Well, I had a strange weekend. Most of it I didn't really enjoy either.
The first part was great. For a school fieldtrip, my class went to Fort Toulouse/Jackson State Park just north of Montgonery. It is at the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers which join and form the Alabama River. This made the area a very good location for a trade settlement and military post. The rivers are navigable for 500 miles beyond that area and up into the mountains of Georgia. There is a lot of history to that place. The state park is the site of two forts. One, Fort Toulouse, was an old French trading fort from the mid 1700s. The second and probably the most well know, is Fort Jackson, which is there a treaty was signed between the Creek Indians and the US Government during the War of 1812. Neither of the origional forts are still standing but a replica of Fort Toulouse has been constructed. There is still archeological digging at the site Fort Jackson so only one bastion has been rebuilt. This fort is where the most interesting stuff is. we went during an event called Frontier Days where people dress up in costumes and like people did back in the 1700s and 1800s. They fire the cannons at Fort Toulouse during the event which lasts about a week there are all kinds of interesting people to talk to. Some of the people dress up as Indians and talk to you about trading with the French traders at the fort. Then there are the French Colonial Marines who do musket demonstrations and tell you about life at the fort. Next there are merchants selling cool souvenirs. I bought a crved oak cane and five musket balls. I saw them make those musket balls from melted lead. Those things are heavy and it would really suck to get hit by one. I also found one someone dropped. I met someone dressed up as Davy Crockett and another person dressed up as Andrew Jackson. Then there was a random Colonel who told me about the way Fort Jackson was designed. The fort was based on a French design where there are bastions at each corner of the fort. He told me that a box shaped fort would be easy to attack because if you attack one side, the other sides are totally useless. However with all the bastions, an enemy garrion would be split up. Then, once they made it to the wall, there was a six foot deep trench infront of the wall with a wooden fence in it. Then enemy would then have to cut through the fence while people shot at them from above and from the bastions. If the enemy got through the fence, they would have to climb the wall which had another "fence" that protruded horizontally from the middle of the fort's dirt wall, all the while getting shot at. The man told me the most effective way to attack the fort would have been to sail up the Alabama River and cut off supplies to the fort. I really enjoyed the trip and look forward to it next year.
The second part of the weekend wasn't so great. I had to go on a camp out with the Boy Scouts at Maxwell Airforce Base. Odd place for a camp out. Anyway, there are camping grounds at the base and they just happened to be right next to the runway. That was the cool part. The camp out was the all 2006 Camporee and there were many other troops there besides mine. We got to see a plane fire demo where the base's fire department set fire to a fake airplane and then put out the fire with special fire trucks. Unfortunatly, it was so colf that the gas lines that fed the fire froze so they had to do it the next day. Then, at night, a C-130 transport plane took off from another runway, flew to the one next to our camp site and landed. It looked like the plane was going to land on my tent. THose things are loud too. THis happened Friday night and Saturday, we went to the events. One of them, we got to tour a C-130 (the same one that was flying around). C-130s are smaller than people think. If you watch the Weather Channel, you've probably heard them talk about using C-130s to fly into hurricanes to measure wind spee. They always rant about the plane was blown around. however it is easy to see why since it is a small plane. About all a C-130 can carry is a couple of jeeps and some paratroopers. It is a plane that is designed to take off and land in small areas and can reverse its propellers while moving to slow itself down. The C-130 is the only plane in the world that can do that. Anyway, the 130 I got to see was configured for medevac operations. There was a field hospital set up and the people there talked about how C-130s were used to evacuate people after Hurricane Katrina. They also explained that the military had to take time to gather up supplies to send to the effected areas and that is what took so long to respond. Now, they have supplies ready to deploy within 8 hours. Anyway, as we were waling down the road which ran about 50 feet from the very end of the runway, I saw a funny sign that said "Yield to low flying aircraft"!
The runway approach lights are on both sides of the road. Luckily, nobody had to yield to any low flying planes because Maxwell is only used for training and there isn't a lot of air traffic around there. Anyway, then everyone froze their butts off at night. Just so you know, it does get cold in Alabama. I'm sure someone from up north would feel colder down here because the humidity is real bad and it makes it seem colder than it really is. Overall, I had a very odd weekend and just wanted to share it with you.
