Upon entering the state, you will be welcomed by a sign that says "Alabama the Beautiful". When I drove into the state for the very first time I wondered, Why is Alabama so beautiful? I mean, New York & Pennsylvania have trees too. They also have mountains & beaches. The leaves change color in both north & south.
[Ok, Rabbit Trail: We moved down right before autumn. I couldn't wait to see the leaves change. Hmm... Leaves change. Well, they did change. I joked that the leaves in the south turned every shade of copper. I desperately missed the vibrant colors of fall up north.]
And now back on topic: Why is Alabama so beautiful??
Well, a little fictional book character named "Flat Stanley" helped us figure out that question. A teacher friend of mine asked if anybody could host Flat Stanley, and as soon as the post popped up on Facebook, my kids were begging for us to do it. This would be the second time we hosted him. But this time, we just didn't want to show him Birmingham, we wanted to show him our state:
Alabama the Beautiful!
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| An excerpt from the Flat Stanley book we made for the class. |
The Birmingham Zoo
Birmingham, AL
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| The Birmingham Zoo |
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| Garrett loves frogs! |
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| On the Alabama Wildlife trail |
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| Large River Otters |
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| Bald Eagles |
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| Two African elephants picking up a log |
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| A rhino didn't want to be captured. He put a hole in the container (above Gt's head). |
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| A rhino sunning himself |
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| Can you tell what her favorite animal is???? |
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| On the tractor at the AL Wildlife area |
The Botanical Gardens
Birmingham, AL
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| There are over 12,000 different kinds of plants on over 67 acres in the city |
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| There are 30 statues throughout the grounds |
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| The kids wanted me to make it look like Flat Stanley was as big as the tree. |
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| There are 30 themed gardens throughout the gardens with miles of trails |
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| One of K's favorite plants |
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| Silly girl |
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| His favorite color is yellow. |
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| In the tropical gardens |
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| This cactus shot 4 spines into my hand. I got a little too close with FS. Ouch! |
The Civil Rights District
Birmingham, AL
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| Kelly Ingram Park ~ Where Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel & Fred Shuttlesworth organized boycotts and protests |
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| The Civil Rights Institute ~ A great place to learn and visit. |
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| 16th St. Baptist Church ~ In the 1960's, four little girls were killed here in a racially motivated bombing. |
The Gulf of Mexico
Orange Beach, AL
Gulf Shores, AL
Fort Morgan, AL
Dauphin Island, AL
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| Ok, this is a little lame. We couldn't make it to the beach, so we had FS watch our vacation video from last year. |
The Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum
Calera, AL
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| The official railroad museum of AL |
Helen Keller's Birthplace & Childhood Home ~ Ivy Green
Tuscumbia, AL
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| This place was amazing!! We loved it. One of our favorite stops. |
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| Pictured from L to R, Top to Bottom ~ Capt. Keller, Mrs. Keller, Helen, Ann Sullivan |
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| Helen's wardrobe |
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| Statue representing the moment Helen understood the idea of language |
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| The actual water pump where Ann spelled w-a-t-e-r on Helen's one hand as the water spilled over the other |
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| The little house off to the side of the main house. Helen & Ann ended up staying here and using it as there living quarters & school room |
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| The tree that Helen was in when a bad storm rolled in |
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| Helen's room |
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| Ann's room (the school room is out of picture off to the left) |
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| She hid it under the hallway wardrobe & revealed it months later. Miss Sullivan had to be rescued by Capt Keller from the 2nd story window. |
Liberty Park
Birmingham, AL
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| This replica is 1/5 the size of the real thing |
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| It was made by two French artists, Archer and Lee Lawrie, in 1956 |
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| She is 31 ft tall and weighs 10 tons |
NASA's Space & Rocket Center
Huntsville, AL
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| The Saturn V |
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| My strong man holding up one of the rockets |
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| In the landing pod with FS |
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| This pic doesn't give these thrusters justice... They are massive |
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| FS went to the moon ~ Those are some mighty big shoes to fill |
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| I thought that this saying was pretty humorous |
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| Showing FS the rocket boosters |
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| The simulator of the testing of the thrusters ~ It's very loud |
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| In the Saturn V's control room |
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| The Saturn V extends the whole way down this very large building |
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| The first moon rock brought back to Earth |
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| This (comparatively) little ring was the brains of the Saturn V |
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| The Apollo Space Shuttle replica |
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| C & Gt rock wall climbing |
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| If you get the chance, we suggest you visit this awesome place in Huntsville, AL! |
McWane Science Center
Birmingham, AL
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| Gv & FS working on a robotics computer program |
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| Learning all about robotics |
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| They had a room dedicated to 'old' game systems. A'hem... They're not THAT old. |
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| Gt playing Donkey Kong |
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| C playing Pitfall on the Atari |
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| The Bubble Room ~ one of our favorite places to hang at McWane |
Oak Mountain State Park
Pelham, AL
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| Oak Mountain Lake ~ one of the many beautiful places in the park |
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| The Beaches of Oak Mt. |
Not only does Oak Mountain have lakes & beaches, it has golf, hiking, waterfalls, a horse ranch, a BMX race track, fishing, camping, bike trails, etc. What a great place to spend the day!
