Wedding Ride - Summer of 2013 - Back to Alabama

I had a 500 mile day planned the day I left Columbus, Mississippi with my evening destination being Johnson City, Tennessee.  However, I was going to lose an hour when I passed into the Eastern Time Zone in Tennessee.  The day also included a visit with my Uncle Danny and Aunt Becky in Florence, Alabama.  I was about 125 miles from Florence and didn't want to get there too early, so I indulged in a lazy morning and didn't hit the road too early.  I think it was probably sometime around 6:30 AM when I rode out of Columbus on US-45 headed north.

I turned northeast on MS-25 a few miles past Columbus Air Force Base then MS-23 toward Red Bay, Alabama.  It was nice to be back in Alabama.  Since I spent almost all of the first 19 years of my life in Alabama, it always feels a little like going back home even though I haven't lived there since 1979.  However, I spent my formative years in Alabama and still consider it home to this day.  I feel the same way about Texas and Virginia, so it's nice to never be too far from somewhere I can call home.

My first stop on my way to Florence was the Rattlesnake Saloon.  I found the Rattlesnake Saloon on my old standby website, Roadside America (http://www.roadsideamerica.com).  In hindsight, I wish I would have pressed on from Columbus the night before.  The saloon is open until 10PM and I could have made it there to eat dinner.

The Rattlesnake Saloon and Seven Springs Lodge is located in Colbert County, Alabama at 1292 Mt Mills Road.

Here's what makes the Rattlesnake Saloon unique.  The saloon is built under a bluff, with seating in a large cave and on top of the bluff, and water pours off the bluff like a waterfall.  The saloon is only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Since I rode into Columbus on a Thursday night, I could have made it to the saloon if I had just kept riding another couple of hours.  Plus I probably could have found a place to sleep there at the Seven Springs Lodge or ridden another 20 miles or so and found a motel in Tuscumbia.

If you live close enough, make a point to go visit the Rattlesnake Saloon and be sure to tell me all about it.  You can get more information and see some pictures of the saloon at their website http://rattlesnakesaloon.net/.  I was bummed that I missed a great opportunity to go there.  I guess that just means I'll have to go back some day.

I left the Rattlesnake Saloon and headed toward Tuscumbia to visit the birthplace of Helen Keller.  I rode into town and stopped at the Colbert County Courthouse because I was so impressed with the beauty of this small town.

Looking south down Main Street in Tuscumbia.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but the town was very pretty.

The main entrance to the Colbert County Courthouse in Tuscumbia.

The Law Enforcement Memorial in front of the Colbert County Courthouse.

The War Memorial on the lawn of the Colbert County Courthouse in Tuscumbia.

The Confederate Soldiers Memorial on the lawn at the Colbert County Courthouse.

From the courthouse, I rode north on Main Street to Commons Street where I turned left to visit Ivy Green.  Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama.  Her family lived on the homestead her grandfather had built called, Ivy Green.  Helen Keller was born with the ability to see and hear.  But, at 19 months old, she contracted an illness which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis that left her blind and deaf.  The story of how Helen's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker.

Helen went on to become an author, political activist, and lecturer.  She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.  Helen devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind.  She died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, at her home in Easton, Connecticut.  A service was held in her honor at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and her ashes were placed there next to her constant companions, Anne Sullivan and Polly Thomson.  Renee and I have visited the National Cathedral and Helen's final resting place.

The actual well pump where Helen Keller first communicated with Anne Sullivan is located at Ivy Green.  The property includes the cottage where Keller was born and the house where she spent her early childhood.  Every summer, for over 30 years, the Helen Keller Foundation has presented outdoor performances of William Gibson's The Miracle Worker.  My Aunt Becky later told me that it is one of the most moving presentations you can see.  I'll add this to the growing list of reasons to visit the Tuscumbia area again soon.

The entrance to Ivy Green, birthplace of Helen Keller.

The main house and lawn at Ivy Green.

A bust in memory of Helen Keller sits in the garden at Ivy Green.

Another view of the main house at Ivy Green.

I left Ivy Green without having truly experienced it.  As usual, my desire to keep moving preempted my desire to see all I should have taken the time to see.  Like I said earlier, I have to make a point to go back soon.

