12/2007 Birmingham, AL Vacation

Today I drove to Talladega Superspeedway on a VERY cold afternoon.  The Superspeedway was about a 45 minute drive from April's house. When I first arrived I tried to get close to the racetrack but nothing...could not get through the closed barriers. The complex is HUGE, meaning I was a good two football fields away from the complex and still could not get my camera to be able to take a picture of the whole thing end to end. It is an amazing sight. Got there a bit too late as the International Motor Speedway Museum was closing and did not get to see it. But I did take pictures of it - have to come back during race day!!  During the off-season nothing going on here...looked very desolate and depressed.  Not much life around here...thought I saw a tumbleweed roll down the highway!

Cold windy afternoon at Vulcan after a 1 hour drive from Talladega...not a good day to go see the Vulcan in all its glory. The Vulcan is 124 ft. tall and from the viewing circle you are up 100 ft in the air on a windy day. Kind of scary...and you can look straight down since it is made out of steel with wholes in it - you can see all 100 ft of scary height!! VERTIGOOO!! The museum was very interesting and to the point. It was short but very informative...just the way I like it. Birmingham is considered the Pittsburgh of the South and was born out of the Steel Industry which was hit very hard during the Great Depression.  At one point 100,000 of the 108,000 people who lived in Birmingham were found unemployed!!  This is by far the best place in Birmingham to take pictures of the city...it was beautiful and fun!  No tourist should leave the city of Birmingham w/o first visiting the Vulcan.

The race course I thought was crappy. Although it looked very nice on the way coming in. The atmosphere there was not very friendly...most people looked like they were either coming or going to jail. The grand stands were closed so I could not get close to the action. I was stuck behind glass window in the upper deck. My waitress never came to ask me if I needed something...it looked like she was too busy talking to her boyfriend or friend a few tables down from mine. I was one of maybe 8 to 10 people dispersed through 3 or 4 tables...and nobody even got a drink. Service bad and atmosphere bad. But the experience was good since I got to see the dogs run after the mechanical rabbit which was fun.  I would come back here during the summer or when they are having an event...this is not a place I would re-visit again during the week in the afternoon.