Jasmin Hill Gardens

Today I went to the Jasmine Hill Gardens and Outdoor Museum in Wetumpka/Montgomery, AL. A little history stolen from their map:

"Jasmine Hill stands as "A Little Corner of Greece" atop the southernmost outcroppings of the Appalachians. It was conceived in the early 1930s by Benjamin and Mary Fitzpatrick and has grown into a virtual outdoor museum featuring reproductions of famous Greek and Roman works of art. The story of Jasmine Hill is one of the most romantic stories in Alabama. It is the story of an Alabama couple who spent their early married life busily establishing a chain of stores in the South and then retiring to their hilltop haven to create a living memorial to ancient Greece. Getting a jump on the depression, the Fitzpatricks sold their store holdings in 1927, just before the stock market crash. After the depression came, they were reluctant to venture into business again, so they came to Jasmine Hill to stay and make their home in the 1830-era cottage within the gardens. A garden of this magnitude did not develop overnight. In fact, the Fitzpatricks made over twenty trips to Greece to purchase their art objects, to study at the American Classical School in Athens and to simply enjoy Greek culture."

There are 42 statues throughout the property. I took a lot of pictures, but I don't think I took a picture of every statue. Click link below:

Jasmin Hill Gardens

Dragon Boat Races

In Montgomery, Alabama, the Dragon Boat Races are a yearly event. It was hotter en' hell. I went with a new friend, Ruth Ann Cone. We didn't stay more than three hours. The pictures above are the opening ceremonies and the headdress of the dragon.

Each boat had 20 rowers, a drummer at the front and someone with a megaphone at the back. The rowers row in rhythm to the beat of the drum.

These are schools of fish in the river. I don't think I've ever seen so many fish:

Assateague National Seashore

Tim and I spent a week on Assateague Island in Maryland. It was brutally windy and equally cold. Not much to say, just lots of pictures. These pictures are the ride on the Cape May ferry, something I've always wanted to do.

These are pictures of the horses on the island. Ah, you've seen one horse, you've seen them all:

Tim and his dog and the beach:

Wildlife and deadlife:

Flying my kite:

What could have caused the tree to grow like this? Perhaps the wind?

Tim's artistry:

Traveling to Alabama

It's been a L-O-N-G time since I've taken a trip. I was home for six months. That's about four months longer than I've been home in the last five years. Just before leaving for Alabama, Tim and I went to Assateague Island. I'll get those pictures loaded after these. For now, here are some pics taken during my four days of traveling last week.

I met Claire and Sandy at Perelman Park near Lancaster, PA. This is a view along the river and a view of the park with our Roadtreks in the background:

I boondocked at the Walmart in Lancaster, PA with Claire and Sandy. The next morning, I started to take Hope for a walk around the building when I discovered this path. It lead to a large park which lead to another path that was along a river. We took the river path for awhile before I decided I didn't want to be too far away from the vans. It was a gorgeous day for such a beautiful morning walk.

How does a chicken cross the brook? By it's own tunnel, of course.

After leaving Lancaster, my travels brought me through Gettysburg. I've never been here before and the town greatly surprised me as to how large the battlefields were. I took a really quick drive through the battlefield, stopping to take these two pictures:

The view from my campsite at Douthat State Park in Millboro, VA:

A flag somewhere near Roanoke, Virginia. I took two pictures to show the terrain. Can you imagine installing this flag there?

The following are pictures taken at the Norris Dam State Park in Lake City, Tennessee. These two are just above the marina.

The lake at Norris Dam:

These pictures are of the grist mill and threshing barn. Both buildings were closed. The grist mill still works. They grind corn and other grains at certain times of the year.

A Pegasus somewhere along Hwy 27 (?) in Tennessee.

Penn Brad Oil Museum

Another delightful discovery. Over an hour was spent at the Penn Brad Oil Museum in Bradford, PA. There was, and still is, much oil production in this area. You can see oil pumps and natural gas collection stations scattered around for miles. The woman who gave me the tour was very knowledgeable, which is understandable since I learned her father was an oil rigger.

The most interesting thing I learned was that the tall rigs were used only for digging the wells. Once oil was discovered, the rigs were dismantled, moved, and set up again somewhere else. Once they were moved out of the way, then the pumps were brought in and installed.

Oil discovery back in the 1930s was hit or miss. Now they have sophisticated equipment to search for oil, but back then, they basically guessed. Sometimes they hit big; sometimes it was a big waste of money, time and labor. The drilling rigs didn't actually drill; they pounded and broke the sand. I wish I recorded my tour because there was too much information to properly remember. It would take hours of research to find out the correct terminology for certain objects or processes. I will do my best without relaying wrong information.

Cog wheel that supplies the motion to the rig and looking up the shaft of the rig:

The drilling holes. The center hole is the actual drill. The outer hole I think was for shooting water into the drilling area, but I'm not sure. Each hole used different tools.

The lighter-colored vertical post was called a "widow saver" or "life saver." It stopped the leverage arm from crashing down on the workers should something in the mechanism break. The right picture shows different cleaning and sizing tools. Most tools were made right at the rig with a blacksmithing area right on the rig's platform.

Drilling rope:

These are plugs that are put into the hole once it is drilled or once no more oil is being pulled from the hole.
The EPA doesn't allow plugs like this any more. The drilled holes now have to be filled with cement and sealed.

This is a boiler. Along with oil, the drilling also extracted natural gas. For years, the gas just dissipated into the air, but eventually they discovered that the gas could be used to power their machinery. If I remember correctly, gas was used to power the boiler to produce steam, but I don't remember what the steam was used for.

The engine that powers the rig and the belts that ran between flywheels:

Centrifugal flywheel used to power the oil extracting pump:

Inside the museum -- this is the lab where they tested sand samples.

The white plugs are sand samples. The sand is not loose, but is caked and porous. The pores of the sand are filled with oil. Sand has different variations of pore patterns, which used different methods to test and extract the oil:

Display of different oils from Pennsylvania and surrounding areas. To the right is a display of wrenches and threading dies. They don't look much different today than they did nearly 100 years ago:

The picture on the left is an oil filling station. When you drove into a gas station, the attendant would pump oil from the tank into a glass bottle. Then he would bring the bottle over to your car and fill it with oil. The picture on the right is a fire engine from the 1930s. It was steam powered.

This last set of pictures is an oil rigger's home. There was a specific name for it, but I don't remember. Nearly all homes looked the same, many of which are still standing today. The last picture is my tourguide, who is nameless because I never caught her name: