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Trip stats:
coach miles: 14,864
diesel gallons: 1,527
mpg: 9.7
states visited: 18
provinces visited: 3
states not yet visited: 1 (Oklahoma)
provinces not yet visited (and most likely never will): 2 (Northwest Territories, Nunavut)
Day 166, September 14, 2019, Saturday. Lake City, FL (166 miles)
The Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna, FL was to be our first stop at the beginning our trip but it was closed due to Hurricane Michael damage. So we visited the park on the way home not only to see th caverns but to escape some of the heat as the cave temp is a very comfortable 65 degrees and no jackets needed. The caverns were opened for guided tour but flashlight tours only as the electrical system was still not functioning due to the hurricane. The caverns has some very nice features and the flashlight tour gave it a very different perspective. The photos came out fairly well as the camera flash was the only light on the subject. After the tour we drove to Lake City, FL, and checked into Casey Jones RV Park (fhu 50 amp pt). We had dinner with our friends Tim and Marilyn at Rita’s. The restaurant left a lot to be desired but the company was delightful.
We departed Birmingham and headed 86 miles to Montgomery, AL, to visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. Both of these opened in April of 2018. We parked the coach at the Memorial and entered through a strict security screening. The Memorial begins with a shocking sculpture of slaves in chains, the anguish on their faces is quite upsetting. The Memorial’s main feature are 800 weathered steel monuments, one for each county that has been documented to have lynched a black person prior to 1950. In addition to the county name, each monument lists the names and dates of those lynched. Outside the Memorial structure where the monuments are hanging is a field of identical monuments waiting to be claimed by the counties they represent. So far, it appears that no county has confronted the truth and claimed a monument. A shuttle bus took us to the Legacy Museum in downtown. The museum is located in a building which housed Africans waiting to be sold at slave auctions. 400 years of history is presented from the beginning of the slave trade though the civil rights struggles to present day discrimination in the criminal justice system. After our visit, we continued onward and checked into Stay N Go RV Park (fhu 50 amp pt) in Marianna, Florida, thus ending my longest ever stay outside my home state at 5 months and 12 days.
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