Helen Keller's childhood home

Day 5     Florence, AL    25 miles.    Total inc warm-up ride on May 2 - 440 miles

This is a replica of a statue now in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall of Patty Duke, I mean Helen Keller, learning the miracle of language.

On this rest day, I rode 11 miles across the TN River and west a bit to Tuscumbia, AL to visit Helen Keller's birthplace, early home, and museum. It brought back so much emotion for me; reading a biography of her life and seeing The Miracle Worker as a kid had a big impact on me, and it all came back visiting her home and museum.

Yes, they still have the original pump "enshrined". The miracle event took place just one month after Anne Sullivan (the teacher) arrived at the house in 1887. That same day, Helen learned 30 more words, and 625 words in six months.

This photo shows a portion of the main house on the left, and the smaller cottage on the right where Helen was born - and where Anne and Helen went during that first month to separate them from the family.

I stepped back to take this picture to show how close the pump was out the back door of the main house (you can just see the black pump in the patio structure on the left). The cottage is out of the photo to the left.

I took a tour of the home, and got to see all the bedrooms, the dining room table made famous in the movie with Helen grabbing at everyone's food, and a room that is now a museum. It had hundreds of photos and letters and mementos from her life and Anne Sullivan's, who stayed with her for life. One funny side story is that the tour guide asked me where I was from. Since I was wearing my California jersey, I decided just to say I was from Calif. A man standing nearby, also a tour guide, immediately said, "My brother lives in Petaluma, which is a little town north of..." I interrupted him and said, "I know where it is! I was born there!" Small world.

Here is one of the museum photos I particularly liked. As a child and young woman, Helen was actually quite attractive. The home was built by her grandfather in 1820 on a 640-acre lot. Helen was born in 1880 and died in 1968.

After that visit, I rode to the TVA power plant on the far side of the river from our hotel. TVA - Tennessee Valley Authority -- is all over the place here, so much so that I thought Florence (or Muscle Shoals across the river) might be the headquarters. They're not - Knoxville is, but the Wilson Dam generates so much electricity, I guess they have lots of associated offices here. On the map, the whole area is called "TVA Reservation".

On the ride back across the river, I stopped to take a photo showing our hotel off to the left of the dam:

That tall tower on the left is the rotating fancy restaurant here. In the picture below, you can see only a small bit of the dam; it extends far to the right.

I took this photo from the bridge too, of the huge lock gates. Back when I took the boat trip, I would have gone through open gates like that, just little ol me! This lock raises or lowers 97 feet.

The day isn't over yet, so I may add more later. I was planning to use the jacuzzi for my legs and neck, but apparently I left my swim trunks at the hotel in Tupelo. Ah well, I could use a nap.

This is a photo of our hotel taken from down near the river. My room is top floor, fourth from the left. Nice views I have!