Anniversary at Wunderroost B&B-November 8-9, 2014

November 8th we drove up to Lincoln to attend the Nebraska Center for the Book Celebrations. My Great Plains Studies friend, Emily Levine won an award for the best non-fiction reference. She spent 13 years editing the notes of a Native American scholar from South Dakota.

Next, drove down to Roca to the Wunderroost Bed and Breakfast.  Got checked in. Neat rooms on the 2nd and third floor of a farm house that has been in Kay and Jim Wunderlich's family since the1940s.  We stayed in the Clare room named after his brother who used to sleep in it as a kid, and whose family runs the Wunderrosa Winery up the road.

Next, up to Wilderness Lodge for supper. Had a wonderful smoked beer - the best I have ever had!

My scallops and Rick's stroganoff. 

 

Then finally, to Lincoln Association For Traditional Arts (LAFTA) Rita Hoskin concert. She played guitar accompanied by her husband on dobro and banjo.  I bought Rick all 6 of her albums.  She grew up in Northern California in forested range land area.  Saw our good friends Jackie Barnhardt and Charles "Wooly" Woolridge.

Next morning, November 9th, Jackie and Wooly came out to join us for breakfast. The hosts had made extra delicious bowls of fruit and breakfast casserole for us to share. 

The Clare room. 

Very small claw foot tub the owners got in Roca. 

 

Third floor area which also had 2 beds. 

Jackie and I got into the hot tub.  This was the last nice day before the weather turned really cold.  I finished off my weekend by taking a few days to go up to the ranch.  Liz had called Saturday to let me know that Dwight had died unexpectedly, so we spent time rounding up pictures  for Chelsea to use in his service.

 

 

Florida Road Trip 2014 - Day 9: Thursday, December 4th

Another FANTASTIC Day of vacaton.  This morning after breakfast we drove to the W. C. Handy Birth Site and Museum.  Nice little library and display of items related to W. C. (William Charles) Handy, who is considered the Father of the Blues, mainly because he wrote the blues music down.  He went blind in his 40s and then published music in braille. He was born in Florence, Alabama in a 2 room log cabin that is now attached to the museum.  He died in 1958.  His father, Charles B. Handy was a preacher in Florence.  He helped hide James T. Rapier, Congressman from Alabama, 43rd Congress, from the Ku Klux Klan on an island in the Tennessee River, for escape to Washington for Congress. 

A bust and painting:

W. C. took a band to play in the 1893 Chicago World's Fair when he was about 20 years old.

Piano he composed Memphis Blues on - -in Memphis-and donated to City of Memphis who then donated to this museum. The City of Memphis also claims W. C. Handy and has a little park and a home they moved to the site that says it is the birth place of some of the SONGS he wrote.  There was a letter from a woman confirming that one of his songs was dedicated to her father who ran a riverboat out of Memphis that W. C. played on.

He also had a Handy Brother's Publishing Company in New York.  His brother worked for him.  

George Gershwin autographed his copy of Rhapsody in Blue to Mr. Handy on Augud 30, 1926 

"Mr. Handy, Whose early blues songs are the fore fathers of this work, with admiration and best wishes, George Gershwin"

Song "I'll Never Turn Back Now"

This was a set of boxing gloves with bells and ankle bracelets with bells that were said to be worn in minstral shows.

Next--Went to Helen Keller's Birth Site in Tuscumbia just a few minutes down the road.  Their libraryis named for Helen.  This home and plantation of about 640 acres was owned by her grandparents and settled in 1820.  Apparently her grandmother was an Adams and her ancestor included John Quincy Adams, and she was a college graduate.  The tree in front was a beautiful magnolia tree - very tall! That's Rick standing there to show you how tall that tree is!  Also, on the right side is the small house where Annie Sullivan took Helen to live after driving her around for 2 hours around town to make her think that she was way far away from home. She didn't know where she was until a couple weeks later when her dog came over.  The big house had no kitchen - the kitchen and kitchen helper's room were in back.  We found a "moon tree" planted in the back yard.  The seed had been taken to the moon and back and planted. Also in the back yard was a Lion's display of being the Knights for Blindness and a video of Helen talking.  She sounded really pretty normal - I was amazed.

Here is the little cottage. This was the orginal house that Helen's parents lived in before they moved over to the big house.

This was Helen's bed upstairs in the big house - Annie's was on the other side of the room.

This was a statue just like the one in Statutory Hall in WDC.  Rick noticed that the well was not like the one that was outside that she pumped from.......

Next---Lunch with cousin Don Nicolaresn who is an engineer with the space program. Really gald he was able to work part of the day and spend the rest of the day with us. We ate at Clanch Cafe near a pond in Tuscumbia then went to the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

We watched the documentary Muscle Shoals about the music industry -- Rick Hall and Fame Studios that started the Muscle Shoals sound. 

