Today we thought that we’d go and see the Andrew Jackson ‘pencil head’ in Scottsboro, AL. It is here because Jackson County was named for him in 1819, over in Huntsville, which is where he happened to be when the Alabama legislature was in session. The statue really doesn’t look anything like Jackson. Hmmm?

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Check out that picture below of the crashed airplane. That’s the kind of thing we like to find! That’s why we headed for the Unclaimed Baggage Center (UBC) also located in Scottsboro. If someone ever loses a piece of luggage on a plane, train, bus or ship then the odds are that six months later it ended up at this place. Most luggage does not get lost but when all avenues of uniting it with its owners are exhausted it goes here. Still, over 5,000 new items are added to the store’s shelves every day! 

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We discovered today’s highlight at Saint Bernard’s Abbey located in Cullman, AL. The Ave Maria Grotto is located here. Four acres of the Abbey, part of an old quarry, were turned into +125 miniature reproductions of many famous religious structures. In 1979 Alabama added it to their Register of Landmarks and Heritage and in 1984 it was added to the National Register of Historical Places.

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The stone and concrete models are the work of Brother Joseph Zoettl, a Benedictine monk, who devoted some 50 years to the project, the last three decades (1932 to 1961) almost without interruption. They incorporate discarded building supplies, bricks, marbles, tiles, pipes, sea shells, plastic animals, costume jewelry, toilet bowl floats and cold cream jars. One could spend much time pouring over the details. Go there!