Siding!!

Not a whole lot to write about today, but siding is done!  Next up is stone!

It's hard to tell unless you are in front of the house, but the siding above the garage (the three windows on the left) is shaker siding.

This Sheet Rocks!!!

I admit it - I slacked off on the blog on our last trip.  There were just too many battlefields and I lost interest.  :-)  I do have some fun house updates to share, so I'll be lightning quick for the park section of this blog.  We went to Chattanooga/Chickamauga National Battlefield.  The South won the first battle, two months later the North won the second battle.  The end.  Our last day in the area, we were supposed to go to Stone Mountain, but we were so sick of outdoor activities in the humidity and Steve told me I wasn't missing much.  We wanted to do something in the air conditioning and after lots of research on Trip Adviser, we ended up back at the Georgia Aquarium.  The highlight this time though was we bought "Behind the Seas" tour tickets where we got to see the inner workings of a giant aquarium.  The most impressive part of the tour was where we got to look down into the water where the whale sharks and Tank the turtle are.  A whale shark is much bigger from that close!!  Plus, Tank must have known how much I love turtles because he surfaced right in front of me.  I love him.  :-)  And that's our trip.

Now on to all the fun house stuff!!!

Right before we left for our trip, we had an insulation inspection.  We knew we had to pass that in order to start putting drywall up (which was delivered right before we left...major tease!).  On the permit site, the insulation inspection was listed as a "partial pass."  The entire time we were on vacation, the inspection never updated to "passed" so we had no idea what progress we would see on the house, if any at all.  As we pulled into the driveway on Monday, I could see the drywall installed in the garage and I lost my mind!!  They were actually working yesterday, so I didn't take a video of the first floor until today, after they installed all the doors!  We also saw that they started siding today too which means stone will be coming soon after.  We do have more rain in the forecast this week, so hopefully they can finish the siding before that happens.

On our way to the house this evening, we noticed one of our four neighbors getting their mail.  We quickly ran up to her to introduce ourselves.  Nancy was such a pleasure to talk to and she was so excited for us and she seemed thrilled that we made a point to introduce ourselves!  She grew up a few houses down from where she lives now so she gave us quick info on who lives where and who to call when dead deer end up in our driveway.  We'll be living in the country, so that's important information.  ;-)  While we were talking to Nancy, a cyclist rode by and said hi to Steve as he passed.  We both were shocked that someone knew who he was at a quick glance and it turns out it is one of Steve's co-workers, Ben.

As far as the current house goes, we are very fortunate that we listed in such a hot market right now.  We put our house on the market Friday the 18th and we had a contract by Monday the 21st.  We had a second offer come in on Monday that wasn't as good as the one we were negotiating with and gave them a shot to do better.  We didn't hear from them, so we gave our final counter offer to the first party and they accepted.  It's bittersweet to know we only have a little less than two months left in our first home together.  We had a great (almost) twelve years here and we will miss being so close to our fantastic neighbors.  Seriously - I need to give a shout out to them:  Adam, Suzanne, Brett, Brooke, Briana, Jason, Gary, Justin and Ali - you all have been great friends and we will miss the spur-of-the-moment deck drinking and Cards Against Humanity nights.  I'm sure we will stay in touch and anytime you want to stop by for a night of deck drinking, you are more than welcome!

Second floor drywall

First floor drywall

Started siding today!!

We Had A 'Shell' Of A Good Time!

Yesterday, we finished our parks kind of early in the day, but I just needed an evening to relax and watch TV, so blogging never happened.  Tonight, I'm tired with a massive headache, so I'll compromise by catching up on the blog, but I'll add pictures later since that's the longest part of blogging.  I'll link back to this post once I get the pictures added.

We started off yesterday at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  Having recently been to the Kennedy Space Center, I was underwhelmed.  Steve enjoyed himself though!  The coolest exhibit was the one where you walk through a replica ISS and you get to see how they live while in space.  The giant spaceship outside and the Saturn V exhibits were pretty cool too!

We took advantage of the Huntsville brewpubs for lunch, stopping at Yellowhammer and Below the Radar.  Of the Huntsville breweries, Yellowhammer and Straight to Ale were our favorites.

