July 12 - Day 30

Jul 12

Sometimes when you make plans for a day, you don’t always know what to expect. Today was one of those days. Our plan was to simply tour the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, AL and then to drive to Memphis, TN. However, because the World Games are currently being hosted in Birmingham, the Park Service and other organizations went out of their way to make it one of the best times ever to visit local historical sites. We ended up staying in Birmingham longer than expected, not making it to our campsite until the sun was sitting - which meant that we ate dinner at 9pm.

A few highlights from the day:

We started the day by taking a tour of the 16th Street Baptist Church. This church was ground zero when it came to civil rights activities. In September 1963, the KKK bombed this church, killing 4 young girls. The tour was led by a number of folks that were either alive and living in Birmingham at the time of the bombing or their parents were. It was certainly a privilege to enjoy the first person perspective of these significant events.
While in downtown Birmingham, I was fortunate enough to be able to park the RV less than a block away from were we were going. Because of that, we took full advantage of being able to eat lunch in the RV (granted, we had to start the generator, so we could run the AC full blast).
Following lunch, we toured the Civil Rights Institute. We did not know what to expect, but we were very happy that we went. In our opinion, there was more to learn there about the civil rights era than there was to learn at the King Center in Atlanta, though much was focused on the events that took place in Birmingham. It was a very interactive exhibit.
Once again, Ilena and Obadiah became Junior Rangers (#8 of the trip). This time one of the Park Rangers was so impressed with Obadiah and his vest full of Junior Ranger badges, the Ranger took a picture to hopefully use in future promotional material. We’ll see if Obadiah and his Junior Ranger badges become famous.
We finished the day with a 3.5 hour drive to our campground, in West Memphis. The campground is situated directly adjacent to the Mississippi. Driving in, the sunset was spectacular, but so were the mosquitos. Once we arrived, we ate dinner outside, but no one enjoyed it due to the bugs. Hopefully the mosquitos will stay here along the Mississippi and not follow us to Arkansas tomorrow (this is probably pretty wishful thinking).

A few pictures form the day: