Hannah and I took a little field trip today to American Village to listen to Mr. Robert Lightfoot, Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, talk about his life in small-town Montevallo, Alabama, to director of one of the ten NASA centers in the US.
I don’t have any pictures from his talk because I left my camera in the car. But he provided a couple of models to show how different the new space vehicle/rocket (for the trip to Mars) is compared to the shuttle, which is being discontinued. I decided not to pepper him with questions like WHY IN THE WORLD ARE Y’ALL WASTING MONEY ON A TRIP TO MARS?! MARS? REALLY? The 6th graders in the room had better questions. While I was shocked to hear that the flight is scheduled for 2018, the kids saw nothing ridiculous about sending humans to Mars.
All-in-all, he was very interesting and engaging. NASA provided each student with a bag full of glossy space photos and learning tools, astronaut photos, and shuttle paraphernalia. We teachers made it home with a complimentary copy of NASA’s “Rockets” curriculum among other sweet freebies. I’m glad we went, but not just because of the free stuff.
Hannah and I enjoyed our day together. If you ever visit Montevallo, I highly recommend a little coffee house/gourmet restaurant/book store called Eclipse. It’s on Hwy 119 (beside Jack’s). Here’s Hannah nomming her first club sandwich and bottled Coca-Cola:
I loved the food and the coffee, but my absolute favorite feature was the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in several rooms.
(Karl: “So you didn’t get any pictures of the talk, but you did manage to take 40 pictures of book shelves?” Me: “So you’ll know what to do with the girls’ room after they move away.”)
After much cajoling to leave the rooms full of books, Hannah and I decided to take a drive-thru tour of the University of Montevallo. It’s a “pretty-ish sort of” campus, so I gave H the camera and told her to take pictures of whatever she liked.
We capped the day with a visit to the Galleria. After all, no field trip would be complete without a trip to the mall.
Leslie Wiggins 
4 responses to “Visiting Montevallo”
Love it, Leslie. Who can resist floor-to-ceiling bookshelves? Loved Hannah’s pictures. I remember Montevallo being pretty, too. I’m glad you had a good day together. Buy anything at the mall?
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Yeah, B&BW was having a sale on plug-ins, and Hannah convinced me that she needed one for her room. 🙂
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Prettyish sort-of???
I’m highly offended! 😀 My alma mater is gorgeous!
So glad yall enjoyed your trip. Next time stop by and see me! I work like 10 minutes away from American Village!
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When Lady Catherine DeBurgh visits Elizabeth Bennett (*Pride and Prejudice*), she says, “There’s a prettyish sort of wilderness outside; I should like to take a turn in it.” Or something like that. It always cracks me up, and love to use the phrase when I can. Yes, your alma mater is lovely! I would be pleased if Hannah chose to go to school there.
I had no idea we were so close to you!!
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