After lunch, we went to Russell Cave National Monument.  This is a very quick park site to do.  We were expecting a cave tour, but it's not that kind of cave.  This is preserved more for the archaeological aspect because there were some very early dwellers in this cave.  You actually can't even go into the cave, but you can walk five minutes to a viewing platform to see it.  We did that and watched the movie and that was about all you can do there.  In our research for planning this trip, many people said the cave is underwhelming.  I think that's because they were expecting a cave tour like we thought too.  But since we went in with low expectations and watched the video at the visitor center, we were actually pretty surprised.

Like I said at the beginning of this blog, our day ended relatively early because Russell Cave doesn't take long at all.  So we had dinner and called it a night by watching Drunk History reruns on Comedy Central.  :-)

Today was another easy day too.  We started off at Little River Canyon National Preserve.  There isn't a whole lot of hiking to do here, but we hiked to Little River Falls and Little Falls (yes, they are different).  Both are very short trails - Little River Falls is about a quarter-mile, one-way on a boardwalk and Little Falls is maybe a half-mile one-way, if even that.  However, it does have 135 steps down to the canyon, all varying sizes.  We were happy to get those done in the morning because by the time we were done with the second hike, it was really hot and humid.  So we cooled down in the car while doing the 23-mile scenic drive.

We had lunch at Terminal Brewhouse in Chattanooga where the beer and the food were just okay.

That was really all we had planned for the day, but since our hotel didn't allow for check-in until 4:00, we had to kill time somehow in Chattanooga, TN.  So we consulted Trip Advisor and found that the Tennessee Aquarium is the #6 thing to do.  We were pretty sure we'd be underwhelmed after being at the Georgia Aquarium last weekend, but we were pleasantly surprised.  I've never seen so many different kinds of turtles, and if you know me, you know that meant I was in heaven!  They also had two Green Sea Turtles and I spent probably a half hour just watching them.  The smaller of the two, Oscar, is missing his tail, back flipper, and most of the other back flipper.  They suspect this was because a boat hit him.  :-(  They rescued him and found that his shell is kind of wonky too and that means he has trouble swimming, so they knew they wouldn't be able to release him back in the wild.  Since they rescued him, he's already tripled in size.  The larger one, Stewie, was found on shore severely malnourished.  I don't know how they knew it, but they knew he had been swimming the wrong way and that's probably why he wasn't finding food.  So they rehabbed him and released him back, but then a few weeks later, he ended up back on shore again after going the wrong way again.  Since he kept swimming the wrong way, they ended up taking him in at the aquarium and now broccoli is his favorite food.  :-)

We had dinner at Big River Brewing Company where the beers and the food were fantastic!  Way better than our lunch stop!

Birthplaces, (more) Battlefields, and Buddies!

A certain regular blogger is tuckered out so blogging duties tonight fall to me (Steven)!  That and I think Becky is ready for someone else to wax poetic about battlefields.

This morning actually began with a stop at Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo, MS.  The entire site is a shrine to all things Elvis, but the home has been restored and maintained to represent the life of the Preselys prior to their move to Memphis when Elvis was 13.  It's striking to imagine the extremes of Elvis' life of living in abject poverty as a boy to becoming the King of Rock and Roll.  We plan on adding Graceland to our list of future vacation stops just to help put things in perspective.

Elvis' birthplace and Tupelo home

While in Tupelo we also stopped at Tupelo National Battlefield.  The site is not much more than a manicured square in downtown Tupelo with a couple cannons and monuments.  While the site itself pales in comparison to other Civil War NPS sites we enjoyed the additional context to the struggle for control of the deep South during the Civil War.

Tupelo NB

20 miles away we also visited Brice's Crossroads National Battlefield.  The site is similar to Tupelo in that it is not much more than a manicured 1/4 acre piece of land with some cannons and monuments. Again we could appreciate the context that it lends to Sherman's march on Atlanta in 1864.  A confederate victory at Brice's Crossroads led to the Union victory at Tupelo.  That victory in turn led to the advances into Alabama and Georgia that have been reflected in other NPS Civil War sites on this trip.   Our initial inclinations to dismiss these small, unstaffed sites were brushed aside as we came to appreciate the overall story of the Civil War that the NPS is trying to cultivate through their selection of these hallowed grounds for preservation.

Brice's Crossroads NB

In between the two sites we spent some time on Natchez Trace Parkway.  We will definitely spend more time on the Parkway when we return to other NPS sites in Mississippi.  If you have ever spent time on the Blue Ridge Parkway you will appreciate what Natchez Trace has to offer.

