Hello, Havasupai Elementary School!
We are looking forward to meeting you all!
HELLO, EDUCATORS!
We invite you and your students to join us for a virtual tour of America’s unsung wonders and off-the-beaten-path communities. At every step, we’ll be documenting our travels via daily photos, essays, sketches, and videos.
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The latest on Instagram
Good night from Desoto State Park in Fort Payne, Alabama. As we approached, a hand-painted mural declared Fort Payne to be “Alabama’s Mountain Town.” The description is apt.
As we hiked today on the Laurel Falls and Lost Falls Trail Loop, the terrain reminded us of various mountains we loved. At first, it felt like Maine, with rocky trails and scrubby evergreens. Later it reminded us of Western Maryland, with its tall deciduous trees and thick carpet of fallen leaves. At times it felt like my beloved Berkshire woods as we climbed gentle hills with a stream plunging through.
We’ve been in towns and cities for the past week or so. It felt good to get back into the countryside today, and back on the trail. The sun was out after two straight weeks of rain, sleet, and snow. We’d almost forgotten how simple a pleasure the blue sky can be.
The going was soggy as we marched through the woods. Dumbles was in heaven as he raced between the six of us, trying to be everywhere at once.
When we ask the kids we meet in the schools what makes them happiest, easily half say “family.”
That would be my answer, too. So grateful for this crew and this time we get together.
#busloadofbooks
The Daily Minute: 1.3.23
In which our spirits are high as the sun shines down on the mountains of northeast Alabama.
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Hi Friends! Today we’re in Alabama, whose official flower is the camellia (they smell SO good), official dance is the squaredance, and state motto is Share the Wonder.
Alabama also has a state language — English. A few over half the US states have an official language. On a federal level, though, the US has none. Many people speak English, but there are actually more than 400 languages spoken and signed within our country! And nearly 200 of these are indigenous.
Although Alabama’s past, as with much of the South, has at times been fraught with injustice, it, because of this, also gave rise to many champions of difference and equality.
Many strides for the Civil Rights movement were made in AL — it was in Montgomery, for example, that Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat on the bus to the white man demanding it.
Actually, not many know that a few months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, another woman, only 15, did the same, and was arrested — her name was Claudette Colvin, an activist in her own right.
Jesse Owens, the inspiring four-time 1936 Berlin Olympics track-and-field gold-medalist, came from AL, too, as did Helen Keller, the author and disability rights activist, a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the first deafblind woman in the US to earn a BA.
AL also has a diverse environment — in fact, the state is 70% forest and ranks 5th for biodiversity!
In fact, AL has an odd monument to the boll weevil, a destructive critter which used to devour cotton farms. This forced AL to diversify its crops, which ended up being better for the land itself.
On the industry side of things, up in Huntsville, you'll find the US Space and Rocket Center — the largest spaceflight museum in the world. Saturn V, the rocket that powered the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, was built nearby.
Oh yeah, and on the subject of flights — apparently, when airline luggage is truly lost, and all efforts to return it to its original owners fail, it ends up in Scottsboro, AL. The Unclaimed Baggage Center sells the luggage contents as if it were a thrift store. Which is actually wild.
The Daily Minute: 1.2.23
In which Jasper reports on his very good day at Madison Cross Roads Elementary.
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