Hello Sweet Home Alabama!
We have just the morning here in B’ham (our abbreviation as fitting the A. HAMILTON craze). We put on the sneakers and head out for a walkabout. We start off heading out of the downtown area to the five points section of town but find a detour to the historic district. We are again in the civil rights area of the south. Very interesting and moving as earlier in Memphis and Arkansas. Birmingham was also the site of several marches and protests and the historic 4th Avenue district has markers along the various routes. We see the Baptist church where the marches were organized and where they started. An informative morning walk.
Plus we saw Birmingham’s sales pitch to Amazon to build HQ2 there. We will not submit our photo as instructed…we Yankees would prefer HQ2 be in Newark please!
So next stop Macon, GA. After the usual car reorg and stuffing, we find ourselves on an interstate and are randomly drawn south….off piste and we end up in Plains, GA. Yes, the birthplace and current home of Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn too.
Seen along the road to Plains:
Plains, Georgia
We make it with a half hour to spare to closing time at the National Historic site of all things Jimmy Carter. Glenda is sooooo happy to be getting another stamp…another unexpected stamp surprise!!! We were short on time so, unfortunately, we did not get time to stage a photo with Glenda enjoying her stamp opportunity. We will hopefully have a photo for you all to enjoy soon.
The National Historic Site and the park rangers are situated in the former Plains High School, which was the whole school K-11 (no 12th grade…apparently you were done with school in Georgia by 11th grade when Jimmy was a student there).
The town is literally a dot….it features, Billy’s gas station; a tiny downtown; and a couple of churches. We’re surprised that there are so many lovely homes in peanut-ville. His boyhood home is about a mile down the road from the downtown and pretty near his current compound. Amazing…life in a small town. We wonder about the Secret Service people who are assigned to him. Do they also live there? Do they rotate that duty or has one guy or family been there for a long time….just curious….please let us know if anyone has answers.
Pictures of Plains:
Finally we head northeast to Macon. Along the way there we see some more interesting sights….Mennonites or plain people are here…The Yoders seem to own most of the farms here…and a most interesting incongruity….a Yoder girl in her plain, Mennonite dress and head bonnet racing around on a ATV, kicking up dust. Hmmmmmm…We are sorry we missed that photo op. It was a good one.
Finally we arrive in Macon. An amazing Antebellum town left unscathed by Civil War fighting with 5,500 buildings on the National Historic register. We got in late and walked downtown and it really is amazing. Our B&B is a giant old house too and has hosted many celebs including one of our faves…Oprah!!!! Gloria, at the desk when we arrived, says Oprah is soooo nice. We are glad. http://www.1842inn.com/
Before we went downtown we had a nice chat with an older woman who used to work here. A southerner through and through, she had stories!! There were a lot of musicians who got their start here and/or performed here regularly and she got to see them all! Her fave? Elvis and James Brown…and a dash of Little Richard.
We will get up at the crack…really… tomorrow to see more big houses in the daylight.
Good night!!!
Hey ladies ,…just checking the blog.,Craig and I returned from our Southern California wine and highway one adventure last night. So much fun ,beautiful sights and of course wine 🍷. We rerturn to Virginia Beach tomorrow. I do miss my babies. Anyway, yep 👍 I think it is oh little town of Bethlehem . Be safe and have fun!!
Thank you so much for diving deep into the weeds of our blog and clicking through to “Oh little town of B’ham”! So odd. Glad you had a great time in CA. Thanks for reading!!!