Monday, 23 December 2019
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| today's route |
The drive south
Not far from last night's campground I saw a sign posted on fenced property saying "Forever Wild Property." I wondered if it were some kind of environmental thing here and looked it up. Check some of the details at this link. http://alabamaliving.coop/keeping-land-forever-wild It's a state program, funded mostly by the interest on oil and gas money, that provides permanent protection from development wrecking the ecology of the area. The program garners massive public support by encouraging all sorts of recreational activities on these lands, such as hunting, hiking and water sports. Pretty clever. And I wouldn't have figured Alabama for being a major oil/gas producing state, so think of what could be done like this in other states with more petroleum resources.
I saw many fields with many cows in them. I can't tell one breed from another, though I can say I saw a small herd of Brahmas - or Charolais - I don't know the difference.
I saw major numbers of Texas license plates. More, even, than Florida plates which Alabama is right next door to. Are all these Texans over here to work on the oil fields I haven't seen? Really, there are so many Texas plates I'd think the Alabamans might get tired of stumbling over us.
The route I took ended up going on 3 sides of Fort Rucker, and signs told me they have the US Army Aviation Museum there. If I had more time, I'd be interested in seeing it.
Enterprise
Signs told me that Enterprise is the City of Progress. I'm willing to believe it because, for one thing, it's a lot bigger than I'd expected and, for another thing, their Civic Center and Senior Center building is very large and very fancy. There's money here from someplace.
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| boll weevil |
The devastated cotton farmer near Enterprise figured out they'd been too dependent on cotton and this was a sign they needed to diversify. George Washington Carver, born into slavery (and a prime example of the utter waste of resources that system (and racism) promoted), had been working at Tuskegee Institute on how to replenish soil that cotton depleted. He had been trying to persuade farmers to rotate in crops of peanuts and sweet potatoes. Thanks to the boll weevil, they finally listened to him.
As a result, the farmers around Enterprise and Dothan are producing nearly half the peanuts in the US. And we eat a lot of peanuts in the US.
In thanks, the city of Enterprise raised this monument to the boll weevil that has to be seen to be believed. My photos don't convey its full impact, but the photos I saw online are about like mine. You just have to see this thing.
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| detail from the statue |
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| monument in the center of town |
As you might be able to tell, this monument isn't very big, but the citizens of Enterprise are nonetheless grateful to this bug. The statue went up in 1919, and for its centennial this year, coinciding with the celebration of Alabama's 200th anniversary, the city held an "un-boll weevil-ble celebration" in its honor.
And when I was coming around a corner I came face to face with a boll weevil mural. Unfortunately, other traffic kept me from taking a photo, and I couldn't find any uncopyrighted photos of it on the internet, but I found these pages that get you there. First is the local newspaper account and a photo of the partially finished mural. https://www.dothaneagle.com/downtown-mural Then there's most of the completed mural shown on this Trip Advisor page https://www.tripadvisor.com Note that this mural was painted by a mural artist from Dothan, a town that's known for its murals. My next stop.
Dothan
I think Dothan sees itself as the capital of Wiregrass country, because that's what's in the name of lots of things around town. The Wiregrass Shrine Club put up a sign to welcome travelers to Dothan. I saw a bus labeled Wiregrass Transit, and there's the Wiregrass Art Museum.
The Wiregrass region of the US actually covers a lot of southern Georgia and parts of the Florida panhandle, as well as southeastern Alabama, and it's named for a tough local plant called (surprise!) wiregrass. I couldn't figure out which of the uncopyrighted photos online were actually of wiregrass, not having seen it (as far as I know), so I'm attaching this link that has a photo. https://en.wikipedia.org/Aristida-stricta
Coming into the main part of town, I came across a large amount of traffic, and I couldn't figure out why. It was only 11:00 - not really lunch hour - on a Monday, but the streets were absolutely packed. Making the situation worse, the multiple traffic lights weren't timed for any direction. We were all just stopped randomly and frequently. Whoever's in charge of their traffic patterns needs to do a better job. There are other ways to slow down traffic, if that's what they were doing. Frustrated drivers aren't going to drive safer. So says the daughter of a former traffic engineer.
At one point I was stopped behind a large truck of young chickens. They were crammed in cages so small they couldn't stand up, though they tried to so they could turn around. I had to look at them for so long I was about ready to swear off chicken forever, it looked so inhumane.
But all the stopping and starting and frustrations were nearly worth it when I saw some of Dothan's murals. I think they have 19 of them around the downtown area. These are the ones I saw.
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| from George Washington Carver to the annual Peanut Festival |
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| Tribute to Sherman Rose, Tuskegee Airman & Instructor |
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| U.S. Army Aviation Center/Fort Rucker, Alabama |
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| the women of Dothan |
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| The Steamboat Era 1824-1925 |
Dothan to Ozark
Route 231 runs from Dothan straight to the Ozark KOA, where we're staying for the next few nights. Actually, it runs down to I-10 in the Florida Panhandle and up through Montgomery to within 40 miles of Birmingham. Useful highway.
This KOA is quite small, but it's laid out in such a way that the dogs and I can find enough space to take walks in, and they have that dog park, and my campsite is level and comfortable, so I was glad to come back here.
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