Debate Team Trip: Alabama (Tuesday)

The students once again headed to the debate rounds and speech rounds. They decided to spend the day watching the competitions and supporting Chelsea.

Mr. Conant. Cody, Ms. Edwards and I went to a Waffle House. Can you believe that they don't have any pancakes there.....The waitresses at the restaurant were extremely friendly. They greeted us all as we walked through the door and gave us some southern hospitality.

After the Waffle House we headed over to the Arlington Antebellum House in Birmingham. The house was built between 1845-1850. Inside the house is an art museum which features a collection of 19th-century furniture, textiles, silver, and paintings.

The house was originally built by William S. Mudd. He helped to establish the city of Birmingham. At the time he built the house the area was called Elyton (second county seat of Jefferson County).

The house was used by Union troops while planning the burning of the University of Alabama. Below are some of the pictures that Ms. Edwards took of the outside of the house and the kitchen. We weren't able to take any pictures inside the house.

Here is a front view of the House....check out the columns.

Back view of the house

Side view of the house......check out the double chimneys.

A picture of the garden

Here is a view of the kitchen. The kitchen was located in a separate building outside of the main house.

Here is another view of the kitchen...How would you like to have to cook over that fire during the summer months in Alabama.

Here is a view of from the parking lot...check out the double chimney's again and the double porch on back....there are two doors on the second level which made for a great breeze way.

After going to the house, Ms. Edwards, Coty and I went to the mall. Coty wanted to build herself a bear and Ms. Edwards wanted to pick up a few items.....After Coty made herself a new bear she discovered that she could go for a little ride. Below is a picture of Coty hanging out.

After going to the Mall, Ms. Edwards, Coty and I went to Target and picked up some groceries for the students to have dinner. Ms. Edwards then headed back to the hotel and Coty went to the tournament because she had to judge a round. Ms. Edwards and I worked on catching up on my blogs and she waited for the group to return....the Internet speed at the hotel is horrible.

The group returned to the hotel and the decision was made that the group would make sandwiches in the hotel instead of going on a picnic and then would head over to the Science Museum. The Museum was closed to the public and was opened only to those individuals who were a part of the Debate and Speech tournament. The museum was unreal...It was full of so many hands on activities. There was something there for everyone. Below are pictures that Ms. Edwards took at the museum.

Here is a picture of Coty's new Bear and myself...we are hanging out in the dinosaur exhibit.

Do you remember those contractions that you put your hands on and your hand appears on the other side....Well they have four big ones.......Here is the results of putting Coty's bear on the contraction.

The museum also had some animals from the Birmingham area. Here is a picture of a turtle that was hanging out with some fish.

Here is one of the exhibits that appeared in the museum...The balls are floating on water.

There was an exhibit where you were able to give a weather report and then watch yourself on the television. Here is Coty giving the weather report...guess she needs to wear a different colored shirt...she blends in a little.

One of the exhibits was over an in the air. The students each took turns on this ride...the exhibit was demonstrating pendulums. The students had to peddle backwards and swing back and forth to get enough momentum to reach the end.

Here is a picture of the bones of an ancient animal....Looks like one that swims in the water.

The museum also had a memorial to the two space crafts that went down. The first one is the Challenger and the second is the Colombia.

One of the students decided to stick their face through the exhibit....they don't look like this normally.

What do you see first the word or the person? Can you figure out what the word is?

One last hands on exhibit.

From the museum of science we headed home and relaxed a little before bed...tomorrow we are driving to Montgomery, Alabama.

Debate Team Trip: Night Five (Monday)

Ok let me be the first to tell you...don't make plans to go to the different sites of Birmingham on a Monday.

Ms. Edwards and I had these grand plans for the day...we were going to check out airplane museum and some historical houses...they were all closed.

Ms. Edwards and I left early to drop the students off at the speech location. The school was absolutely huge....They had a greenhouse that was the size of the top floor of the high school....They had a football stadium that would have rivaled any college stadium. It makes sense why the tournament was held down here...they had the room. I don't think that Maine will ever be able to hold a national tournament...we just don't have the number of schools needed in close proximity to each other....I think the closest location would have to be Boston.

