My brother-in-law, Billy Milstead, retired several years ago. Since then, he’s developed a real passion for all things Southwest Alabama. He’s got a real interest in documenting all the historic places in the area–of which there are many, many, many. He worked on the Alabama’s Front Porches project for a year, traveling the roads and taking photos as a AmeriCorps Vista volunteer. After he finished that project, he wanted to do more. I’ve now built him a website (Rural Southwest Alabama) to hold all these photos, maps and descriptions in a way that lets people from the outside world explore what the rural Black Belt has to offer.
scenic
Another Newsletter–for the Alabama Byways Program
I’ve been working on byways in Alabama since I took a job at Scenic Alabama back in 1999. I’ve long since left Scenic Alabama, but really fell in love with the byways program. It is one of those really great concepts that lets small communities around Alabama (or, in larger terms, around the country) band together to create something bigger than any of them can create on their own.
Growing up in rural Alabama (I’ve always referred to it as the edge of nowhere because people have actually heard of the middle of nowhere), I’ve always had a love of rural life and the small towns that exist nowhere else. The byways program is my chance to work with these communities. (I’ve also managed to work with Alabama communities on some other projects, too. More on that in another post on another day.)
To read the newsletter, just visit the Alabama Byways website: www.alabamabyways.org/news.htm.
And, in case you are wondering about the seagull, this was taken in February of last year along the beautiful Coastal Connection Corridor that runs from north of Orange Beach over to Dauphin Island and beyond.