Hi Guys, it’s that time of the week again. It’s been another great week on the road in Mississippi, and I’m happy to share some of the highlights with you here. My week started in Cascilla in the rural center of the state, led me on a quick loop through the Delta with night stops in Cleveland, Clarksdale and Greenwood and is ending right here in beautiful but rainy Vicksburg. It’s been a week of beautiful towns, incredible food, good music and some really great photo opportunities. Despite the gloomy weather which has been a pretty constant companion this week, my spirits are high and I’m enjoying myself out here. I’m finding some good balance and trying to stress less and enjoy more. In all, it’s been a pretty awesome week out here.
Storms came hard in Central Mississippi as my week began, with hail, tornadoes and damaging wind. I was grateful to my friend John and his family for giving me shelter from the storm last Wednesday night (and for two nights before that). By the time I left Thursday morning, the worst of the storms had passed although the clouds persisted. Shadow Catcher was a whole different vehicle with new shocks, and we no longer bounce down the road like Tigger. That would come in really handy on the less-than-ideal roads of the Delta. I went with stiffer shocks because it’s a big van, so it’s not a smooth ride, but it’s enormously improved on what it was last week.
Decending from John’s place in the hills and heading west on Route 8, I came out into the beautiful, pancake-flat Mississippi Delta. Cotton fields hemmed in the road, and the familiar sights of rusted out cars in front of old sharecroppers’ cabins made me feel like I was once again on familiar ground…
As I wind up my photos from Alabama, I wanted to include a selection of rural and small town photos from The Heart of Dixie, many of which haven’t made it into my previous posts around the state. Alabama has some beautiful rural areas and some very clean and well kept small towns. I loved just driving down the byways and back country roads of the state and seeing what I could see out there. Sometimes it was nothing at all, but sometimes I came across the most beautiful little gems and hidden treasures. Many I couldn’t find a place to pull over and photograph, so they will have to live in my memory. Others I could stop and shoot and have included here. A few of these photos are from larger towns like Selma, but they were too rural looking to not include in this post. I had a great month in Alabama and loved my visits to the towns and cities I’ve featured in earlier posts, but didn’t want to leave the state in my rear-view before I posted some of these from more rural areas as well. Enjoy!
I came to Anniston, Alabama to visit the relatively new Freedom Riders National Monument designated in 2017 by President Obama. Anniston became the last stop on the route of the original Freedom Riders’ ride to protest segregation on interstate transport in the South in 1961. When the bus crossed the line from Georgia into Alabama, Anniston was the first station over the border. The Greyhound bus pulled into the station where it was met by White Segregationists and Klansmen who let it be known that integration would not stand in Alabama. When the bus pulled out of town, it was attacked and set on fire just six miles down the road. A few blocks away, the Trailways bus used in the ride was boarded at the station and the Freedom Riders were badly beaten. While the Monument is still in development, there are some fascinating signs and diagrams at the sites of both of the former bus stations. Both are informative and unbiased, as I would expect from the National Park Service. I thought it was worth the trip just for that, but as I looked around town, I really liked what I saw. Anniston has a well-maintained Main Street area (actually called Noble Street), and some cool old buildings and businesses. There are some great murals and a nice art project around town made from old bicycles. There were some beautiful abandoned buildings in Anniston as well, which I find fascinating and interesting to photograph. Anniston was given the nickname “The Model City” in the late 19th Century, since it was a carefully planned city which grew up around an iron furnace after the Civil War. Originally called Woodstock, it was renamed Annie’s Town after the daughter of the Union general who had expanded the town and enlarged the furnace after the war. The name was later shortened to Anniston. While I was only there for a few hours, I really enjoyed my visit to Anniston, and I hope you will enjoy the photos that resulted.
Coral Castle is the magnum opus of Edward Leedskalnin, and sits as a tribute to his life’s work in Homestead in far south Florida. Edward was born in Latvia in 1887. In 1913, he was engaged to marry the love of his life, but she called off the wedding at the last moment and never saw Ed again. Heartbroken, he moved to the new world, and took up work as a lumberjack and miner in several places around the US and Canada. Somewhere around 1919, he developed tuberculosis and moved to Florida for the warm air. He settled in Florida City and began work on his now infamous castle.
