Hannah and I have done some wild trips in our day. With five bicycles and all our camping gear on top of our GMC Vandura, with our three kids, we drove 4500 miles from York, Maine to Fairbanks, Alaska in six days. On another trip, with our family on a mission to eventually visit all 50 states, we drove from Maine to Florida by way of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to pick up those three states. Not exactly point A to point B!
Today, we will complete another of these “wouldn’t it be cool to do” trips to the home of Harper Lee in Monroeville in southern Alabama. This past summer, my fanboy devotion to To Kill A Mockingbird resurfaced. I saw the movie again, read the book for the first time, watched DVDs, and read both the backstory and multiple commentaries on the book itself.
Mel’s on the sacred ground where the one and only Harper Lee spent her childhood
All that remains of Truman Capote’s aunt’s place where TC spent his summers hanging out with Harper Lee
Having spent the overnight off I-65 north of Mobile at a Sleep Inn and Suites in Evergreen, we tool 30 miles west along route 84 to the county seat of Monroe County. Entering the downtown, we pass Mel’s, which was where Harper Lee’s home once stood. Next door is just a brick wall of the one-time home of Truman Capote, a neighbor and childhood friend of Harper Lee.
Arriving in the town square, we have the iconic To Kill A Mockingbird courthouse before us. The one-way street around this quintessential Southern town center transported me back to the 1930s of To Kill A Mockingbird. Check out this video.
Inside the courthouse we paid $5 to tour the museum which includes a second floor with the courtroom and a third floor balcony where the African-Americans sat during the courtroom drama. Two Hollywood-quality videos below show the courtroom.
A retired English teacher, Flo Sanderson, a volunteer docent, welcomed us and spent fifteen minutes giving us the backstory to this building and the relationship of Harper Lee to her hometown. Harper sent most of her life in New York City and returned to Monroeville to winter. She kept to herself during these visits home and the townsfolk were very protective of Harper’s privacy.
I asked Flo what do today’s townsfolk think of Harper? She said that they are appreciative of the business that comes from the “cottage industry” related to To Kill A Mockingbird tourism.
The informative first floor displays and charts are pleasing to the eye. The highlight of the visit is going to the courtroom that was replicated in minute detail on a Hollywood sound stage. I asked Flo why there were 24 chairs where the jury would be (you’ll see them in the video)? She said, sometimes there were grand jury trials which required more than twelve jurors.
I end with two videos from the second floor courtroom and the third floor balcony.
“Ah, sweet justice!” Not so fast. Fact is, justice is not always so even-handed in these United States, here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. There is justice for whites and the quasi-justice for others. Hannah and I have been fortunate leading a privileged life in America over our 70 years. I suspect being white had a little something, or make that a lot something, to do with it.
I have no idea what it must be like to be marginalized, threatened, and living in fear because of the color of my skin, be it black or brown; especially with threatening tweets descending like warning shots across the bow from the highest office in the land.
Let me back up and tell you how we found ourselves thinking about justice during our visit to Montgomery – the one-time poster child of cities for racial injustice.
Planning to visit Monroeville in southern Alabama, the home of Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Hannah read in Time magazine of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Alabama’s capital city, Montgomery, which would be on our way to Monroeville. The memorial is dedicated to the 4400 African-Americans lynched, almost entirely in the American South.
Montgomery has a history! You may remember or have read about the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott in the mid-1950s sparked by Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, who was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white man. After a year long boycott, segregated buses were ruled unconstitutional; but full-fledged justice remains elusive for many non-whites.
Hannah and I have come to bear witness to these abhorrent times.
On our way to the Peace and Justice memorial this mid-October Thursday, we stop first at the nearby Civil Rights Memorial Center in downtown Montgomery honoring 44 victims of racial hatred and injustice.
Since the Civil Rights Memorial Center charges only $2 per person, it allows most everyone access to the displays and stories of these victims of injustice. In fact, it is so up-to-date that it includes a photo memorial to Heather Heyer, murdered by a domestic white nationalist terrorist in Charlottesville, VA in the summer of 2017.