From Ivy Green, I returned to Main Street and continued north to the next town that sits between Tuscumbia and the Tennessee River called Sheffield.  It wasn't really out of my way, but also wasn't the more common route between Tuscumbia and Florence.  What drew me to Sheffield, you ask?  Why, the Giant Aluminum Rock 'n' Roller, of course.

The Giant Aluminum Rock 'n' Roller is a tribute to the sound that transformed popular music in the 50's, 60's and 70's from the Shoals and was created by local sculptor Audwin McGee from Tuscumbia.

The Shoals area is made up of the cities of Florence, Muscle Shoals, Tuscumbia, and Sheffield.  The Shoals is noted for its rich music traditions and is sometimes referred to as the Birthplace of the Blues.  W. C. Handy, credited by some as the Father of the Blues was born there.  The Shoals was home to a thriving recording industry in the 1970s and 80s, and to some extent even today.  Rock groups and musicians including The Rolling Stones, Julian Lennon and Lynyrd Skynyrd have recorded there. 

The 18-foot Aluminum Rock 'n' Roller is the first of a series of sculptures planned for the Shoals area known as the Singing River Sculptures.  In the coming years, similar sized Singing River Sculptures will be erected in the sister cities, followed by a grouping of even larger music-related sculptures in a Sculpture Garden overlooking the Tennessee River, known in these parts as the Singing River.  That was the term Native Americans used to describe the Tennessee River in this area, due to the sound that was created when a breeze swept across the river’s shoals.

Interestingly, while I was writing this portion of the blog, the song Gimme Three Steps by Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing on my iPod.  Coincidence, I think not!

I rolled out of Sheffield after a quick picture of the Aluminum Rock 'n' Roller and crossed the Singing River into Florence.  I stopped in Florence and had a terrific visit with my aunt and uncle.  I've never told Uncle Danny this, but he's always been a hero of mine.  From his time as a pilot flying C-130s in Vietnam, to putting himself through law school.  Simply put, he's a good man.  And with all the bullshit out in the world today, it's good to know there are still good men around. 

Uncle Danny has a law practice in Florence.  If you ever find yourself in a My Cousin Vinny type of situation in Lauderdale County, Alabama; look him up.

That's right, Uncle Danny's real name is Daniel Boone.  How cool is that?  I've always heard the famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone, was a great, great uncle to my maternal grandfather. Based on the little research I've done I've been able to track back to my great great grandfather, Kinchen Boone who was born around 1817 in the same area of North Carolina where Daniel Boone once lived.  So, who knows, maybe that ancestry is accurate.  It would explain my wandering ways to some degree.

I visited with Uncle Danny and Aunt Becky for an hour or so and then went on my way.  I still had more than 350 miles to cover on my ride that day and had a couple of other stops I wanted to make in Florence and on my way through Tennessee.

One stop in Florence included getting a picture of a local bank built in the style of the Forks of Cypress.  Forks of Cypress was a Greek Revival plantation house near Florence.  Construction was completed in 1830.  It was the only Greek Revival house in Alabama to feature a two-story colonnade around the entire house, composed of twenty-four Ionic columns.  The name was derived from the fact that Big Cypress Creek and Little Cypress Creek border the plantation and converge near the site of the main house.

A near replica of the main house was built in 1983 in downtown Florence and serves as the local Regions Bank branch.  The original Forks of Cypress burned down in 1966 and all that remains are the columns.

Wilson Park sits right across the street from the replica of Forks of Cypress and that's where I found this statue of W. C. Handy.

William Christopher Handy was born in 1873 in the Shoals city of Florence. Since 1982, the Music Preservation Society has been honoring and celebrating the "Father of the Blues" with an annual ten day festival of events.

I only needed to go a few more blocks before I came to Pope's Tavern.  Located on the military road that connected Nashville to the Natchez Trace and on to New Orleans, the tavern was an ideal stop-over for weary travelers in the 1800's.  Legend has it that Andrew Jackson stopped here on his march to the Battle of New Orleans.  It served as a hospital for both Confederate and Union wounded during the Civil War.  The wounded were brought here from as far away as the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, and Shiloh.

At one time a stagecoach stop, tavern and inn, Pope's Tavern is one of the the oldest structures in Florence dating back to the early 1800s.

My visit in Alabama was coming to an end and I was headed into Tennessee.  I'll pick up that part of the day's ride in the next blog.  See you then.