After dropping the students off at the tournament, Ms. Edwards and Mr. Conant tried to go and see a steam factory......surprise...the location was not open on Mondays. They decided to grab a bite to eat........Mr. Conant dropped Ms. Edwards back off at the hotel and joined the kids at the tournament....Ms. Edwards and I got caught up on my blog writing...downloaded some pictures..and worked on finishing up some school details.... Ms. Edwards had to sit outside of the motel because she wasn't able to get Internet connection in our room....Below are some pictures of new friends that I made while she helped me type.

I shall name him Fred.

This one looks like a Bernie

The students returned back to the hotel around 6:30 and the group got ready for dinner.

We ate at a Sonic....an interesting concept I might saw.....we ordered our food from our own little car bays and sat in our cars and ate our food.....Everyone had something that involved ice cream it appeared.

After Sonic we decided to have a little fun at the bowling alley. Ms. Edwards acted as camera man ooops woman and took pictures of the students while they tried to successfully bowl while using the larger balls.....Below are some pictures of me from the bowling alley....If you want to see pictures of the kids you will have to ask Ms. Edwards when she gets home.

After bowling we headed back to the hotel....the kids seemed to have a blast at the tournament and learned a lot of new skills from the different rounds of speech and debate they watched....

I learned some interesting things at the hotel....
1. Don't try to sight see in Birmingham AL on Mondays
2. Montgomery AL is the capital
3. Birmingham is the largest city.
4. Someone from Birmingham is called a Alabamian or Alabaman
5. Alabama was admitted to the United States on December 14, 1819 (22nd state added)
6. Alabama is located in the central standard time zone...(would have been nice to have known this one sooner)
7. Unofficial nickname is Yellowhammer State
8. Also known as the "Heart of Dixie"
9. State tree is the Longleaf Pine
10. State flower is the Camellia
11. Montgomery AL was the first home of the Confederacy Capital.
12. IT IS VERY HOT DOWN HERE.

Ok here are some pictures from the bowling alley....Meet my new friends

Here is a picture of Chelsea Bear, Abby Bear and myself....I of course am in the middle

Here I am all ready to bowl

Another picture of Abby Bear, Chelsea Bear and myself....(I prefer the picture up top)



Final Score of the Bowling match between the kids....good thing I wasn't bowling....I would have really shown them how to kick a field goal....oh I mean knock the pins down.... :)

Debate Team: Day Four (Lazy Day)

Today was a nice and relaxing day. We had to get up early to go to the Sheraton Hotel to register Chelsea for her competition. We had a group breakfast in the lobby and headed to the hotel. It's a good thing that Ms. Edwards brought her computer and camera with her. I got my picture taken with some lovely southern bells. They even dressed for the occasion. Ms. Edwards also found a really good internet connection at the Sheraton Hotel while waiting for the group to finish registration and exploring the area. The students came back with a bag full of lollipops....They didn't share any with me though.

Check out the picture of me with the southern belles :)


After leaving registration we finally made the trip to a Walmart. Ms. Edwards picked up a few items as well as the other members of the group. It started to pour while we were in the store. It also started to lightening and thunder....I think this was my first experience with a thunder shower....good thing Ms. Edwards had her backpack that I could hide in during it. The lightening was incredible. It appeared to come out of no where.

After the Walmart trip the group had lunch at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. They are everywhere down here....I hear that the lunches were delicious. A lot of fried food was ordered. One of the participates actually ordered three sides of mac and cheese.....no that is my kind of an order. There was a lot of sharing going on and everyone seemed to have a good time with the lunch. One of the students had never heard of a Cracker Barrel and when she first saw the sign she thought it said "Crocker Banquet." Let me tell you....the group hasn't let her live that one down yet.