We watch a short film about the courageous lives of these martyrs. The Memorial words and pictures below begin to tell their story.
Maya Lin, the architect of the Vietnam Memorial, designed the Civil Rights Memorial
Hannah and I add our names to the Wall of Tolerance at the Civil Rights Memorial
Walking ¾ of a mile in clean, uncluttered, friendly downtown Montgomery with the Alabama Capital as a backdrop, we come upon the National Memorial for Peace and Justice with its vertical black stone monuments to those lynched in America’s recent past. Again, priced reasonably at $5 per person, this memorial recounts another sordid chapter in America’s troubled racial history. The images below give you a peek into the power of this memorial.
There is a vertical stone for each county in the South and some in the North where lynchings occurred.
Listing of the eleven lynchings in Little River County in Arkansas
So, has this visit to Montgomery changed me? Time well tell. Today, on a personal level, I reaffirm that I will treat everyone I meet with love. The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance. – Brian Tracy
Further, Hannah and I voted in the mid-term elections of 2018; we donated to my childhood friend Tom Hallock’s Multiplier to support fifteen hotly contest house races (That seems to have worked as the Democrats thankfully flipped the House.). Further, we donated to the campaigns of Beto O’Rourke in Texas, Stacey Abrams in Georgia, and Andrew Gillum in Florida.
I will meditate further to learn what is mine to do. Stay tuned.
Sleeping in at Brenda’s home near Huntsville, Alabama, we wake to her bustling in the kitchen, preparing a down home southern country breakfast for her Yankee visitors. Having seen the Facebook pictures of Hannah making biscuits with our grandson Owen in California, she asks Hannah to team up to bake these primo biscuits this morning.
Over breakfast, while we feast on her Sweet Home, Alabama scrambled eggs, biscuits, coffee, and hash brown casserole, I think back on the sequence of events that improbably brought us to Brenda’s place.
Brenda and Hannah abiscuit making
Eighteen months ago, we came to Georgia to hike the Appalachian Trail, our last of 14 AT hikes. Loving our Georgia hike at Springer Mountain, the Southern terminus of the AT, we also explored the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina/Tennessee border. Sold on hiking in the American South, we vowed to return to its warmth the following October.
James’s boots
And that we did, hiking again in the Great Smoky Mountains, and then traveling south in North Carolina to hike the AT near Fontana Dam. There we came upon two hiking boots filled with beautiful pebbles, a living memorial to Brenda’s husband James who had passed on from cancer. She encouraged hikers to take a pebble and carry it for James who never got to hike the whole AT.
Storm shelter in Brenda’s backyard
Taking two, we emailed Brenda, sent a picture of us on the AT, and became North/South email buddies. Graciously, she invited us to her place when we next came south. This April we return and begin an in-person Alabama friendship with Brenda. Click here for the Brenda/Fontana Dam blog.
Hannah in the storm shelter built for nine
After breakfast, Brenda shows us the tornado storm shelter in her backyard that we nearly needed during last night’s deluge with tornado warnings. With room for a snug nine folks, Hannah checks out the interior; more than Fenway Park, these truly are the “friendly confines.”
Mist falls throughout the mid-morning, but Hannah and I, ever hopeful, still drive an hour to the Walls of Jericho on the Alabama/Tennessee border, just to the west of Chattanooga, TN. Traveling in the South on Sunday morning, we are amazed how few others are on the road with us; they are all in church.
The trail to the Walls of Jericho
Heading towards the Alabama trailhead, I drive slowly in fog that engulfs the mountains. With rain forecasted later in the afternoon, we pull on our hiking boots, knowing its going to be one messy trail, given the 3” of rain that fell last night. The online reviews for this trail make it sound like a tough hike; but with a waterfall at the end of the 3.6 miles of hiking, it has Dan and Hannah written all over it.
With gently sloping switchbacks through the new spring green this last week in April, we know that while we will descend over 1000′ to the waterfalls, we also have that same trek back up the mountain when we are most tired.