Shiloh National Military Park has been one of my "must visit" parks for a long time.  Studying the Civil War growing up and seeing Gettysburg NMP on countless field trips I have been looking forward to Shiloh as a site worthy of the same reverence.  First named as a park in 1894 Shiloh did not disappoint.  The sheer number of markers and monuments may rival Gettysburg and Antietam.  Its size made understanding the conflict a bit difficult, but the thoroughness of the respect that has been paid to this battlefield by multiple generations left us in awe.

Portion of the 50+ cannons the CSA aimed at surrounded Union troops during the battle

We booked it from Shiloh over to Huntsville, AL, so we could meet up with one of my co-workers who happens to be in the area for travel.  He has been exploring the local craft beer scene so we were more than happy to support his explorations.  We stopped at Campus 805, a converted public schools campus that now houses multiple restaurants, breweries, shops, etc.  Straight to Ale was a pleasant surprise given Alabama's questionable craft beer scene thus far.  We found our way over to Salty Nut Brewing and then traipsed across town to Mad Malts.  Huntsville is definitely the epicenter of Alabama craft brewing.

Tomorrow brings a relatively relaxed day consisting of Huntsville Space Center and Russell Cave National Monument.  Becky should be back tomorrow night.  Cheers!

Today's Parks

Sorry for the blah title, but I can't really think of a title fitting for this blog.  I know we are vacation, but so far it has been a pretty dark, heavy vacation with all the Civil Rights sites we've been to.  I'm starting to realize that what I learned in school about the Civil Rights Movement is just the tip of the iceberg.  I remember learning that it was a violent time in our history, but I guess the public education I had really kept a lot of that out of the history lessons.  While the sites have been pretty sad so far on our trip, I'm so grateful to learn and that we are honoring those that moved mountains to achieve equality.

We started today at Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Site.  While this site wasn't so much about the Civil Rights Movement, it did touch on it a bit (I'll get to that).  This site honors the African-Americans who were pilots and airmen during World War II.  They had an impressive statistic in that no bomber they were escorting was shot down by enemy fighters.  The museum has a few planes and talks about the training that happened at the airfield.  The end of the exhibit was where the racist tendencies were explained.  It is such a shame that these men were heroes during WWII and were treated like crap afterwards.  It's like their accomplishments and the fact that they risked their lives for their country (that hated them) didn't even matter.

Hangar 1 and the air field

P-51 Mustang

Our next stop was to Tuskegee Institute National Historical Site.  This was an interesting site since it is the only site in the National Park Service to be on the campus of an operating university.  The NPS only owns two buildings:  Booker T. Washington's house (who served as the first president of the university) and the George Washington Carver museum.  We went through the museum to learn all about Carver's accomplishments studying plants.  We even picked up a couple of his works in the gift shop on how to grow peanuts and tomatoes!  Here's hoping we get good information for next year's garden!  :-)  After the museum, we caught the tour of Booker T. Washington's house which was really pretty inside.  Apparently Booker was not shy about asking for money, so there were mumblings around town when he built the pretty large house on campus.  Booker justified the extravagant home by saying he wanted the university to feel prestigious.  A cool fact about the house is that the students at the university made the bricks for the house (and other buildings on campus), laid the bricks, and did most of the wood work in the house too.  After the tour, we went to the cemetery on campus to see the final resting place of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.

Booker T. Washington's home 

Booker's desk and chair that were gifts to him

George Washington Carver's grave

Booker T. Washington's grave

Our last park of the day was actually two stops on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail.  This trail has different points of interest that happened while protesters were marching from Selma to Montgomery to demand their right to vote.  We actually were coming from Montgomery so we did this a little backwards.  We stopped at the visitor center in Lowdnes County first, which is the main visitor center for the trail.  We walked through the museum and learned all about the timeline of the events that took place during this march.  The most notable event is probably "Bloody Sunday" where peaceful protesters started to march in Selma and they got to the Pettus Bridge where they saw a "sea of blue" - cops who were ordered by their sheriff to not let the protesters cross the bridge.  The protesters were met with violence in the form of tear gas, night sticks, and other weapons.  I watched actual footage of this event at the museum and it was brutal.  None of the protesters were armed or even dressed in a way to protect themselves.  Even when the cops started getting violent, not a single protester fought back against the cops.  The second stop was to this bridge in Selma.  There are other stops on the trail, but those were the only two where we stopped.

Site of Bloody Sunday

Click on the picture to make it bigger for a summary of events.