Ed hadn’t forgotten his former fiance, and worked to build this castle for her, in the hopes she might change her mind and come join him in Florida. Working mostly at night, for both the cool temperatures and privacy it provided, Ed slowly but methodically built this impressive structure over the next twenty years. In 1936, Ed bought a different plot of land in Homestead, and slowly moved his castle north, one piece at a time, and reassembled it in its current location. There he continued its construction until it was completed in 1940. The real marvel of the project are the 10 ton coral walls which he cut, moved and placed by himself in the middle of the night with only primitive tools and pulleys. He also built doors which weighed several tons and rested on ball bearings which allowed them to swivel easily using the pressure of just one finger. These doors gave the site the name which Ed called it in his time: Rock Gate Park. How exactly he moved and placed these giant pieces is still somewhat of a mystery, and one which he took with him to the grave. The man who built this impressive structure was only 5 feet tall and weighed in at a diminutive 120 pounds. He lived in his castle for the rest of his life, and offered tours to the general public, first for a dime and then later for a quarter. Today it will cost you $19 to tour the structure, a bit much in my opinion. For me though, I am always interested in seeing something which is a tribute to one person and their individual and unique dream…
While for years people have discussed how the proliferation of Walmart across the country has contributed to the downfall of many towns’ historic downtown shopping districts, most people may not know that the same thing is happening in deeply rural parts of the country as well. As the number of Family Dollars and Dollar Generals has grown, the number of small country stores has rapidly declined. While these big chain stores can carry more items at lower prices and can be incredibly important in rural “food deserts”, they don’t have the same personality as independent stores. You certainly won’t get the same level of service from an hourly employee as you will from an owner/operator. I was very happy when the Marketing Director of Henderson County’s tourism department contacted me with a list of the six independent shops which were hanging on in Henderson County. I took a day to visit these six stores and meet the people who were running them and try and get a feel for how they are making a go of it. It was a great day in the American heartland. These places were sometimes hard to find, and some didn’t even have a sign out front at all. They were definitely catering to the locals more than the casual passers by, but all welcomed me in warmly with true Kentucky country hospitality. Henderson County’s country stores may not have had a lot on their shelves, but they were wonderful places with a lot of heart. While trying to capture the soul of these places on film was somewhat of a challenge, it was one I embraced. This is what I hoped to find as I traveled the country. These places are the very definition of the word “local”…
My maternal grandfather died when I was just 3 years old. I have only the faintest memory of him, and it's likely those memories come more from old photos and home movies than anything else. I know the waves in my hair are his. I know he was a bombardier in the Pacific theater and served in Korea. I remember being a teenager and slipping on his old leather bomber jacket and loving the way it felt and the smell of the leather. I know that he worked at Sears after he retired from the Air Force and I kind of believe I remember visiting him there as a kid (this website was built at the library across the street from that old Sears building). Visiting my grandmother's house growing up, I spent a lot of time in his workshop building model cars and airplanes. I liked his tool collection and how everything seemed to have its place, and I always felt connected to him there. Outside of these few small things though, I really only knew one thing about him and about that side of my family which was the name of his hometown: Dillonvale, Ohio.
I love baseball. I couldn't quote batting averages off the top of my head nor could I tell you who's won every World Series, I simply love the game. I love the sight of a ball field with its crisp white lines, the call of "cold beer, peanuts, crackerjacks" from the vendors climbing the bleachers and the sound of a well hit ball as it leaves the bat headed for the outfield. I love the history and tradition of the game and how it has often marched alongside, and evolved with, the history of the country. You can probably imagine my excitement then, when, while visiting the city where professional baseball began, I was able to also view the largest private collection of baseball memorabilia in the world.
The Green Diamond Gallery, in suburban Cincinnati, is a magical place filled to bursting with some of the most awesome mementos to the history of the baseball. While it's not a massive place, I spent three hours there trying to take it all in…
The Discover Tennessee Trails and Byways project is one of the most comprehensive and far reaching statewide tourism initiatives I've ever encountered, and one of the best. The time and energy that must have been put into this project is staggering, but so are the results. Essentially, Tennessee has done all your off-the-beaten-path research for you, and all you have to do is follow the signs to your next adventure. The Trails and Byways program features 16 trails covering 5,225 miles of road and all 95 counties in the state. There are printed brochures for each trail and online resources as well. During my 5+ weeks in Tennessee, I found myself on several of these trails and found them to be a really great resource. It was an enormous undertaking by the state Department of Tourism, but I think other states could follow their lead in an effort to bring tourism dollars to smaller communities and lesser known areas of your state.
