On Tuesday evening this past week many eyes in the US were on the state of Alabama, which was holding a special election for one of its US Senate seats. The race pitted Repblican Roy Moore against Democrat Doug Jones. In a political upset, Jones eked out a win, 49.92% to 43.38%. [Source: Alabama Secretary of State, "Unofficial Election Night ( Read more... )

Birmingham, AL - Wednesday, June 1. 2pm.

Today we did a bit of sightseeing in Birmingham. We walked from our hotel along the city's tidy 5th Avenue North to 3 key sites in the modern civil rights movement: Kelly Ingram Park, the 16th Street Baptist Church, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Kelly Ingram Park (wikipedia page) was named in ( Read more... )

Birmingham, AL - Tuesday, May 31. 10pm.

It's been another long and tiring (but in a good way!) day in Alabama. We started off the day where we left off yesterday in Fort Payne in the northeastern corner of the state. We started with a revenge trip to Desoto Falls. This time we tried a different trailhead to get to the elusive base of the falls... ( Read more... )

Ft. Payne, AL - Monday, May 30. 9:30pm.

We're bedding down for the night at a Holiday Inn Express in Fort Payne, Alabama. It's a mere 55 miles from where we began the day in Chattanooga, TN, yet we've logged over 150 miles of driving today. Plus several miles of hiking.

Our trip across the country today-- at least, across most of the country-- was mostly uneventful. We flew from San Jose, CA to Las Vegas, NV to Birmingham, AL and then drove to Chattanooga TN.

Our route today. Map created at scribblemaps.com.

( Read more... )

This morning we got up early- zero dark thirty being, in this case, 4:30am- to shuffle off to the airport. We're on a 7am flight to Las Vegas connecting on to Birmingham, Alabama.

1. Why Alabama? Would you believe, "because it's there"? Alabama is one of the few states I haven't been to yet. One of my bucket list items is to visit all 50 states ( Read more... )

I've mentioned before that one of my bucket list items is to visit all 50 states in the U.S. plus Washington, DC. Last time I wrote about this topic several months ago I was at 46/51. Since then I've added two more states to reach 48.


( Read more... )

Amidst all the wailing and gnashing of teeth the last several months over Greece's debt crisis, with its impending default dragging down financial markets worldwide and spurring debate over the possibility and consequences of exiting the Eurozone, yesterday I saw a single line in a news article that put it all back into proper context ( Read more... )