From "Crocker Banquet" oh I mean Cracker Barrel the group split up. Four members went back to the hotel with Mr. Conant for a little rest and relaxation as well as speech practice. The other five decided to go to a nearby mall for a little exercise and shopping. Ms. Edwards promised me a new t-shirt at the Build-a-Bear store. She also promised Kennedy one. The mall that we went to was called Riverchase Galleria. The mall had over 200 stores and the roof was actually a nine-story glass atrium featuring the world's largest skylight. The best part of all...they had a Build-a-Bear.

Build-a-Bear was the first stop the group made of course. Ms. Edwards picked me up not one but three new shirts....I plan to wear all three this week....see if you can spot them....She also picked up a shirt for Kennedy that has Alabama and an elephant on it. The shirt is supposed to represent the Alabama Crimson Tide. I guess the elephant is their mascot. At Build-a-Bear two new friends were made as well. The girls decided to make new bears for two of the girls on the trip. The bears were named Chelsea and Abby. I hear the girls were extremely happy when they received their surprises....look out for pictures of my new friends...I am sure that they will be coming soon.

The group walked around the mall a little longer and Ms. Edwards finally purchased a pair of black shoes to replace the ones she was wearing all year at school....Hear that Ms. Wood....the old black shoes have been replaced.

The group returned to the hotel where they relaxed for awhile and then got ready for their dinner at a restaurant called Fire+Ice. I guess everyone competing from Maine decided to get together for a meal at this one restaurant. Ms. Edwards didn't recognize any one of course but everyone else seemed to know at least one of the other couches or students. One of the couches had just returned from a trip to Tibet. She was sharing a few stories of her experiences. I hear the meal there was interesting.....the group had go through a salad bar like set up. They choice what they wanted their meals to consist of (pasta, meat, veggies, seasoning, fish) Etc and took it to a group of chefs who was surrounded in a circle by an extremely large grill. They would then take your bowl of food and pour it on the grill and cook it in front of your eyes. It appeared to be a big hit among the students. There are a total of seven of these restaurants in the country. (Lake Tahoe, CA, Anaheim, CA, West Nyack, NY, Boston, MA, Cambridge, MA, Birmingham, AL, and Providence, RI)

After dinner the group headed back to the hotel. The students really want to use the pool....unfortunately it is broken....I would like to use the pool too....Ms. Edwards said she didn't pack my bathing suit. I thought I could go bare....but she didn't think that was a good idea....good thing the pool is closed...I might have sneaked in with the kids.

Debate Team Trip: Night Three: Birmingham Alabama

We were able to sleep in a little today :) The D-Day Memorial did not open till 10:00 AM. We got up, packed, and had breakfast. Ms. Edwards promised me that I could be in some pictures today.

So....Bedford Virginia....a small town....why would this town have such an amazing monument you might ask yourself. Ms. Edwards was lucky enough to stumble onto this monument while traveling around Virginia last summer. The reason why this amazing monument is in this small town is because of the sacrifice that the boys of Bedford gave during WWII. (Especially on D-Day). 30 Bedford boys were part of Company A of the 29th Infantry Division on D-Day. The Division was created on February 3, 1941. D-Day occurred on June 6, 194 . Other Bedford boys were located in other units. Company one went in at Omaha Beach. Out of those 30 boys, 19 were killed on the first day. 4 more Bedford boys would die during the campaign in Normandy. Bedford's population at that time was around 3,200. Beford, Virginia suffered the deadliest D-Day losses in the country. Below are some pictures of the Memorial.

We had a guided walking tour of the Memorial. The students picked up a few new vocabulary words for their files. We have heard a lot of the following since the tour ended.
A. So to speak
B. To put it mildly
C. Mosey on

It is amazing how quickly they picked up these words and are now using them constantly :)

Here is a sampling of the different plaques that appeared throughout the Memorial. They have a book in the bookstore that has every plaque in it. There just wasn't enough time to stop at each plaque and be able to read them.

Ms. Edwards promised that I could finally have my picture taken for my blog. Here I am at the start of our tour. The arch in back says Overlord on it. Overlord was the code name for the D-day invasion in Normandy by the allied forces.


