We woke up early at Clay’s place and we were off to grab coffee once again with sweet Virginia who joined us yesterday for photos in Birmingham (http://virginiajonesphotography.com/). My friend Sarah Benton from high school joined us and got us coffee! thanks SB. We chatted up and interviewed Virginia before heading north for Hunstville. Tried with some success to get onto NASA and talk to someone but since our time was so limited it didn’t work. We in turn went to the US space and Rocket center which was full of crazy information on how America made it in to space and has one of the full Apollos raised above your head. The day was quite miserable and foggy in the mountainous regions of North Alabama (usually so pretty with so many hills and views) so we stayed here most of the day. Didn’t know that most of our rocket/space craft information came from Nazi Germany and we just happened to steal the man before the soviets did. Arms race and race to space! Such a blast from the past and amazing history. It strikes me as odd while thinking about it but most of the most incredible advancements happened in this last century and most of them right after WWII and up to the 70’s. Does it ever strike anyone as odd that we don’t have as many museums pushing the 80’s till today. Is it funds? to many things happening? or what? The current parts of the space exhibit were kinda scary with the army and NASA coming together to make joint forces with scaled models of armies of the future. The army and military always have made America what it is and helped it grow but it still seems so haunting in the way they portray it sometimes. Conspiracy theories, spies, and crazy underground communications ran through my mind as I walked through the modern portions of the museum. We tried to go shoot a decent shot up the Monte Sano mountain but it was quite dismal at sunset. Hopefully the week will perk up. Went and stayed the night at my good friend from college Dana’s place with her husband Corey and three kids, Logan, Sam, and Lucy. She made a lovely dinner and we chatted and watched a competition she was in called Tough Mudders (crazy awesome) and then watched wrestling (ha). Thank you guys for your hospitality.
Thanks to my 8th and 9th grade social studies teacher, Melvin Kellogg Bruss, I know a good deal about Werner von Braun and how he came to America and what he had to do with the space race. Mr. Bruss gave us extra credit every single day for paying attention to the local, national, and world news. We not only learned Mississippi history and American history from him, we learned, or at least I learned, to pay attention to what was going on outside my small personal sphere. What a great teacher! Was there a list or display or something about all of the everyday items we have in our lives as a result of the space race? The one thing that always comes to my mind is Tang, followed closely by Velcro. Where the mounted animal heads in the space museum? Was that bust statue von Braun? The last Piggly Wiggly I entered was in Talladega, Alabama, in October 2009. I’m wishing sunshine into your future, right now!