When I go to National Park sites, I usually walk away with a sense of pride - feeling proud of what our country has been able to accomplish and preserve.  After these Civil Rights sites the last few days, I am proud of what African-Americans have achieved, but I can't help but walk away from these sites feeling sad that this is a real part of our history.  On our way back to the car after some of these sites, I keep telling Steve I just don't understand why there was so much violence and hatred for what should have been equal all along.  While I understand this is not a proud part of American history, these are National Park sites so we don't repeat history.

Ok, I'll stop with the heavy post now and end with the beer samplers we had today at Druid City and Black Warrior.  Black Warrior was far better and had many more options than Druid City.  The Scotch Ale at Black Warrior was delicious!

Druid City Brewing

Black Warrior Brewing

Yay Battlefields!! (Wait, What???)

So we all know that I'm not a fan of battlefields, right?  We all know that I'm not a fan of them because we stare at a field all day and I can never keep track of who the good guys and bad guys are, right?  Today, I was pleasantly surprised and sort of enjoyed myself!  I was able to keep track of the good guys and bad guys and there was something pretty to look at at one of the battlefields, and at the other one I was able to visualize what transpired!  I don't think you understand how proud of myself I am for actually enjoying today's parks!  :-)

Our first stop was to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, which is where a Civil War battle took place in 1864 between General Sherman (the "good guys" depending where you are from...) and General Johnston (the "bad guys" depending on where you are from...).  At battlefields, we usually watch the movie in the visitor center in an attempt to try to make me understand what is going on.  Nine out of ten times, that's not the case.  Today though, was that one time!  What happened here was Sherman trying to make his way to Atlanta and Kennesaw Mountain was one of the last stops he had to defeat on his way there.  The Confederacy made it there before he did and had a lot of time to make some earthworks (or earthworms as I call them in an attempt to make a battlefield more fun for me).  They set up a 7-mile stretch of earthworks, including on top of what is called Dead Angle.  The battle here lasted a few days and Sherman kind of made a dumb move to directly attack Johnston's men, including at Dead Angle.  At Dead Angle, Johnston's crew set up camp on top of part of the mountain that overlooked an open field.  Sherman's crew went through that open field to try to break the Confederate line.  In a very short amount of time, about 3,000 people died, mostly Union soldiers, as they tried to climb up the steep open field to Dead Angle.  Here, I was able to visualize what happened because the landscape looks a lot like it would have looked like as described in the video!  What made this battle very strange is that Johnston and his crew knew that if they didn't defend Kennesaw Mountain then Sherman was going to obliterate Atlanta.  One night after several days of battle, the Union soldiers noticed it was eerily quiet on top of Dead Angle.  A few men approached and sure enough, Johnston's crew left, leaving Sherman and his men to go on to Atlanta.  I still don't understand why they left because they clearly had the tactical advantage at Dead Angle.  I know I sound super sarcastic retelling this, but I really am proud of the fact that I was able to follow along and enjoy a battlefield for once!

On top of the mountain - Atlanta in the distance

The tunnel the Union worked on digging to blow up the trench at Dead Angle.  They got about a hundred feet in and weren't far from completing it, but the Confederacy already left, so it wasn't needed.

Looking from the top of Dead Angle

Our last stop was Horseshoe Bend National Military Park.  This was the spot of a battle between the Creek Indians & Andrew Jackson on one team versus the Creek Indians (these were known as the Red Sticks).  The Creek Indians themselves were in a bit of a Civil War because Americans were doing what history books don't like to mention - they were kicking them off their land.  Some of the Creek Indians sided with Americans because there were a few treaties in place that gave them some land, but the Red Sticks didn't find that to be enough.  Long story short, the Red Sticks inhabited the Horseshoe Bend area of the Tallapoosa River and they were defending that from Andrew Jackson's crew, however Jackson and the other Creek Indians prevailed at this battle.

The white poles in the distance are where the Red Sticks had a barricade in hopes to prevent Andrew Jackson from moving further toward their village.

Tallapoosa River

The trees down below are where the Red Sticks set up a village of cabins.

We tried to end the day with a hike to a waterfall in Chewacla Park, but got rained out.  :-(  To make up for it, we found out we were under contract on our current house!!  We had dinner at Auburn Draft House and had a sampler of Alabama-made beers.

The Kolsch and the Brown were the best!

