We are the lone tenants of the Antioch Loop of the Gunter Hill Campground between Montgomery and Selma AL Our change of itineraries brought us close to Selma right before the historic 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, March 7. So we drove over and stopped first at the National Voting Rights Museum. This is not an imposing building but has wonderful displays inside. Butch had to move the truck because they were moving barricades in to prepare for a possible Presidential visit on Saturday. Secret Service agents milled around outside. We visited with one who is part of the Presidential detail. However he was not anxious to have his picture posted online.
We crossed Edmund Pettus bridge and arrived at the main street of Selma. My eighth grade curriculum included a booklet on the American Revolution which used Pettus Bridge as a modern case study so I was particularly interested to see it. (It was only a few years earlier at that time.) Again, guys in suits swarmed all over the place. There is a small interpretive center across from that end of the bridge. So after taking that in, we had lunch (guarded by the Secret Service of course) and then drove by Brown Chapel where a lot of the organization was done.
Selma is an old town and not prosperous looking. There was obvious sprucing up going on for the upcoming commemoration but lots that needs doing. It feels strange to visit a site that is certainly not a proud moment in our history, but yet contributed to change and needs to be remembered.
Back at the campground we had a couple of odd incidents. We were just leaving for a few groceries when a tornado siren went off to the west of us. A few minutes later, another sounded to the southeast. It was cloudy but didn't appear threatening. Since there's no one else in this loop, we couldn't ask about it until we got to the registration shack. They didn't know either. They said there was nothing on the radio. Then when we returned, we discovered the water hook up a few sites over from us seemed knocked at a slant and was shooting water twelve or thirteen feet in the air. Butch called the campground number; the guy who answered said he would check it out--that 'they' didn't like him reporting things that he hadn't seen with his own eyes. What, they have a lot of damage reports that are pranks?
Selma is an old town and not prosperous looking. There was obvious sprucing up going on for the upcoming commemoration but lots that needs doing. It feels strange to visit a site that is certainly not a proud moment in our history, but yet contributed to change and needs to be remembered.
Back at the campground we had a couple of odd incidents. We were just leaving for a few groceries when a tornado siren went off to the west of us. A few minutes later, another sounded to the southeast. It was cloudy but didn't appear threatening. Since there's no one else in this loop, we couldn't ask about it until we got to the registration shack. They didn't know either. They said there was nothing on the radio. Then when we returned, we discovered the water hook up a few sites over from us seemed knocked at a slant and was shooting water twelve or thirteen feet in the air. Butch called the campground number; the guy who answered said he would check it out--that 'they' didn't like him reporting things that he hadn't seen with his own eyes. What, they have a lot of damage reports that are pranks?
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