Rickwood Field
Birmingham, AL
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| As the sign says ~ The oldest baseball park in America |
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| The press box (top center) only held 4 people |
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| The outfield signs were redone to resemble the 1950s for the movie Cobb |
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| Way behind this wall is a cement wall, where a home run was hit and smacked the cement wall half way up! |
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| This park was opened in August 1910 |
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| The scoreboard resembles the 1920's look |
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| In the dugout |
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| So why the pic of the roof? ~ An ejected player went on top of the roof and squirt the offending umpire with a squirt gun. |
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| A great view from the top seats |
Sloss Furnace
Birmingham, AL
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| We didn't know what to expect when we came here . . . But this is one of our most favorite stops. |
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| The cooling pond ~ 5 million gallons of water were cooled each day & recycled through the plant |
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| 250 yard long tunnel ~ the coal, iron ore, & limestone were taken through here via scale car to the skip buckets |
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| The scale car ~ weighed the materials before taking it to the skip buckets |
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| The Skip Hoist ~ Took the skip buckets to the top of the furnace |
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| The skip buckets took the materials to the top to be dumped into the furnace |
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| The Boilers ~ where the water traveled to generate steam |
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| Hot Blast Stoves ~ Heated the air to 1400*F and was sent to the turbo blower |
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| The Blower Building ~ The oldest part of the factory. The Turbo Blowers were driven by steam turbines |
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| The Pyrometer House (The Dog House) ~ The control room/building you go to if something goes wrong |
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| Iron Making ~ Birmingham's main industry 90 years ago |
Talladega SuperSpeedway
Talladega, AL
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| Just a 1/2 hour east of Birmingham ~ International Motorsports Hall of Fame |
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| The (very tight) tunnel leading under the racetrack |
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| The Lap/Position Board |
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| The Winner's Circle ~ I think TV gives it a much grander feel. It was surprisingly small |
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| A view of the Grandstands from the Winner's Circle ~ Those top seats will run you about $400 a ticket. But, they're the best seats in the house. |
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| Pit row |
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| The turns at Talladega have a 33* pitch ~ the steepest of any racetrack |
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| When we looked out the bus, the track seemed to go straight up. The racecars have to do a speed of at least 85 mph to keep on this part of the track, otherwise they'll slide down |
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| This is turn 3, as you can see, there are a lot of accidents here |
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| He loved taking FS out to see the track |
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| In the Museum ~ The kids and I loved it!! Dare I say, another of our favorite places to visit??? |
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| K loves the color yellow, so naturally he wanted a pic of this car & all the cool gadgets inside |
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| Gt in a model racecar |
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| Gv's favorite car - I'm a Coca~Cola person myself. |
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| Now we're talking! Not a huge fan of Ford, but I'm a super smoocher huge fan of M&M's!!! ;) |
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| Dale Earnhardt's car |
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| This was a looooooooooong racecar!! |
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| This exhibit kinda broke my heart... |
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| Um, did the T-Rex come out from Jurassic Park??? The car got twisted up in the fencing. That's one messed up vehicle! |
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| FS tests his racing ability |
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| What a neat place to visit. A must see if you're in the B'ham area! |
The Vulcan
Birmingham, AL
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| The Vulcan was made to promote Birmingham's iron ore & steel industry at the St. Louis World's Fair |
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| A beautiful view of Birmingham from the ground level of Vulcan Park, on Red Mountain |
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| The world's largest cast iron statue ~ It weighs 100,000 lbs & is 56 feet tall |
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| The kids compared to Vulcan's foot |
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| Vulcan was made to resemble the Roman god of forge ~ to forge is to heat metal & make something useful out of it |
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| The kids were on a scavenger hunt, put on by the park. They found the flag! |
Alabama's Beautiful Spring Flowers
Alabama Sunrise
If you ever get the chance to visit, I suggest you do!! We only explored the north & central part of the state. We didn't even get a chance to see Auburn or Tuscaloosa, Home of the Tigers & Crimson Tide, respectfully. Nor Montgomery or Mobile. Nor Desoto Caverns. Maybe next time. Alabama is a great place to explore, relax, sight-see & live!
This is just a glimpse of why our state is
Alabama the Beautiful
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