voss adventures: On the Road Again!

We are on the road again.....
this time to meet Longways in New Orleans.
On the way, we stopped in Alabama. Mobile area has been on our list of places to visit.
The small town, Foley, near where we were camped had train museum with a fabulous model train set up. No pictures, even though we enjoyed looking at all of the details!
They also have an antique rose trail. Even though it was in the high 90's, we decided to walk the two blocks. I think the heat was getting to the roses, because there were not many blooming, which surprised us. What roses were blooming were beautiful! The oldest was from a 1752 rose bush!! But the bush was not blooming.
Ganges Mist (no date)

1824 Lady Banks (small pink rose, but very few blooms can be seen)

1834 Louis Philippe

1839 Safrano

1845 Green Rose

1857 Duchesse de Brabant

1903 Moonlight

Because we only had one day to look around, we chose to visit a couple of historic forts:

Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines. Both were similar in their construction, able to defend from enemies from all sides! And both had the beautiful brick arches.

Fort Morgan was the larger of the two, built in 1833, and was used in several wars, including the civil war and both world wars. It closed as an active fort in 1946.

The entrance was unpretentious, a tunnel through the sloping ground, which screened the fort walls from enemy gunfire.

Entering into a moat-like area

Then the main entrance, dated 1833, the year it was named for General Daniel Morgan, a Revolutionary War hero. It was first occupied in 1834 after completion.

The gun mounts, with fantastic views,

The hotshot furnace where cannon balls would be heated to white hot, and fired, setting wooden ships on fire.

The magazine was interesting to walk through and explore, quite cool inside compared to outside, and we found several archways that had stalagmites and calcium deposits above.

Gun mounts for 155 millimeter gun

Fort Gaines was completed in 1861, after more than 40 years of delays and problems with both title to land and the engineer. It was named afte General Edmund pendleton Gaines, who died a young offier in 1849, after reeiving national recognition when he led the detachment whcih captured former vice-Preisdent Aaron Burr who had been acused of participating in a conspiracy to commit treason.