Here is a picture of an English styled garden. Around the garden were the different commanders who lead during the invasion of Normandy. In the doomed structure is a statute of General Eisenhower. The military personal under his command were Bernard Law Montgomery (British), Omar Bradley (American), Trafford Leigh-Mallory (British), Arthur Tedder (British), Miles Dempsey (British), and Bertram Ramsay (British) In the middle of the garden is a sword with fire around the edges. The flowers that you can just barely see represent the shield that the men received for fighting in this battle.

Trafford Leigh-Mallory will not survive the war. He was killed when his plane crashed over the French Alps.

Bertram Ramsay was also killed during the war. He was killed when his plane crashed on takeoff.

Here is a picture of Monty and myself.....what do you think? Monty

Here is a copy of the SHAEF patch. SHAEF stand for Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.


Here is another view of the arch. The flags around the arch represent the different countries that fought on the side of the Allies. Two of the flags are no longer accurate. The Canadian flag was changed and Czechoslovakia which is no longer a country.



Here is a side view of the arch. If you look carefully in the water you can see statutes of soldiers as they try and storm the beaches. There were six beaches that were invaded on that day (Gold, Sword, Omaha, Juno, Pointe du Hoc, and Utah) Each of these names was a code name created by the Americans, British and French.


One more view of the arch from a different direction.


Here is a picture of me and one of the soldiers who was trying to storm the defenses of the beach.

The Memorial was once again an amazing place to visit. I saw a program on CNN a few weeks ago about how this memorial is in danger. It is not a national memorial and so is supported by visitors and donors. The problem is that the people who donate are dying because they are the ones who vote in WWII. I hope that something is done to save this amazing memorial so that future generations can visit and remember what these men sacrificed.

I made a little bit of a splash at the memorial....people asked the students about me and I believe that my picture was taken by a few of the other guest as well.....guess it is because I am so photogenic.

Our tour guide recommended a really really good restaurant in town that we should have lunch at before leaving town. He mentioned that it used to be part of a train depot and that of course caught Mr. Conant's attention.


Here is a picture of the restaurants sign. The kids loved the restaurant....especially the mashed potatoes. If possible I think they would have taken home a bucket for left overs. I must admit that they were pretty tasty. We had an amazing waitress and everyone who spoke with us gave us that famous southern hospitality. Totally different from what you get in some northern restaurants. The kids loved the restaurant so much that they asked to go back on the way home....unfortunately it is not on our return route home....potatoes might be worth the detour though.


Here is a picture of the outside of the restaurant. Ms. Edwards and Mr. Conant each purchased glasses from the Liberty Station. They are glass...I think I better stay away from them.

Here is a picture of some old fashioned cards that were parked outside of the restaurant...they don't make them like these any more.


Here is a picture of a train bridge that was near the restaurant. We saw a train go by while we were taking group pictures...if u want to see those pictures you will have to ask Ms. Edwards to show you her snapfish.com book.

So....we left the restaurant and Bedford Virginia around 1:00 PM. Our goal was to reach Birmingham Alabama. We drove from 1 to about 10 PM with a few stops in between. At one of the stops we went to the visitors center in Tennessee. Across from the center was this huge....and I mean huge guitar. A picture of it appears below.


We also stopped for dinner at a Subway....the girls in the car with Mr. Conant and Ms. Edwards would say Subway after every sign they saw before we finally stopped....do you know how many subways they have down here?

For those of you keeping track...today we drove through Virginia of course, Tennessee, Georgia (which surprised everyone) and finally Alabama. Did you know that Alabama is in a different time zone.....Ms. Edwards and Coty were really surprised to discover that they had gained an hour....the GPS system didn't change though...cell phone did.....course this means that they will lose an hour when we head home on Friday.


Here is a picture that Ms. Edwards took outside the hotel room in Birmingham.....Ok joking...this is actually a winter picture from where Ms. Edwards and I live....I just wanted to add a little cold to the blog....it is HOT HOT HOT and humid down here.

Debate Team Trip: Night Two: Bedford Virginia

We left New York a half hour later then scheduled....and no it wasn't Ms. Edwards fault. We then drove through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia before arriving in Virginia. Ms. Edwards let me come out of the backpack so I was able to enjoy the view. I also got to hang out with some of the students. I guess my wining paid off.

