On our last full day in Alabama we visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and we were sincerely wowed. This place does a remarkable job of capturing the pains and the struggles and the achievements of heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks, and the countless others who were hosed or beaten or bombed or jailed or even killed in the civil rights movement. It’s a place filled with exhibits and videos and speeches and news reports. And memories and questions and sorrows and joys. It captures well the countless individual and collective acts of courage through which our country was changed and our own little Johnson family was, decades later, made possible. Yes, there’s still much more rights and respect work to be done today, but the progress made from the mid 1950’s to the late 1960’s was tremendous due to the sacrifices of so many.
Honestly, this really is a place you ought to visit....
(They don’t allow photography inside, so the only pictures I have are from the park across the street. The BCRI is the brick building in the rear of the shot with Kerby and Joelle in the window near the children being sprayed by a fire-hose. The sculptures and artwork inside and out are wonderful, as the statue with the dog, cop, and protestor shows…)
The Weather
Not surprisingly, we’ve gotten a lot of comments and questions about how we’re coping with the bizarre weather. (Typically, the questions go something like "So--have you frozen your arses off yet or what?") By all reports, Richmond is facing yet another ice/snow storm this weekend, and it’s still not really the “usual” Richmond snow season. Clearly, this is an odd weather year. Fortunately, we haven’t been facing snow or ice here in the deeper south. If we do face such a thing, we’ll undoubtedly head for a motel or other warmer venue to wait it out. Just the same, we continue to inspire bouts of cold weather and major rainfall everywhere we travel. During our nights in southern Alabama it got below 30 for the low temp for two nights, and one night it rained like a herd of cattle, dumping well over an inch on our little home on the gravel. But the worst part was the wind. There were moments that night when I wondered if we might actually tip over. We spread our weight around the camper as best we could and kept ourselves calm by continuing our nightly Harry Potter reading—-though I wound up hoarse after a while from having to shout over the roar of the wind and the relentless rain drumming on the roof and canvas.
Really, wind is the hardest thing. If it’s windy, we’re much more likely to need to fire up the “big heater”--the propane heater built into the camper. Mostly we just run our little electric heater and it keeps us comfortable. Runner up to the wind for potential misery-production is the all-day rain. Tonight we’re in New Orleans, and it’s been raining continuously since early last night. All night. All day. And all evening… Non-stop soaking rain. There are puddles everywhere outside, and we’ve talked off and on about how likely the camper would be to float… I think it’d float pretty well, though probably not for long. The others thing it’d leak like a sieve and just fill with water. God willing, we’ll never have to find out. I will say that I’ve been impressed with how well our camper does in the wind and rain. It’s been literally POURING out there for nearly 30 hours, and we’re dry as a bone from stem to stern. Gotta hope that continues. Anyway, for the day we’ve just holed up in here nice and dry, venturing out only to the bathhouse for a shower, and truth is we’ve had a nice time of it. Lots of quality family time. The good news is that tomorrow it’s supposed to clear up, so it’ll be back to the French Quarter for some more sightseeing. I’ll blog about that and add some pictures soon…
So to answer the questions about our frozen arses and how we’ve been dealing with the cold, wet weather--during the day, we wear layers, keep our jackets handy, and try to keep active. At night, we bundle up and snuggle in, with our heaters doing what they can to keep us comfortable. The kids are in fleece snug-sacks Nan made, with another fleece blanket under them and two more on top. Both wear hats and tend to cover their heads while they sleep. On really cold nights (below 30) we all wear long-johns under our jammies, hats on our heads (I've got this great ninja-looking ski-mask that never fails to elicit laughs from Nan...but it's nice and warm so I can live with the ridicule), socks on our feet, and slippers, too. And the truth is, we tend to sleep like logs. With just the electric heater on through a 35-degree night, it’ll probably stay right around 60 in here (though colder at floor level). Not exactly warm, but tolerable. Just the same, the nightmare is waking up in the middle of the night and needing to “make dew.” The dew-room seat feels mighty cold at night, so it’s decision time: Do I have to go that bad? How long is it until morning? If it’s something like 1:30am, you get up and go; 6:00am, you hold it; somewhere in between and you need to make a decision. Is it worth getting up or can this be ignored while I get back to sleep? We all seem to make that decision in our own way and for our own reasons… I’ll leave it to you to decide what you’d do. On nights colder than around 30-35 degrees we add the propane heater, with the thermostat set low, to the electric heater's usual good work. The electric heater helps keep the temp more steady, and it keeps the propane heater from running as often. When the propane heater kicks on it really warms the place up fast, but working alone on a cold night it can drain a whole lot out of a 20- pound tank of propane. It also turns off completely when the thermostat trips, so it’s warm-up fast, cool-down fast, repeat. The electric heater evens off the ups and downs some.
The only real warm days we had were in Florida, and we all wound up with a pile of bug bites. Honestly, I’m not minding it being cool, but it’d be nice if we could see the sun more often. Tomorrow through Sunday are supposed to be partly cloudy to sunny, and we’re all looking forward to that. Beyond Sunday, who knows what the weather will bring.
So there’s our life with the weather. Not what we expected when we planned the trip, but we’re resilient and it’s been manageable. Here’s hoping we soon stop inspiring places to set record lows and avoid major ice/snow storms for the duration…
Here's the view out the side window of the puddles forming from the rain rain rain
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