Toured historic downtown Columbus, GA.  Did you know that the man who developed the formula for Coca-Cola was a pharmacist in Columbus?  I did not, but I saw his two houses there.  John Pemberton was his name.

Crossing the Chattahoochee River made me feel like I was ending daylight savings time as I had to turn my clock back an hour--moving to Central Time Zone.  Dropped by Alabama State Capitol building while in Montgomery.  Right down the street from the capitol was Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was pastor in the late '50s. 

 

Obviously in the cradle of civil rights history,  I went on to Selma, coming into the town on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.  This bridge is famous because it is where people gathered for what was to be a peaceful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.   On a lighter note, when was the last time you saw a Rexall Drug store sign?  Selma downtown was a little bit like stepping back in time.

 

 

 

 

Continuing west to Demopolis (city of the people), there was one more plantation to visit--Gaineswood.  It said to be the finest antebellum mansion in Alabama.  Can you believe that this house started as a log cabin?   

 

Most of the furnishings are original to the house, which is amazing when you think about it.  Well, they didn't stay there in the house for 150 years--the descendents have donated them back to the house museum over the years.  Here is the dining room.

 

And then I continued west into Mississippi and made it as far as Jackson, where I will stay for the night!