 Percy Sledge--a hospital orderly in Sheffield who recorded at Fame Studios  - "When A Man Loves A Woman" which made it to #1 and made the Rolling Stones want to come to see who the Black Studio Musicians were, only to find they were these white guys known as the Swampers.

Afterthe museum closed at 5pm we said good-bye to Don and headed toward Memphis, TN.  Just before we left Alabama, we found gas for $2.39 -- had't seen that price since Columbia, MO so got some.  Checked into the world famous Peabody Hotel and then went to world famous Beale Street around the corner.  Lots of music clubs with live music but not a lot of people on the streets.  Ate at Pig on Beal-a BBQ place that had won lots of awards for a great supper.

Florida Road Trip 2014 - Day 8: Wednesday, December 3rd

Today was spent at the Kelly Ingram Park across the street from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) and the 16th Street Baptist Church, and walking the March For Government and March for Education Trails, and at the BCRI. The BCRI didn't allow photos so I don't have many to share.

Here is a picture of the 16th Street Baptist Church which was bombed in 1963 and killed four girls-2 boys were also killed that day, one by a straight A student and Eagle Scout, the other by a police officer.  The church was open until 3pm but I didn't know it so missed seeing inside.

Directly across the street is the BCRI and diagonally is the Kelly Ingram Park. Here is a shot looking from the park past MLK statue and statue of the four girls toward the 16th Street Baptist Church.

This is a close up of one of the girls who liked to read with a book on her lap.

We arrived 30 minutes before the BCRI opened, so I went over to Kelly Ingram Park named for the first guy who died from Birmingham in WWI.  This was ground zero for the civil rights movement and also the site of those awful images everyone remembers from television in 1963 Palm Sunday with a march led by Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and Rev. Martin Luther King.  Images of Bull Conner and the Birmingham Police Department Dogs and firemen spraying water on the 2000 marchers assembled to peacefully protests the oppression of the strictly segregated society that was entrenched in Birmingham. It was the most segregated city in the south.  The BCRI has windows on the second floor that over look this park.

The park had several information signs (1-6) you could call 204-307-5455 and get information about the event.  There were several sculptures commemorating this horrible day:

Fire Hoses spraying kids against a wall

Birmingham Police Dogs jumping out with snarling teeth

A jail with two children saying "Segregation is a Sin"

A policeman with a dog threatening a boy

The three ministers kneeling:

The protests in Birmingham were organized by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR)  which was organized immediately after the state of Alabama outlawed the operation of the NAACP in Alabama June 1, 1956.  The ACMHR was led by Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.  Five times, (more than any other single individual in American History) Rev. Shuttlesworth had been an appellant in the United States Supreme Court, in his fight for desegregation in Birmingham.  In 2001, President Clinton awarded him the Presidential Citizen's Medal, and in 2008 the airport, where he had been arrested for trying to use the airport restaurant and limo service, was renamed the Birmingham-Shuttelsworth International Airport. I was told by one of the staff that he is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in town.

At the park started a couple walking trails - These had signs with information and you progressed down the streets.  I walked the March to Government which led me several blocks to the public library. I was really proud of my profession to learn that when African American students from Miles College had entered the segregated library and staged a sit in, that the library board held an emergency special board meeting that same day and voted to desegregate the library 36 years to the day that it first opened.

From there I took another March to Education which took me to the Phillips School where Reverand Fred Shuttlesworth tried to enroll his two girls in 1957 and was beaten by Ku Klux Klan.  His home and church were bombed several times during this struggle.

Cost of BCRI was $12 for the day. One of the volunteers taught school for BPS for 31 years. She said her first year was 1971 and she had 18 white kids and 2 black kids in her classroom. She said it took some time but this was the first time she had spent around white people and she was pretty sure that it was the first time they had spent time with black people but their parents knew that she was wanting the best for the children and their education.  Her mother to this day has not been to the BCRI because she said "She lived through it - and didn't want to see it again."  Her husband was one of the first black firemen. She said they put broken glass in his boots and a noose in his locker.  But now, looking back, he loved his career and would do it again.  

We left Birmingham and headed to the Muscle Shoals area were we ate supper at Ricitoni's Italian Grill and stayed at the Comfort Inn in Florence.  I talked to Cousin Don who is in Huntsville and we may rendezvous tomorrow. 

Florida Road Trip 2014 - Day 7: Tuesday, December 2nd

Today our goal was to get to Birmingham, Alabama via Borden Black and Nelson McGhee's home in Columbus, Gerogia where we were invited to have lunch.  It was 5 hours from Jacksonville to Columbus to we got out of the house at 7:30 with only a cup of coffee and a left over piece of Cracker Barrel Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.  Leaving JAX we passed by the new Rosa Parks Transit Center and past the Martin Luther King, Jr. Parkway.  It is great that there is recognition of these civil rights activists here.

We passed over the Suwannee River and the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park.  Turns out Foster was never in Florida, but his "Old Folks At Home"  (Way Down Upon the Suwannee River) tune was adopted by Florida as the state song in 1938 after changing some of the racist lyrics.

