Alabama
Last week’s business trip took me to Huntsville, Alabama. Our flight left from Boston early Monday morning, there was a plane change in Washington, D.C., and we were working at our destination by noon. That night I set the alarm for 5:30am and turned in early and was out at 6am the next morning. The hotel desk clerk suggested that I take a right at the first stop light and follow the sidewalk for a while.
Huntsville was a surprise. It’s a modern city with scattered high tech companies, industrial parks, and department stores in between. From the landscape we passed it was very clear that that the this community is very much into work - particularly the aerospace industry. We learned that Huntsville is home to the rocket manufacturing at Redstone Arsenal and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. It is nicknamed “The Rocket City” for its close history with U.S. space missions. Most of companies in the area support this industry. There is virtually no unemployment in this area. So, you ask, why was Huntsville a surprise?
I had never been to Huntsville but I had a pretty good preconceived vision of it. Thanks to Jeff Foxworthy, my mental picture displays a flat area with a lot of red dirt. There are older buildings in need or repair, small diners serving grits, lots of people wandering around with cowboy hats and driving beat up pickup trucks blaring Lynyrd Skynyrd music. Well, at least I got the red dirt right! All I can say is that based on my three days, I had Huntsville all wrong.
The hotel on a busy road near our manufacturing plant destination. There were plenty of hills nearby but none close enough to drive to before starting work. So my walk would be along the sidewalk. My plan was to keep taking right turns and I would circle back to the Hotel. If I got back too early I would just go around again. After taking the first right I was delighted to find there was less traffic on the street and it was fairly quiet. This stretch of the walk was long and was slowly taking me up a hill. I passed a park on the left and a few empty lots on my right. There were also several entrances to a couple of industrial parks. From the top of the hill I could see that my next turn was coming up.
As I turned there was a college and a church. Then another church. I felt that I needed one more church to mention that this is part of the Bible Belt, but instead there was open land with trees neatly planted along the edges. After a while I came to another corner. I did a time check and estimated that I would be back by 7am thus completing an hour’s walk. Soon after turning I passed another church on the right, then another right next to it and one across the street. OK, now I can mention the Bible Belt… but I already did. Well this road seemed much longer than the road I should be in parallel with, but I kept walking. I finally stopped at what looked like a turnpike. This was a signal to me that I had probably missed a turn and walked too far. I turned around.
Another time check revealed that I didn’t have enough time to completely reverse my walk. I needed to find a more direct route to the Hotel and asking directions was out of the question. There was nobody around to ask. About ten minutes later I saw a large apartment complex to my left. With any luck the back end of this would put me in better proximity to the hotel. As a walked between the buildings I started wondering if my coworkers would have to send out a search party. I then became more determined to get back on time. The apartments led me to a dead end road then a small creek in front of a large field. It appeared that the creek could be jumped and that on the other side of the field was another street. Away I went. The jump was easy and I was able to land on dry red dirt. From there it was just a walk across the field covered with tall grass - no problem, but the grass was pretty wet. When I came upon the sidewalk I realized that I was back at the start of the walk. All I had to do is take a couple of lefts and I was back at the hotel. I walked in the lobby almost exactly an hour from when I started.
Just after lunch we drove over to the NASA center and walked the grounds. The displays were excellent. If we have another trip to Huntsville I would like to spend more time looking at those exhibits then go for a walk along the Tennessee River.
Filed under: Alabama on May 4th, 2007 | No Comments »
