Walking America: Huntsville, Alabama and The Jesse Owens Museum

.

Have you ever founds something on a map and then said, I have to go here? Well, I did this with the Jesse Owens Museum. So the plan is to leave Friday in the RV. Then stay in the Museum Parking Lot overnight. Harvest Host makes this possible. Tour the Museum in the morning. Then drive up to Huntsville to do the American Volkssport Association (AVA) HIstoric City walk there.

Train Depot

So we're off after work on Friday. We got there a little late, just after dark. Jesse Owens, an American Icon, a mythical figure for me when I was a kid; I never really took the time to get to know his history, now is a good chance. We have the whole park to ourselves during our stay overnight. It was kind of a surreal feeling, alone in the parking lot with Jesse's Olympic statue looking down on us. It was a lovely fall evening in Alabama.

Jesse Owens

We toured the Museum in the morning. Born on the site of the Museum but leaving when he was nine when his family became part of the great migration north due to agricultural advances. We first watch a film of Owens touring the stadium in Berlin where he won his medals. He gave a personal account of each of the 4 medals he won and an account of his friendship Lutz Long a German Athlete. Although Lutz had died in World War 2, Lutz's son Kai Long was in the documentary. Owens was also Kai's best man at his wedding in the 1960s. Lots of artifacts in the Museum with great storyboards and picture displays. It is well worth the 20 mile drive from Interstate 65 just south of Huntsville.

Owens Museum

Long and Owens

After the Museum we are off to Huntsville to walk the historic district. Huntsville has the second-largest technology and research park in America and is one of the most educated cities in the nation. The drive into Huntsville passes NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), which supports NASA space exploration mission.                                                          

The walk that we are going on travels through the historic downtown. This is where the Alabama Constitution was written and was the capital for the legislatures first term. What really put Huntsville on the map was King Cotton and the cotton mills built after the Civil War. One of the sections of the downtown is called Cotton Row. The walk includes many stately homes built in the antebellum tradition. It also passe the Historic Train Depot. Huntsville was the first railroad line that linked the east coast with the Mississippi River Valley in 1855. This made it a strategic location during the Civil War.

Clay House

 

State Constitutional Convention

This has been a fun trip to some places that we have never been too. Can't wait until the next trip. I have been offered a couple of jobs in Huntsville, working in my professional field of Logistics. Kind of wish now I would have made that move. Oh well, I'm happier now, just traveling and working part-time.