This week, with all 5 of us home for the next several weeks, we decided to get out of the house and explore some more untraveled bits of Georgia.

About 130 miles to the south of us lies Columbus, GA.  It is on the border with Alabama and is home to Fort Benning, the US Army’s main infantry training grounds.

Columbus hosts the National Civil War Naval Museum – which is really a Confederate naval museum.   Here, Brenda is inspecting what remains of the CSS Jackson – an ironclad that was patrolling the Chattahoochee but was destroyed during the Battle of Columbus in April of 1865.

Speaking of which… you may be able to recite the first conflict of the Civil War – everyone has heard of Fort Sumter in South Carolina.  However, Columbus was the site of the very last Civil War conflict..a full week after the termination of the battle at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

Nice weather – sunny and getting into the 60’s.

Here’s a view of the shoreline of Columbus.  Across the bridge is Phenix City, Alabama.

This picture is from the 1860’s showing the town of Columbus north of the ‘Hooch.  The city’s commercial importance increased in the 1850s with the arrival of the railroad. In addition, textile mills were developed along the river, bringing industry to an area reliant upon agriculture. By 1860, the city was one of the more important industrial centers of the South, earning it the nickname “the Lowell of the South”, referring to an important textile mill town in Massachusetts.

Many of those Mill buildings still exist.. some are in need of repair; many others have been re-done and serve as new, high end condominium and shopping spaces along the river.

Located in rural Seale, AL the Museum of Wonder collects painting, taxidermy, found objects, and just about any piece of junk one can imagine into a cacophony of folk art and architecture.  It proudly boasts to be the “World’s Largest Drive-Thru Art and Antique Gallery.”

One is supposed to drive by and look at all of the oddities through the windows, but without a soul in sight, we decided to park and walk through the park.

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Merry Christmas, Y’all!