Guntersville, AL
Driving from Columbus, GA to Huntsville, AL took us through parts of the country that we never thought that we would see. Most of the last two years has shown us though it’s the off the beaten path type places that are usually the most beautiful. We had almost reached Huntsville as we passed through the town of Guntersville. This was a beautiful little town perched on a small peninsula jutting out into the Tennessee River. The town was on a hill and really resembled to us the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. It was absolutely beautiful! We walked around for a bit taking in the sights before hopping into Bubbles and heading towards Huntsville.
Alabama BBQ & Beer
As it was only around 3pm when we arrived in Huntsville we decided to go check out a little bit of the town first before heading to the campground. Julie, knowing my love for BBQ, had found that there was a BBQ festival going on and as we were a little hungry we decided to go. Our BBQ high was short lived though as after we parked and walked over to the festival we were told by a security guard that they were shutting it down as rain was about to move into the area. We checked out the weather radar on our phones and sure enough rain was going to move in, just not for a few hours. As this was the case we walked into the small historic section of the downtown area and found a great little brewery called Green Bus Brewing. We saddled up to the bar and split a flight of their great beers before heading to our campground.
U.S. Space & Rocket Center
The campground that we stayed at was a bit unusual and far removed from our normal KOA or RV Park. We had found that the U.S. Space & Rocket Center (One of 3 NASA locations in the country) had a small RV park on their property. This was also the location for Space Camp for kids. As this was the case when we pulled up we encountered kids shooting off rockets from behind the safety of a kid sized launch pad and launch center. We watched for a minute before driving to our RV spot and set up. It was not a moment too soon as the rain started pounding so we made dinner inside Bubbles and had a good rest of the evening watching the Kentucky Derby.
The next day we woke up ready to explore. First up was to go check out the Rocket Center itself. The Rocket Center is half museum, half space camp and all really interesting to see. Julie and I had assumed (and assumed wrong) that NASA built and tested their spacecraft at either their Texas or Florida facilities. We were a bit stunned to learn that every single one of NASA’s rockets that propelled man and spacecraft into space were built and tested then shipped out from Huntsville. The first part of the museum that you went through talked about the space race and why we wanted to put a man on the moon. Then you went through the steps to get there and finally everything about the actual moon landing. It was all pretty neat.
From there we went outside. Here are full replicas of everything from space shuttles to the Saturn V rocket. We learned that most of these are the only full replicas left as they were created to make sure that the test sites could handle rockets and shuttles that were the exact size and weight. In other words, they were never actually used as they were just made of wood and a bit of metal. Still though, pretty neat to see. From there we went into the building, which housed a full scale (but broken apart) Saturn V rocket. This building told about the history of NASA’s rocket building in Huntsville, how and why rockets work as well as showcased NASA’s first space station, Skylab. In this building they also housed actual spacecraft and moon rocks. As RVers they also had an Airstream that was used as a decontamination chamber for after astronauts returned to earth in the late 1960’s. We felt that we could have stayed on this property all day but as we only had one day in Huntsville we left the museum, walked back to Bubbles then caught an Uber to downtown.
Huntsville, AL
We were dropped off in the old historic section of downtown in which we walked around a bit checking out a few different shops. It was Sunday so not much was open but it was all still nice to look at. From there we wandered over to the adjacent neighborhood of Twickenham. This neighborhood was absolutely gorgeous! Many of the homes had been built between the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. Most as well had plaques with dates that they were built and if any prominent citizens had either lived in them or had the homes built. We also learned here that Twickenham was Huntsville’s original name but during the Revolutionary War it changed to Huntsville as the residents thought the name Twickenham sounded too British. We wandered the neighborhood for a while; even stopping to chat with some homeowners who we found out had been born in Tampa. Small world we thought!
From the Twickenham neighborhood we wandered back downtown stopping for a drink at The Martin Bar & Bistro. It was Cinco de Mayo so we had a few Corona’s with chips and salsa. It was a good short stop so back to the streets we went. We then wandered a few blocks over to Big Spring Park. Big Spring as it turned out was not only why Huntsville was located where it is but also one of the most beautiful city parks that we had ever been to. There is actually a big spring in Big Spring Park. Crystal clear water flows out of the ground, down a medium sized stream and into a lake before continuing from there. As Julie and I walked down the stream (which has sidewalks on either side and is beautifully maintained) we started to see koi fish. It started out as just a few but by the time we got to the lake there were koi fish in the hundreds or more. We were both not sure what to make of this. We had seen koi fish before but only a few and in small ponds. This was a lake with more than we could count. It was the neatest thing. We walked around the park, watching people feed the fish or just enjoy themselves, as the day was beautiful.
It was starting to get towards dinnertime and we started to get a bit hungry so we thought we should head back. We called an Uber, got back to our Rocket RV park, made dinner and called it a night.
Pulaski, TN
The next morning after breakfast we packed up and hit the back roads once again. Today we were heading up to the lakes region of Western Kentucky but were going to be spending almost the entire day cutting through Tennessee. As we were fairly close to the Tennessee border it didn’t take much time before we saw the Welcome to Tennessee sign and we were in our 3rd state of this trip. One of the most interesting towns of the day we came across fairly early was the small town of Pulaski. This town felt like it was Mayberry from Andy Griffith Show. In the center of town stood the county court house with shops and restaurants on all 4 sides. We had to stop. We parked Bubbles, walked all 4 sides as well as some side streets and said hi to some locals. It was pretty neat and we could imagine that this is what this town had looked like since the 1940’s. From there we hopped back into Bubbles and continued north to our next destination.
Next up…..We head to the lakes and rivers region of Western Kentucky!