We passed through a lot of agricultural areas--including cotton fields irrigated by center pivot irrigation. The first picture is of a cotton field that looks like it had been picked-the second one is ready to pick.

Some of the cotton bales were round, some were square, and we saw a semitruck pulling up one of the square bales into it's trailer:

We saw pecan groves - - and Rick thought he saw a new peach orchard with small trees-it was also being irrigated by center pivot. Here is the pecan grove:

Magnolia Plantation must be the Wall Drug of Alabama-- there were lots of road signs trying to direct us there for pecan pies and such.

We went past Albany, which has it's own Civil Rights Museum telling it's story -along the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains, GA was only 21 miles off the Martin Luther King Junior Drive.

We arrived about 1pm for lunch.  Borden was experimenting on us with a Southern / Cajun meal she was planning to make on her next excursion -- chicken smothered in vegetables over rice with toppings of egg, slivered almonds, apple chutney, raisins, cocoanut and a great side salad and a really chocolate chocolate bar with a hint of cinnamon.  All is I can say is her experiment passed with flying colors.   Lots of train talk. She was not too happy at our report that the window in the Dearing had not been replaced yet as her trip is coming up soon.  They are trying to find people who would like to go in on owning the Berlin as it is for sale and they would like to continue to companion with it.  

We had and a tour of Nelson's Georgia Railroad memorabilia (his grandfather was a station master) including a whole rack of trainsmen's lanterns and a couple of impressive rail road ticket racks.  Here Rick and Nelson look at one of his treasures:

Nelson said this lantern was in a shop asking $15 - he said there was a piece missing and the globe broken so he got them down to $10.  Turns out it is from 1887 and worth four figures now.

This was a small ticket rack -- the big one was in the other room and was over 5 feet tall.

Borden was an Army brat who grew up all over the world including the orient so she was hosting the Daughters of the US Army at her house next week for a luncheon. She showed me her collection of coral.  She and Nelson have a house full of family heirlooms, including paintings by her mom.

We left about 4pm for the 3 hours to Birmingham.  Columbus, GA is right next to Alabama--we crossed the Chatahoochie River into Alabama and headed west on US 280 & 85.  Again, we passed so many interesting places but didn't stop.  Here are a few:

Tuskegee Airmen Museum

First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery

Confederate Memorial Park

We traveled on the War on Terror Memorial Highway (I65) which is a stretch in memory of those from Alabama who have fought and died after 911 in the War on Terror.

Arrived in Birmingham and ate supper at Crazy Cajuns Boiling Pot.  "Pinch Me, Peel Me, Eat Me" was their motto.  

I had the delicious Baked Cheddar, Smoked Gouda Grits served with Shrip and Andouille Sausage in White Wine Garlic Cream Sause. YOLO.  As of this moment, if anyone asked me what the best thing I'd ever eaten was, this would be it.  Rick had the Louisiana Gumbo with authentice dark file (pronounced Fee Lah) (which is sassafras) with rice.  His was pretty spicy so we stopped at CVS for some tums.

We are staying at a Holiday Inn Express - - pool open until 9pm so got a bit of a swim.  Breakfast served until 10am, coffee on in the lobby. Life is good.

Florida Road Trip 2014 - Day 6: Monday, December 1st

Mat, Rick and I ate breakfast at Metro Diner.  Picked up Otis and went to Orange Park to look at train cars. 

Georgia 300:  This beauty is owned by Jack Heard from Fernandino, Florida.  It was used by Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama.  Rick and I got to ride on it in 2013 when we were on our way home from AAPRCO trip in Napa.  We got on at Reno and then walked back to our own sleeper car.

The Georgia 300 was at the end of the Consist for the Pine Tree Limited to Portland, ME for this fall's AAPRCO Conference.

Dearing undergoing window repair.  We rode on the Dearing from Washington, DC to Chattanooga for the 2012 AARPCO Conference.  It traveled with the sleeper Berlin. Here is Mat, Rick and Otis.

Georgia 300 and Silver Foot.  This Orange Park Station is a really nice and secure place to park your car - - and it is nice to be able to work on your car outside in nice weather.

Then home to watch the movie "No Time For Sergeants" which Rick said is the story of their Dad's military service....getting drug out of the hills of Georgia into the Air Force.  We ate some boiled peanuts 'Country Caviar' from Publix. 

Then, we got to meet Mandy Stone, Rick and Mat's niece (Bill's daughter) and her boyfriend Joey for supper at Cracker Barrel.  Mandy was in art school but got burned out on the drawing so it wasn't fun anymore. She'd like to get into cosemtology school. She's working as a stocker at Walmart now and looking for another job. Joey is working at Barcardi and has been there for three years.  Her is Otis, Joey, Mandy, Mat and Rick. Glad we got to rendezvous with them.

 We take off in the morning, leaving Mat, Macy and Melody to fend for themselves!