Meeting up with an older (our age!), athletic hiker dude, we listen as he encourages us to go all the way to the falls themselves (i.e. hiking through a foot, foot and half of raging water). Though he is quite enthusiastic, the thought of climbing over slippery submerged rocks in ice cold water leaves me, well, cold. We smile and nod as we part, but I think there’s no way in hell am I going to do that. Hannah keeps an open mind.
The trail gets more than soggy
Once at Mill Creek, we walk until we come upon a 50’ log bridge with a railing that allows for an easy crossing. But now in the low areas of the trail, the water begins to pool, including one spot where the water covers a wide stretch of the trail. No fans of hiking with wet socks and soaked shoes, we look for alternatives around the mini-pond. Bushwhacking 30’ down the trail, we plod through the grass using dead branches to step over the soggy spots.
Hannah, high and dry
Then, a twenty-something couple, returning from the falls, tells us that we have to hike through the river to the falls themselves. Looking like reasonable human beings, they add 2% to my likelihood of water walking to the falls.
As the path narrows, the cliffside rope is just what is needed with Walls of Jericho above and the river below
While we hike, Hannah tries out a new trail name for me. Cameo. Since I am the one taking pictures with my iPhone, she is in most of the pictures. Let’s be honest, she is photogenic plus. Occasionally, I do make a “cameo” in one of the pictures when we hike. By the way, trail names are usually given, not self-selected.
The trail beneath the Walls of Jericho
Crossing a second log bridge, our mellow hiking is over. Arriving at the vertical Walls of Jericho themselves, we hug the mountainside above the raging “River Runs Through It” torrent for nearly a mile. As you might guess, given her recent fall, Hannah walks close to the mountainside of this cliff trail. She asks me if I wouldn’t walk so near to the edge. Her 25′ fall from the San Ysidro Trail was just two months ago.
The river just downstream from the fall
After 3.6 miles, the trail ends at the wide part of the raging river with an island beyond and then a narrower shoot of the stream roaring by. Seeing the reality of crossing on slippery submerged smooth stones, Hannah and I quickly agree that we want no part of a river crossing in 6 to 18 inches of water. To what end? We’ve done what we love about hiking – getting lots of exercise in a wilderness setting. Walking through the water to the falls doesn’t change that. And why risk her leg and my iPhone to a watery grave? It’s a “no way Jose” moment for us both. Check out the video of the end of “our” trail.
The water crossing to the distant falls that we’ll do next time.
Anyway, we can return next spring when the conditions may be different. We are told by a fellow hiker that normally you can walk across these river rocks without getting your shoes wet.
With still have 3.6 uphill miles back to our rental car at the trailhead, we hike without an ounce of regret. Light rain filters through forest as we climb back up the mountain and past this mini-falls to the right.
Just down from the trailhead
The Walls of Jericho is a tough hike but rewarding indeed. Within ten minutes of getting in the car, it starts to pour. The universe is again smiling down on us.
Even days before our departure to hike and pickle in the South, I am rethinking the wisdom, or really the lack of wisdom, of my scheduling our flight from Boston to Atlanta at 610A this Saturday morning. On one hand, such early flights are often less expensive; another plus is that by arriving at 9A in Atlanta, we can then hike in northern Alabama and still have an evening with our friend Brenda.
On the other hand, we sleep poorly and awake at 130A to get to the airport on time. It will be amazing if we are coherent and at all good company for Brenda this evening.
Fortunately, we are flying Jet Blue with their seatback TVs! Today for our 2h 30m flight we have La La Land. Having seen it on a rainy afternoon in Santa Barbara two months ago, I know I am going to La La Love It. The lovable Emma Stone! The dashing Ryan Gosling! The foot taping music! The dazzling choreography! The hope that comes with choices! Believing in possibilities! I can’t get enough of the inspirational grit and resilience of Mia and Sebastian, let alone the humor of the screen writing.
Stick with me for one example of the humor. Mia and Seb are coming back together after he has been on the road performing while she has remained in Los Angeles preparing for her one-woman show. He asks if she wants to join him on the road. Where she asks? Boise, he responds. Boise? To which he says, you’ll be able to check it off your bucket list.
