We've been playing tourist in Florence, AL for a couple days. It has been beautiful weather.... clear, sunny days with daytime temps in the high 70s and Fall Colors are beginning to hit full color.

Yesterday, we went to visit Ivy Green, the birthplace and home of Helen Keller. The house was built in 1832 and was one of the first homes in the area. Helen Keller was an amazing woman because she overcame both blindness and deafness which overcame her as an infant, ut still learned to read, write, speak, and most of all, to make a huge positive difference in the treatment of deaf and blind people in the United States. Her parents had made zero progress with her by the time she was five, but they brought in an instructor for the deaf-blind, who worked wonders. First, she made Helen's parents move her to a cabin on their property, completely away from the family and home, and her only contact was her teacher. After months of no progress, she finally made a breakthrough by pumping water at the outdoor pump while continuing to make finger sign language signals into the palm of Helen's hand for the word for water. Once Helen understood that things could have sign language words for them, she very quickly wanted to learn all the words for everything. She learned the alphabet in one day. The list of accomplishments she made in her lifetime was very impressive.

Today, we went to see the Frank Lloyd Wright house and it was very well restored (by the city of Florence) and was really a work of art. We both felt that while it was beautiful and gave you a really good sense of grandeur inside, that it wouldn't be fun to actually live in it because you'd have to be so careful not to change or damage it and to keep it in its original condition.











We also visited the W. C. Handy birthplace and museum. W. C. Handy was the "Father of the Blues" in America, and therefore the world. He was born in a log cabin with two rooms and a "dog run" in between the rooms. He was able to play almost every instrument he tried, but trumpet was his favorite. As a young man, he wrote a political sdvertising song for a local politician, and it was so "catchy" that he rewrote it as "The Memphis Blues" recounting hard times living in Memphis, and it was the first time that the word "b;ues" was applied to the style of music. He later wrote his most famous blues song the "Saint Louis Blues".

This evening as it was getting dark, I thought I'd try out my Alabama fishing license from the aft deck. In 45 minutes, I caught 3 bluegills, 2 sunfish and this nice channel catfish. I released them all.

We're watching the election returns tonight and we'll go grocery shopping and Fall color viewing tomorrow.