South Carolina!

Today, we went to the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, AL. It was really interesting and I learned things that I never really knew happened! It really made me mad, but it made me more aware. We went across the street to a church that was bombed a long time ago by the Ku Klux Klan. We looked around inside and saw a plaque in memory of the 4 girls that were killed. Then we looked at some memorials in a park across the street. Just before we got to Georgia, we stopped at Talladega Speedway. We took a couple pictures and went into the giftshop and then we were on our way. We stopped at a Fireworks store by a gas station and Dad bought a big pack of firecrackers and the kids got poppers. We cracked a few outside because we were allowed, but Dad didn't have any matches for the firecrackers. He promised we would only blow them up in a state where it's legal. We drove to Columbia, South Carolina but we lost another hour because we crossed the Time Zone. We went to dinner at a restaurant so close to us that we walked. It was called Liberty and everyone had a great meal. We came back and had no dessert because we had dessert before we ate dinner! When we got to the hotel my dad had to go down to the car because he had to get all the waterbottles because they would freeze. It is so cold here, it's about 20 degrees outside but in Birmingham it went down to the 'teens at night! We've see halfway frozen creeks and rivers and we even found a very large pond that was frozen solid over the top. My Dad had to kick it about 5 times to get it to break! Anyway, we're in the hotel now, and we're all warm. Tomorrow, we pick up our Mom in Raleigh. We can't wait to see her!