Sightseeing and a Couple of Caches 3/12/2008

Today we headed for Mobile and a day of sightseeing and a few caches. We headed right to the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park. We stopped to get a cache outside the park first along the sea wall and then went into the park. What a great place to visit as it had so so much to see and was well worth the $2.00 fee. We stopped at Vickery's Bridge first which was a memorial to the soldiers of the Korean War. The bridge was named in honor of Lt. Grady Vickery who was assigned to defend the Namji-ri Bridge crossing the Nam River from Sept. 5-9, 1950. Numerous attempts to blow the bridge by the North Koreans were thwarted by Vickery's platoon. They inflicted heavy enemy casualties. On Sept. 9, 1950 he had troops on both sides of the bridge. At about 6-7 AM they heard this plane overhead. He made a pass over the bridge, circled and dropped a bomb that missed. He made another pass and dropped a bomb on the center span. They had defended the bridge for 5 days and OUR Air Force blew it up by mistake. In the park was a monument to the Korean War, a monument to each of the branches of the Armed Services, a tank, and a monument to each of the countries that aided the United States in fighting the war along with the countries flag and an inscription on the back of the monument detailing how the country aided.
Then we went into the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. Located there was a granite monument to the men from AL that were lost in the war, a 5' tall sculpture of the POW-MIA, a brick wall with individual bricks of the men that were lost and several other lovely statues. The POW-MIA bracelets were introduced in 1970 by 2 girls attending college in Los Angeles. The bracelets served as a way to raise awareness of the plight of the American servicemen captured or missing in the Vietnam War.
We then walked around and looked at the tanks, anti-aircraft guns, the USS Alabama and the many planes. There was a Coast Guard Rescue Helicopter, a Coast Guard search plane, an Army rocket, many jet planes, 2 World War 2 bombers and a B 52D Stratofortress which was awesome to see a plane this big and imagine it can actually fly. In fact we had a virtual cache which had to do with this plane and we had to answer 3 questions concerning the plane in order to get credit for the cache.
We left there and drove into the downtown area and our first stop was Fort Conde. The fort was originally founded in 1702 up-river from Mobile and was relocated to its present site in 1711 where a wooden stockade fort was built to protect the town. In 1723 a new brick fort with a stone foundation was started. Fort Conde' protected Mobile and its citizens for nearly 100 years from 1723-1820. It was built by the French as a defense against British and Spanish attack on the strategic location of Mobile and its Bay. The military importance of Mobile and Fort Cond' are huge. The fort and town protected access into the strategic lands between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic colonies along the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers. The fort covered 11 acres of land and was built from local brick, stone, earthen dirt walls and cedar wood. Twenty black slaves and five white workmen did initial work on the fort. From 1763 to 1780, England was in possession of the fort and it was named Fort Charlotte then from 1780 to 1813 Spain ruled Mobile and it was renamed Fort Carlota. In 1813 Mobile was occupied by United States troops and it was again named Fort Charlotte. In 1820 Congress authorized the sale and removal of the fort as it was no longer needed for defense. The present Fort Conde' is about 1/3 of the original fort. Inside they had hallways with many sealed in glass rooms with thousands of artifacts that had been saved or unearthed since the fort closed. Very interesting to go through it and see the utensils, guns, weapons, pottery, and other things they used in those days.
Then we took a tour around the downtown area to look at the many old churches such as the Big Zion AME Episcopal Zion Church, Government Street Presbyterian Church, and the Government Street Baptist Church. Then it was back into downtown and a visit to the Phoenix Fire Museum. They had about 10 or 12 old fire engines on the first floor including a 1898 steam engine that was manufactured in Seneca Falls, NY. On the second floor they had a huge room full of old firefighting equipment including fire alarms, safety nets, helmets, sprinkler heads, nozzles and fire extinguishers. As we left the museum we saw what we thought was an old trolley car but after we looked at it it was Mobile's last Mule Car. It was retired from its route in 1902 and then restored.
We then took another trip to the USA Children's Park to walk through it again as we enjoyed it so very much that we wanted to see it again and I wanted to get pictures of the statues that I didn't get the other day. We then drove back into downtown and had lunch at a outdoor restaurant named Heroes Sports Bar and Grille. After lunch we drove out to the Mobile Botanical Gardens and Mom went in a walked around while I waited in the car. She was rather disappointed as she thought that there would be more flowers in bloom than there were. After we left there we drove back to the RV and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon. We ate dinner and I am doing the blog now so we will say until tomorrow and we love you all.


Picture List:1 & 2-Phoenix Fire Museum, 3-Mom was very bad this morning so she got put in the hoosegow at Fort Conde, 4 - 15-Phoenix Fire Museum, 16-Malaga Inn, 17 & 18-Phoenix Fire Museum, 19-Mobile's Last Mule Car, 20 & 21-Heroes Sports Bar & Grille our lunch stop, 22-Big Zion AME Episcopal Church, 23-Government Street Presbyterian Church, 24-United Methodist Church, 25 - 40-Fort Conde, 41 - 54-USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.