we drove Northeast to Huntsville, AL – also known as “Rocket City” and the most populous city in Alabama. It’s where the US Space & Rocket Center is located, along with Marshall Space Flight Center which is responsible for developing NASA’s Space Launch System for Orion and Artemis. The center is a partnership between NASA and The Smithsonian, and is full of exhibits about space exploration, space shuttles, ISS, and more. The outdoor exhibits are wonderful and include the Pathfinder shuttle stack and Saturn I rocket.  Indoors (horizontally!) is the Saturn V rocket, plus Apollo 16 Capsule, Lunar Modules, and the Skylab Orbital Workshop. So much to see and read about! The sheer size and scale of these rockets was so impressive. Oh, and it was 60 degrees, sunny, with bright blue skies. Exactly why we drove all this way!

Once we returned to Earth, we headed into Huntsville, to the Twickenham neighborhood which is a Historic Preservation District and contains the state’s largest collection of pre-Civil War homes. We enjoyed a nice drive through the neighborhood which is full of beautiful homes and an interesting mix of architectural styles from Federal to Craftsman-style bungalows. A few errands and dinner, and our first ‘real’ day of this adventure was over.

Sunday brought non-stop rain…literally ALL DAY. So it was a perfect day to stay inside and not do very much. I managed to motivate myself to go to the gym (once again, our Planet Fitness black card membership will come in very handy as we travel around!).

Thankfully, we awoke Monday to the sound of birds chirping instead of the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof. The sun was even coming out! Our original plan to drive to Birmingham was thwarted because our primary destination there turned out to be closed on Mondays…so we went to plan B and stayed local in Cullman, near our campground. It actually turned out to be a great alternate plan – we had quite an eclectic afternoon. Our first stop was Larkwood Falls. Given all the rain on Sunday, I figured the waterfall would be especially beautiful, and it truly was. What’s interesting is that the waterfall is in the middle of a residential neighborhood, not in a park.

From there, we headed to Ave Maria Grotto. It’s an interesting place on the grounds of St. Bernard Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. The grotto has 125 small stone and concrete structures that were created by one of the monks at the abbey. The structures are replicas of historic places, shrines, basilicas, and more. It was really incredible to see what this man was able to do with simple materials like beads, marbles, and seashells, many of which were donated. The replicas included St. Peter’s Basilica, The Alamo, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Our next stop was Highway Pickers Antique Mall and Flea Market. This place was absolutely massive – hard to believe a city the size of Cullman (not very large!) could support this place. Amazing assortment of antiques and thrift-store finds and lots of fun to walk through.

Our final stop was the Clarkson Covered Bridge, a 270-foot long bridge originally built in 1904. We enjoyed walking the grounds and across the bridge on such a beautiful day!

Tuesday took us Northwest of the campground, to the “quad cities” area of Alabama (Florence, Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia). Florence is home to the only Frank Lloyd Wright home in Alabama, the Rosenbaum House. Completed in 1940, it is a Usonian-style home, and FLW completed an addition that added another 1,000 sq. ft. in 1948. The Rosenbaum family lived there for almost 50 years and then donated the house to the City of Florence. Extensive repairs and renovations were completed and it’s now open to tours. As always, it integrates beautifully into the land, and is made from Alabama-native Cypress and his signature red bricks. Another beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright creation!

In neighboring Muscle Shoals is the Wilson Dam, built between 1918 and 1924; it was needed to provide electricity to nearby nitrate plants that were making explosives for WWI. It’s incredibly long, at 4,500 feet spanning the Tennessee River, and it’s the largest hydroelectric facility in the Tennessee Valley Authority system.

By chance, when we arrived in Cullman, I found a brochure for Helen Keller’s Home, Gardens, and Museum. I’ve always been fascinated by Helen Keller and what she was able to accomplish given that she was deaf and blind, so I jumped at the opportunity to visit her childhood home in neighboring Tuscumbia. Keller is known as “America’s first lady of courage”, and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, is remembered as “The Miracle Worker”. We toured the simple home where she was born and raised, and where Anne came to live and work as her teacher. The home, “Ivy Green”, was built in 1820, one year after Alabama became a state. It’s been beautifully preserved, and they have a nice little museum to share many artifacts from her amazing life.

Wednesday was a travel day, and since we were heading south through Birmingham, we decided to try and visit the Civil Rights Institute (where we wanted to go on Monday but it was closed). Since it’s in the city of Birmingham, we weren’t sure we’d be able to find a place to park the truck and trailer…fortuitously, we found street parking right near the museum with plenty of room for our very long vehicle(s)!

We spent about an hour going through the exhibits at the Institute, which is heavily focused on Birmingham as the most segregated city in America and the Civil Rights Movement during the 50s and 60s. It was an interesting and intense overview of recent history and a reminder of the ongoing challenges.

Across from the museum is the 16^th Street Baptist Church, the site of a racially motivated bombing in 1963 that killed four young black girls. There are several memorials to them, and a section of the Institute is focused on this horrific crime and impact on the community.

From Birmingham, it was about 90 minutes south to our 2^nd campground, located in Montgomery. We’ll spend the next few days exploring Alabama’s capital city!