Arriving in Atlanta on Saturday morning at 9A, we easily navigate the rail system to the rental car center miles away. Being an Avis Preferred member (you get that status by merely signing up), we are given express service and have none of the usual fear-based questions that the attendants usually ask about buying more insurance and being responsible if you are an accident.
As planned, by 10A we are driving through Atlanta north on I-75. Saturday mornings are great times to drive through the city since we have none of the snarling weekday commuter traffic. Well north of town, we turn west on route 140 to Alabama, eventually stopping at the state line for pictures.
As a lifelong northerner, I come to Alabama with some uncertainty. With its troubled racial past and conservative politics, I just don’t know what to expect. Movie stereotypes of Deep South southerners often have them as threatening, xenophobic, and intolerant. What is in store for the two of us who enthusiastically voted for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? By the way, both were winners of the popular vote for the presidency.
Ever-trusting, we drive on to DeSoto State Park in Mentone, Alabama for waterfall trails. Today will be Hannah’s first hike since she fell from the San Ysidro Falls Trail in California two months ago and ended up in the ER. With no fear, she leads our hike as she always does.
This family-friendly hiking area has color coded trails that make it easy for one and all to find their way without fear of getting really lost. Taking to the orange blaze trail, we are loving our time in the great outdoors, rich with rhododendrons, just above the West Fork of the Little River.
Dan and Hannah at Laurel Falls
At Laurel Falls, we see dads watching their sons splash in the chilly pool beneath the falls. In conversation, we learn that they are from Trail Life, a Christian group from near Birmingham, getting away for the weekend. These dads have hit the lottery, creating memories with their sons that crush any afternoon games on TV.
Hannah at Lost Falls
Weaving between the campground and the river, we hike on to Lost Falls, our favorite of the three that we will see today. Immediately climbing the cliff edge to approach the waterfall, Hannah is doing just fine on her reconstructed leg. Check out the video below for confirmation.
With rain imminent, we feel like we are stealing a day of hiking that we easily might have missed. To a person, the Alabamians we meet are friendly and helpful as we hike in near 80F, when it was 42F when we left Maine this morning.
Indian Falls
Looking for more waterfalls, we cross country road route 89 and hike to Indian Falls. From there, we take the yellow blaze trail along the same West Fork of the Little River. Big mistake. In addition to never finding the promised Lodge Falls, we must rock scramble up and down with no hiking rhythm. Abandoning ship after ten minutes, we backtrack and head for our overnight with Brenda in northern Alabama 90 minutes away.
Under threatening skies, we arrive at Brenda’s place minutes before the deluge. Let me explain our connection to Brenda, whom we have never met.
Last October, we hiked the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina to Fontana Dam. There we came upon two hiking boots filled with brightly colored pebbles, a living memorial to Brenda’s husband James who had recently passed on from cancer. The explanation sheet by the boots asked hikers to take a pebble and carry it for James, who never got to hike the whole AT himself.
James, Bama Hiker
We took one, emailed Brenda with a picture of us there on the AT, and became North/South correspondents. Graciously, she invited us to her place when we next returned to the South. Click here for the Brenda/Fontana Dam blog.
Greeted like family this stormy evening, we see the cobalt grey skies, which soon morphed into a hail-filled downpour. The threat of a tornado has Brenda thinking we may just need to go underground into her storm shelter buried in the backyard.
Hannah with Brenda the next morning
Fortunately, the tornado warnings end, but Biblical rains continue throughout the night.
Before Brenda’s lasagna dinner, I ask if I can give an Irish blessing. It comes from my niece Tara’s wedding; we’ve used it in California, Georgia, and whenever we are invited out in Maine.
Thank you for the food before us, the friends beside us, and the love between us.
Brenda is the friend beside us and clearly all that’s good in Alabama; in short order, we feel like family.
Click on this link for a newspaper story about the continuing Brenda and James love story. http://www.waff.com/story/35528290/late-alabama-hiker-inspires-others-to-finish-appalachian-trail