We stopped and had lunch at a McDonalds. Ms. Edwards took a nap in the afternoon while Cody was driving the van....I hear she kept waking herself up. While Ms. Edwards was driving she came across a logo on the back of the car that she found extremely funny..... A picture of it appears below...I am not sure if you can read it though....it says "If you can read this please turn my car the other way."


We arrived in Lexington after 6 PM when everything was closed...Ms. Edwards and I took on the roles of tour guide because we had the chance to explore Lexington last summer as part of the grant that she received. We drove through VMI and would have stopped at the George Marshall Museum had it been opened. We did stop and walk around Washington and Lee a little. Ms. Edwards showed everyone the building that Lee is buried in. We also showed everyone where Lee's horse Traveller is buried. While walking around the campus the students saw a little bunny.

Side view of the chapel that Robert E. Lee is buried in. From this angle you can see the location where his study is. It is on the far right side of the building. We were not able to enter the building because it was already closed. On the ride side of the building is also the location of where Traveller is buried as well as the Lee family. The Lee's are buried in a crypt that can only be seen by entering the building. Traveller on the other hand can be visited very easily.

Here is a different view of the chapel that holds Lee's tomb. This is how we would have entered the building if we had made it in time.


Here is the grave sight of Traveller. This was Lee's trusty horse during the Civil War. Traveller lived from 1857-1871. He was one of the horses used by Lee during the Civil War. His original name was Jeff Davis (ironic in a way). He was renamed Greenbrier and was finally named Traveller by Lee. Lee purchased the horse in February 1862 for $200. Traveller stepped on a nail in the summer of 1871. He had to be put down because he developed tetanus. His bones were initially buried on the grounds of Washington and Lee and were removed for multiple purposes.


In 1971, his remains finally found peace when his bones were buried a few feet from the Lee family crypt. Here is the marking that appears by his grave. It appears that people like to leave him a penny.

After leaving Washington and Lee we made a quick stop at Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's house in Lexington Virginia. Once again we were not able to go inside the house due to the fact that it was closed. The students did have the opportunity to see the outside though.


This is the only house that Stonewall Jackson ever owned. He lived in the house while teaching at the nearby military academy VMI. Jackson taught Natural and Experimental Philosophy as well as artillery. He was not the best classroom teacher. He memorized his lectures and if a student interrupted him with a questions he would just begin the lecture from the start again. He was loved as an artillery instructor though. Jackson lived in this house with his second wife from 1851-1861.



After leaving the Stonewall Jackson house we headed to dinner. Mr. Conant's rule is that at least one meal needs to take place and a location we can't eat at in Maine. Since we had lunch at a McDonalds we had to find something different. We settled on Frank's. A pizza, sub, and pasta restaurant. The calzones that the students ordered were huge. They had enough food to last at least three meals.

From Frank's we made one more stop before leaving Lexington. We decided to find the grave of "Stonewall Jackson" Ms. Edwards told the students that they might find lemons on the general's grave. Unfortuntly there weren't any there. The students did have the chance to see his final resting place as well as another cute little bunny.

"Stonewall" Jackson was shot by "friendly fire" during the battle of Chancellorsville. His arm was ambutated in an attempt to save his life. He died a few days later from pnemonia. Upon hearing of Jackson's losing his left arm Lee is reported to have said "Jackson has lost his left arm and I have lost my right." His arm was buried near the battle. Jackson was buried in Lexington Virginia.


We left Lexington and found the curviest road that I have ever been on. It is called the Blue Ridge Parkway. Had the sun still been up I am sure the view would have been amazing. Unfortunetly we drove it in the dark. Watching the GPS system was fun though. we got to see all the twisty turns that we were about to take. Along the parkway we also saw at least 20 deers. They were not afraid of anything. They just stood by the side of the road watching us as we drove by.

We arrived in Bedford Virginia after 10:00 PM. One more day on the road over...Only one more long day of driving before we reach Birmingham Alabama.