Last week I went on vacation to Alabama. We have a lot of relatives there and I like to visit them whenever we can. We did a lot of things on this trip and I took a lot of pictures, so I wanted to share them with you all! On the third day we went to Birmingham, AL, and saw the big Vulcan statue and an abandoned steel mill that’s supposedly haunted! WHOOOOOO!

A long time ago, Birmingham was a big steel manufacturing town. They made a solid steel statue of Vulcan, Roman god of steel stuff, and you can ride an elevator up to the top! Here are some photos of the Vulcan statue.

And here’s a picture of a replica of how big his foot is. Brother Jeff is standing beside it. Check out his snazzy St. Patrick’s Day T-shirt.

Don’t look, Ethel, it’s a full moon! Here’s a butt shot near the top of the Vulcan statue. I bet he has buns of steel! Har har!

And here’s a view of the city from atop the statue.

I have a confession to make. One of my guilty pleasures is watching ghost shows on TV. You know, the ones like Ghost Hunters where they go into creepy houses with all this special equipment and try to find ghosts? Yeah, it’s cheesy, but I enjoy it anyway. But hey, I think ghosts are cool! Maybe that’s why I like Pac-Man so much because there are ghosts in it.

On one of these ghost shows, they toured the Sloss steel mill in Birmingham. It’s shut down now, only open as a tourist attraction. But a lot of people died there back in the day, and on this TV show, they had a lot of ghost sightings and took a lot of ghost pictures! Since my family only lives about an hour away from Birmingham, I decided that next time we visit family, we’d try and find the Sloss factory and see if we could tour it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see any ghosts or take any ghost pictures there. But that’s OK. Part of me would rather not see any ghosts at all! I’ve never seen a ghost before anyway, and if I ever do, I hope it’s a nice ghost! Anyway, here are some pictures. If you see any ghostly orbs or shadowy figures in them, let me know!

Here’s an old steam shovel. Where’s Mike Mulligan?

On the TV show, they had a lot of pictures of this tower. They said there were sightings of ghostly figures leaning on the rails! They also said many people back then fell off of this tower, too!

I was really surprised how unsupervised this factory was. They just let you walk around and explore. We even went inside some buildings and tunnels that I’m not sure we were really supposed to go into. They were pretty spooky places, but no ghosts.  Also, I think the Sloss factory would make a great map for a FPS game!

And here’s brother Jeff beside a giant wrench thing.

This dark, damp tunnel is a perfect hideout for ghosts. Or mutant ninja turtles. I’m not sure why this was the only picture I took that was blurry. Maybe a ghost did it! WHOOOOO!

There are a lot of trains at this steel mill. Here’s Jeff on one of them.

Every steel mill has to have water. They turned a big pool of water into a fountain and put a steel sculpture of a woman’s legs in it. I thought about diving in to rescue her, but I figured she had buns of steel, too, and could take care of herself. Plus the water was too cold!

And that was my trip to Alabama! I had a lot of fun and did a lot of stuff. But my favorite part was visiting my family. I love them all dearly. Anyway, that’s all for now!

If you missed them, here’s part 1 and part 2 of my trip!

Tags: Misc