Slaton Park Campground City Park

There aren't any signs indicating that camping is permitted in this park but people have been staying at the park for years as reported in Campendium. We parked along the fence line by the tennis court. There are six or seven electric boxes but no water or dump station. 

The park is a bit rundown. The tennis courts look like they get little use and the pool is closed but the grass is kept trimmed and the baseball fields and the long picnic shelter are all in good condition. All in all a good, quiet place to stay for a night.  Park   33.43793, -101.65052

 

Earl G Williamson Park

This little parish campground is very inexpensive especially since it has water and electric hookups and a dump station. Other amenities include a fishing pier, restrooms with showers, a swimming area, and a playground. Most of the sites in the loop have shade shelters over the picnic tables. The sites along the water may not have shelters. They are also close together.  

The photo below is of the picnic area. I didn't get a photo of the waterfront RVs sites but they are next to the picnic area and lined up side by side so the view is from the front or back windows depending on whether you pull in or back in. 

None of the sites are designated as accessible but they have wide, paved parking pads so they are usable. The picnic tables do not have extended tops or paved access and they are on concrete slabs so they may not be accessible. Campground   32.72847, -93.97285

 

Louisiana State Exhibit Museum

Many of us who travel to national forests and parks in the US are familiar with the work of the Civilian Conservation Corp but the depression era programs created by President Roosevelt were broad and far reaching. The Public Works Administration built  dams, bridges, courthouses, hospitals, university buildings, and schools, among other things.  Communities decided what they wanted and local architects, engineers, and construction workers were employed. Many of  these buildings are still in use today, a testament to the quality of the construction.

The museum is one of the PWA buildings. It has an unusual circular design with a courtyard and fountain in the center and exhibits in cases on both sides of an outer ring. Twenty wonderfully detailed panoramas of rural life in Louisiana in the 1930s and 40s were made by artists employed under another PWA program, the Federal Art Project. The figure are made of beeswax with bendable wire frames. The building and these panoramas make the museum a must see spot.

Other exhibits cover the natural and human history of Louisiana including a re-assembled Bour-Davis, the luxury model of a short lived local car manufacturer, and a thousand year old dugout canoe.

The museum is accessible. The accessible entrances are on either side of the building. We missed the four large fresco murals at the front entrance so make sure to go through the inner doors at the front entrance to view the murals in the vestibule. 

 

RVs will fit in the lot if backed up over the grass or parked lengthwise across the spaces.  Museum  32.48023, -93.78583

  

Margaritaville Resort Casino

Margaritaville is the only casino in Sheveport that is not on a riverboat. It opened after the Louisiana law requiring casinos to be able to cruise or at least be water based was changed. It's located on the edge of an outlet shopping center that never recovered from the shutdown during the coronavirus epidemic. There are a few stores, including a large Bass Pro store, that are still open but from all accounts most of it's empty. We didn't explore because the weather was cold and wet. 

The casino is accessible.

There aren't any signs for oversize vehicle parking so we parked in the fairly empty area of the lot with several trucks and another RV. We stayed two night and were not visited by security. Casino  32.52246, -93.74335

 

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

 Birmingham Baptist minister, Fred Shuttlesworth, founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights after the NAACP was banned in Alabama. His decades of involvement in civil rights activities resulted in beatings, jail time, and bombs planted under his house and church. His tactics were more radical than those used by Martin Luther King and other leaders but they brought attention to the atrocities occurring in southern cities as the images of children being attacked by police dogs and rolled down the streets by high pressure water were broadcasted into suburban living rooms. This helped lead to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

The museum tells these stories with life-size dioramas. The Birmingham jail cell where Martin Luther King wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and part of a armored police car that Bull Connor used to intimidate protesters are included in the exhibits. Common examples of racism that were considered acceptable and important events in the civil rights movement are highlighted. The human rights movement in countries around the world fills one of the galleries. 

The 16th Street Baptist Church, where four young girls were killed on September 15, 1963 by a bomb planted by members of the KKK under the church steps, is located across 6th Avenue. Kelly Ingram Park, across 16th Street, has paved paths and sculptures. 

 

The museum and park are accessible. We did not visit the church.

We parked in an accessible space in the lot located at the rear of the museum. The lot is wide so we could pull straight in without blocking anything. Large RVs can be parked across the spaces or on the street. Institute  33.51585, -86.81546

 

Bass Pro Birmingham, Alabama

Some Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's have posted "No Overnight Parking" signs so they're not always a good place to stay but this one is great. There are three tiers of little used parking lots above the main lots. It's almost a park like setting because many of the existing trees were saved when the store was built. There are no signs indicating a limit on length of stay and we did not see any security staff. Hopefully nobody will take advantage of the store's hospitality and overstay.  Bass Pro  33.54174, -86.59056

Berman Museum of World History

The founding of this museum is as interesting as the artifacts. During WWII Farley Berman was an American spy and Germaine Louise Kinne was a member of the French Resistance. Both were assigned to North Africa with a mission to spy on the other as each was suspected of being a double agent. When this was proven to be false they became friends, fell in love and married in 1945 then moved to Anniston, Alabama, Farley's hometown. Even though they remained there for the rest of their lives they continued to travel the world and collect thousands of historical artifacts, weapons, and pieces of art. 

Their collection was donated to the museum after they died and has grown as more items were added. The collection is eclectic and diverse, and includes unusual historic weapons, concealed weapons such as a pipe gun, Native American artifacts, western art, artifacts from Napoleon Bonaparte and Catherine the Great, Asian art, and WWII history and artifacts. 

We're not fans of mounted animals so we skipped the natural history museum located a short walk/roll away. The Longleaf Botanical Gardens surrounds the museums. Due to a lack of time and rainy weather we did not explore the gardens. 

The museum is accessible.

RVs will fit in the lot on the opposite side of museum drive. Museum  33.69704, -85.8191