First White House of the Confederacy

Our next stop on our tour of Montgomery was the First White House of the Confederacy.  This home now located on the south side of the capital building was used as the first White House of the Confederacy starting in Feb of 1861 when the provisional Confederate Congress made Montgomery the  capital of the CSA and selected Jefferson Davis as the president.  The home was provided by a local cotton baron for the families use. The home itself has an interesting history but remains important today because it was the First CSA White House.

It turned out to be a short period of fame for the home.  When Virginia succeeded from the union in the summer of 1861, the government of the CSA was shifted to Virginia.  The Davis's actually lived in the home for three months.  During that period there were many social and political events taking place.  In addition to the historical significance of the home, it's restoration to the period with much of the furniture that was used by the CSA president's family gives a personal feeling to the home. It happened that we visited on the day for the annual cleaning by the supporters of the home.

                                          Mrs Davis

 It is part of a very important part of our national history and well worth the visit..

Oakwood Annex Cemetery, Montgomery, AL

Last week  we visited our daughter in Montgomery for a few days.  We have been in this area a number of times, mostly just as a stopover on  RV trips.  This time we wanted to check out some of the local attractions and get a feel for the city.  One of the places mentioned on every must see list is the Oakwood Annex Cemetery.  It has attained that status primarily because Hank Williams is buried there.  He gained fame for his country music songs that touched a lot of people.  His short career came to an end when he died before reaching the age of 30 in 1953.  His grave sits on the top of the hill.  There is a also a tombstone for his first wife,  but she choose not to be buried there when she died years later.  The grave site  is covered in Astroturf.  Apparently, they could not keep grass on the site, since visitors would pull of the grass as keepsakes.

While Hank Williams may be the big attraction, the cemetery has a lot of history of its own. Oakwood was started in 1817 and is open to all Montgomery people.  Since Montgomery is the state capitol, there are many prominent people buried here.  We strolled through a section with numerous graves of Confederate soldiers of all ranks.

   

There is a section next to the Williams site with row after row of foreign airmen graves.  These were airmen in training just before and during WWII at Maxwell Air Field.  The training in those days was accelerated to get more planes in the air.  This resulted in many deaths during training and low hour pilots sent to the front often did not last very long, which resulted in a steady demand for more pilots.  It is a sobering sight.

Three one night stands

On the way home from the rally, we stopped for one night at  Gulf State park.  This park is very popular for snow birds and is one of the few in the state that actually makes a profit.($46 a night waterfront)  It is located near the beach in Gulf Shores, AL with lots of tourist attractions to keep the everyone entertained. We came here to enjoy the quiet of the park in what could be considered the off season, but the park was far from empty.  We chose a water front site along a small lake adjacent to the campground.  With your camping fee you also have access to the fishing pier on the Gulf.  It proved to be an interesting stroll on the pier.  There was a large school of small fish near the pier and  five sharks were feeding furiously on them.  We had a ring side seat for the show.   Unfortunately the light and water color did not make for good pictures. I wondered what the nearby swimmers would think if they knew that five good size sharks in a feeding mood were just a few yards away from them.

Our second one night stop on our way home, was Fort Pickens National Park Campground.  We have visited this park a number of times but have never stayed at the campground since it is so close to our home.  It has two camping sections.  Like most national parks, the camp sites tend to be rustic and not always level. There is plenty of hiking and historic sites to keep you busy.  The fort was active at various times between 1834 and 1947.  You can visit pre-civil war structures on the same site with WWII bunkers.  On this trip, we enjoyed a wonderful beach sunset just a short stroll from our campsite.

Out third one night stop was this past weekend.  We decided it was time to let our two grandkids spend the night in the motorhome, along with their mother.  In our motorhome, this was really a full load.   The obvious place to go was back  to the Anchors Away campground in Foley, where the FMCA rally was held. A kid friendly pool and playground was ideal.  I think they had a good time, between the pool and just running around like crazy, they pretty much wore themselves out.  Nico spent quite a bit of time Sunday on my lap while the ladies visited the outlets.  I am hoping to fully recover from sleeping on the fold down dinette soon.

The end