Monte Sano State Park, located on one of the limestone ridges in the Huntsville, AL area is a real gem and site 51 is the prime location for views across the flat bottom lands. Huntsville seems to be a prosperous city. Most of the homes are ranches but there are a smattering of Mc-Mansions of dubious architectural style. I haven't seen a two story colonial yet!  The park sits on one of several limestone ridges that seemed to have popped out of the agricultural landscape surrounding Huntsville.

    My drive to Huntsville has been very nice.  The first two days my mind was kept occupied by an audio book borrowed from the Ocean County Library via their new system called Overdrive. I download a book to my Kindle and then connect to my cars speakers via bluetooth.

     The first day I so enjoyed a section of road west of DC. I took I-66 west but then got off onto US 29 and then 211 heading towards Luray. The scene was something out of typical Americana - historic inns, vineyards and white fenced fields with grazing horses. The rolling hills were just gorgeous with
spring starting to burst out.  Near Luray I got onto I-81 which makes a straight shot SW across Virginia staying in the valley between the first and second ridges of the Appalachians.  I-81 is only a four lane highway and serves as a major truck route.

    My first night was a pretty interesting experiment. I pulled into a huge 24 hour Walmart parking lot and sidled up to the only RV in the lot at the time.  I put the cardboard blinds I had made into the windows and crawled into my sleeping bag for the night. Other RVs came in afterwords and by morning I discovered a whole fleet of RVs and trailers.  This was the first time I had tried the boards and they worked very well. They shield all of the light and gave me complete privacy. The temperature got down to 42 degrees during the night but I was cozy in my long johns,  hat and sleeping bag.

    The second and third nights were spent at the house of a friend in Asheville, NC.  What a great location - arts, crafts, craft beers, and a vibrant music and restaurant scene. There is access to biking, and hiking as well as river rafting.  Our first order of business was to visit a football sized antiques and collectibles location called the Tobacco Barn - all under one roof. The afternoon was spent visiting St James Cathedral to view an exhibit by a gifted fiber artist known for her liturgical banners.  The Cathedral was built by George Washington Vanderbilt in the housing village he built for all of his employees working at the Biltmore Estate.  The same architect who designed the Estate also designed the Cathedral (Hunt). The stained glass windows are on a par with those of La Farge and Tiffany. The three of them developed a new American style and method of making stained glass.

    For the trip to Huntsville, LA from Asheville,  I went west and south of the Smokies.  It was nostalgia time.  While driving there I got to revisit several areas I had hiked when I did an Appalachian Trail thru-hike starting at Springer Mountain, GA. It brought back such good memories of stopping in the Nantahala gorge to resupply and to raft the Nantahala River.  Coming out of the gorge put me into the vast rhododendron forests I had hiked through and under while on the AT. There are trees in the upper story of the woods but massive groves of wild rhododendron seem to have been fertilized with steroids.

    Farther along I came across the site of the 1996 Olympics canoe and kayak venue built along the Ocoee River.   There are many rivers and TVA dam formed lakes in this general area of TN, GA and AL.   Because of an upstream dam on the Ocoee River, part of the river only runs seasonably in the summer time. For the Olympics that section was narrowed from 200 feet to 70 feet wide. The course was engineered and built in such a way as to make it difficult to see where the construction took place. Unbelievably the Ocoee is the only real river used by any Olympics. Using dam releases the area is now home to numerous river rafting trips in addition to racing on the former Olympic course.

    It rained the first night at Monte Sano. This event caused me to spend the next day rethinking how to attach my tentlet to my car.   Both the bug-netted tent and rain fly are designed to attach to a roof rack. I don't have a roof rack so I was attaching both in through the hinge area at the top of the hatch door. As a result, water ran down the tarp and into the gully of the door hinge and into my netted area which has a floor. PPP on my part.  The solution I came up with was to buy a separate 5 x 7 tarp and duct tape it to the rain fly so the attached piece will divert any rain forward and over the body of the car.  It looked good after I made the adjustments!

    My visit to the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville was a revelation. When watching our space escapades on TV it is hard to get a real feel for the size of the individual pieces. A Saturn V rocket pointing to the sky is the first thing you see upon entering.  It is massive.  Then upon entering the complex there is the space shuttle Pathfinder mounted on it's external fuel tanks. The shuttle is massive but so are the tanks. Inside one of the buildings is a Saturn V on its side. Located there also is the Apollo 16 command module that had made its trip to and from the moon in 1972. The heat shield is pocked and pitted with chunks missing! Alongside is a Moon Rock under multi layers of steal-proof glass! Nearby is the LM. I never realized how large and gangly it looks. Apparently there was no need to make it aerodynamic. We had a wooden model to manipulate as a demonstration of how the moon rover unfolded.  The Mercury and Gemini capsules were truly crazy small!  Our Astronaut crews have to be certifiable crazy.

    Also on the grounds was a huge tank where astronauts train in an underwater environment because it is the closest to feeling weightless. Modules of our first space station were out on the grounds as well as a variety of modules used in our current International Space Station endeavors. Pictures of the current space station reveal a rube goldberg assemblage of various modules attached end to end.

    The biggest revelation was that 2019 is the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday. The Apollo 11 went to the moon and back with the equivalent of two 286 DX computers and slide rules. There is more computing power in a smart phone today.

    Last night I packed everything into my car, opened the windows and installed the bug netting.  I crawled into bed and fell fast asleep only to awaken to pouring rain coming in my windows.   I used my hiking poles, one for the brake pedal and the other for the starter to get power for the windows. It raged and blew up quite a storm. I learned early this morning that northern AL got massive thunder storms.  My friend called this AM to tell me she almost called me last night.   I am not a very good weather forecaster.

    I am heading to MS today in order to get on the Natchez Trace Parkway which is administered by the National Park Service. The Trace goes from NE-SW Mississippi and ends at Natchez on the Mississippi River. Natchez, at one point in US history, was the third largest city in the country.
I have been writing the blog along the way but have not found an internet connection that was convenient until this morning.   I am sorry for the way the pictures are arranged. This blogspot is hard to control!

The space Shuttle with external tanks

Saturn V

The Five engines of the Saturn V

The Saturn V on its side

The LM