Something Fishy

This won't be too long of a blog because we only did two things today:  MLK, Jr.'s birth home and the Georgia Aquarium.  We'll start with MLK National Historic Park.  The park includes the visitor center, MLK's birth home, and Ebenezer church, among other houses in the area the NPS has restored to the 1930's period.  A note to anyone who wants to tour MLK's house - get there early.  We got there just before they opened and we were able to get into the first tour.  When we were done with our tour, the park was really busy!  Before the tour, we had time to check out Ebenezer church and where MLK and his wife are buried.  Unfortunately the tour didn't allow for pictures inside the home, but it was a lot bigger than it looks.

MLK's casket was pulled in this cart

Ebenezer church

Inside the church

Final resting place of Dr. and Mrs. King

MLK Jr.'s birthplace

Our next stop was the Georgia Aquarium where we spent most of the day.  In my opinion, this aquarium is FAR better than Baltimore's.  I'll let the pictures do the talking, but just know Steve and I had a blast here today!  :-)

Whale shark

Tank the Turtle!

Otter

Sea Dragon

Beluga playing with his blanket - too cute!!

Japanese Spider Crab - these things were the size of a car tire!

When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's a Moray (Eel)

Enormous manta ray

Hi Beluga!!

We ended the day with dinner at a brewery that was a bit of a let down, so we made up for it by going to a different brewery afterwards which was much better!  The second brewery, Dry County, had a delicious Kentucky Bourbon Ale!

5 Seasons Brewing (only three house beers and they were 'meh') 

Dry County Brewing - much better beers than 5 Seasons

All Coked Up!

I had to travel to Atlanta for an annual conference this past week and Steve joined me last night so we could get a few parks done.  Last night, Steve and I went to the conference finale party that was at the College Football Hall of Fame, which was a lot of fun!  We sported our maize and blue and heckled the Ohio State fans.  ;-)  We ended the evening in the Presidential Suite of the hotel with the Conference Chair and other friends and we didn't call it a night until 2:00 in the morning!  I still had a couple conference sessions this morning, but they ended at noon today.  That is when Steve and I got vacation started and I am surprised we're still awake(ish) right now!

Vacation started with World of Coke which was really fun, even though I was ready to dropkick some people who don't understand common courtesies and personal space.  Steve and I love the show Drunk History which airs on Comedy Central (it is also on Hulu).  We already knew the entire story about how Coke was made thanks to Drunk History's Atlanta episode in Season 1!  :-)  The best part of World of Coke is tasting different Coke products from different countries.  I think Steve and I tried just about every single one of them!

Polar bear!!

Bubbled ourselves

Waiting for the reveal of the vault and everyone was doing shadow puppets on the walls.  :-)

The actual vault where Coke's secret recipe is stored.

Patent

Torches from past Olympics

After World of Coke, we had a lot of time before our 5:00 CNN tour, so we stopped at the Civil & Human Rights Museum.  I'm so glad we went to this museum, but it is a very heavy experience.  The first display board I read was about several segregationists who were total jerks.  I read each of their "claims to fame" as the board listed them and couldn't help but ask myself "Why?"  I just can't understand why they channeled all their energy to hating someone so much when that energy could have been much more productive for some positive change somewhere else.  I guess it's good I don't understand because that means I'm not wired that way then.  To make the visit to the museum even more powerful, they have an exhibit that explains the lunch counter protests at Woolworth.  They have an actual lunch counter set up and they have chairs you sit at while you listen to something on headphones.  I'm not sure what I was expecting because the placard on the counter where you are sitting sets you up to put yourself in the shoes of a peaceful protester while everyone around you threatens and assaults you.  Obviously, it's a museum so nothing actually harms you, but the recording on the headphones and the mechanisms on the chairs to make it feel like you were being kicked was terrifying.  The first time I heard the guy in the headphones speak to me, I jumped because I thought someone was in my space actually saying these things to me.  I even looked at the guy next to me and then realized I was hearing the recording!

After the museum, we went to CNN for our tour which was pretty cool.  One of the highlights is seeing the big news room, where there are about a hundred people looking for news.  We were there on a Saturday, so it was pretty quiet there.  If you're interested in going into actual studios, you need to splurge for the VIP tour.  Otherwise, you just look through windows to see a couple of the studios on the regular tour, which is what we did.

Studio replica

We ended the day with dinner at STATS Brewpub, ice cream at SubZero for dessert (where they make the ice cream with liquid nitrogen!), and watching the Fountain of Rings show at Centennial Park.  Tomorrow, we continue with downtown Atlanta by going to Martin Luther King's home (park number 253) and the Georgia Aquarium.