About Me

Hello all! My name is Natalie and welcome to my blog! I am a senior in college and take the chance to travel somewhere new whenever I can. Travelling is something that I have thoroughly enjoyed my whole life. It brings me excitement to go to a new place and have new experiences.
With this blog I am also going to be giving the history of the places I go and some cool spots to visit while in these places. I am a big fan of history so this aspect of travelling also makes me excited to go to new places. To have the chance to experience a place that people 100 years ago did as well is so interesting to me. Oh the stories these towns and buildings could tell if they could talk.
I am very excited to share with you the places I travel to this semester and I am incredibly excited to get the chance to go to these places myself. I am itching for a new adventure so this blog is the perfect excuse to go on a new one.
Usually I will keep my travels in state, but I may find myself going out of state from time to time so be ready! If you would like to contact me about the blog you can reach me at nledbetter@troy.edu .
I hope you enjoy reading about where I go as much as I enjoy going to these places! So please enjoy all of these "Beautiful Places!"

Travel Tips Interview

With this week’s post I wanted to interview a friend of mine who has done a good bit of traveling in her life. She has been all around the South and even up to New York and the across the pond to London, England.
I figured it would be interesting to pick her brain a bit in how she successfully packs a bag for the airport, what makes her decided to travel to where she has been to, and what she feels she has learned and gained from traveling the world. I hope to one day go to half the places she has been to and seen. But until then, I will take listening in on the adventure!
https://youtu.be/GIFQt6HqOA8

Travel Checklist

The blog today is going to be a little bit of a different one. Today I will be giving a checklist of what a person should do when they go to a new place. Because, no matter how small a place is, if you plan it out correctly, you can make the most out of it.

1.      Look Up the Popular Areas:

When going to a new place, it is a good idea to look up the areas in the town that are popular as a start. Some people may be particular with this, because they want to only find obscure places. There is nothing wrong with tourist areas though. It will give you a good start to the adventure!

2.  .   Locate Local Shops:

Some of my favorite things to go to in new places are the local shops. A lot of the time the items in the shop are handmade by the owner and are not too expensive. This will give you a nice little memory of where you went to.

3.     Find Hidden Gems:

Now that you have seen the popular areas everyone knows about, try to find somewhere a little more obscure in the town you have found yourself in. Do not be afraid to ask a local resident of the town about places to go. You are more than likely to find a place from them than on the Internet. And you may make a new friend from it!

4.     Find a Place to Eat:

Something I almost always do when I go to a new place is find a place to eat. I usually try to eat at places that are unique to the town. Everywhere you go you will find a McDonald’s or Cookout, and so the locally owned restaurants are always nice to go to. And usually have fantastic food!

5.     Find Times Places Are Open:

This is a very important thing to remember, because I have definitely messed up on this a few times. If you know you are trying to go to a certain place, make sure to look up the open and closing times beforehand. I have shown up to a few places when they had already closed. It put a little bit of a damper on the trip.

6.     Be Ready for Anything:

No matter where you go, anything can happen. From a car mess-up to lack of money, it is best to be prepared for anything to go wrong or happen. It is best to make a checklist of everything before you travel anywhere. Especially to somewhere a good bit away.

I hope these are helpful tips and help make your next trip worthwhile!!

Goshen

There are many places I have been to where I did not know anything about the history of it. This is how most people, unfortunately, are when they go places. We just go through them and admire what has already been put in place who knows how long ago. Today I had the chance to go back to the city of Goshen, Alabama. A place I have been to quite a few times but knew nothing about.

The town was originally called Goshen Hill and it was quite a few miles from where it is located today. The town is actually one of the oldest towns in Pike County. The town was founded in the early 1820s. The land was very fertile and farmers were able to grow cotton, corn, peanuts, and hay for the cattle. And during the Civil War the land that Goshen Hill was on was used as training ground for Confederate soldiers.

During February of 1884, there was a tornado that came through the area and killed 26 people.

A railroad system was put in place in the area in 1890. Because of this, Goshen Hill moved closer to the tracks. Soon after this, the townspeople changed the name of the town to Goshen. The name was inspired by the biblical Land of Goshen. The town was settled around a public well in the center of the town.

Just like with most towns that I have found that acquired a railroad system, the town of Goshen grew in size by population and in the physical size of the town. So a built a new school, post office, a cotton gin, a sawmill, and several mercantile stores.

The town is not very large today. In a 2016 census, it was found there were around 343 people living in the town. It is a very small place.

The high school in Goshen actually just became a bicentennial school this year. Meaning that it has been around for 200 years. If you enjoy country cooking, Goshen has a very good restaurant called the Old Red Barn. I have only been once, but I thoroughly enjoyed it when I went.

There is not much to do in Goshen, but it has that small-town charm. It is at least worth the visit.

Animal Testing

For this weeks blog, it is going to be a little different. This week I want to talk about the issue of product testing on animals. Which, in my opinion at least, is unnecessary considering half the things they are put through in the testing process.
Many countries have begun to either ban animal testing or lower is so there is a reduction in the number of animals that suffer in labs. Countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand and the UK have banned testing on chimpanzees or any great ape. In the US there is no ban. But in 2015, apparently, the last of the chimpanzees being tested on were sent to sanctuaries. The testing of cosmetics and other personal products has also been banned in quite a few countries in Europe and the Middle East.
Animal testing is also a practice that is very expensive. It was found that the National Institute of Health spends somewhere around $14.5 billion per year on animal experiments. And this money comes from taxpayers. But the NIH has gone down on the number of chimps they use in testing. So that is a start.
It has also been found that a decent amount of the time, the results found from testing on animals is not even transferable to humans. It was found by the US Food and Drug Administration that only 8% of drugs tested on animals are found ok for people to use. And that 95% of drugs tested are not. This shows the unnecessariness of the testing since, a lot of the time, it is found to not work correctly.
Many animals also do not fall under any protection laws. It was found that around 85% to 95% of the millions of animals used in testing do not fall under this. Giving the scientists more room to abuse their experiments I feel.
The animals undergo negative reactions to the products. They undergo burning, having products placed in their eyes, injections of different kinds of products and quite a few more. They go through all of this, and a lot of the time the product does not even work correctly for people.
Animal testing unfortunately, I feel, will continue to be used on products. Especially cosmetic products. But I am hoping that in the future, the testing will either be reduced more or taken out all together.

Luverne

This week had been a difficult one to find some down time to make a trip. But I was finally able to take a trip to a little town not too far from Troy called Luverne, Alabama. I have been to this town before, but had never gotten the chance to really look around.

In Alabama, there have been a number of towns that began mainly because of the railway system. Luverne being one of them. The town was founded in 1889 because of this and actual became a stop along the railroad track. The track was the Florida and Montgomery railroad track. And with the building of the railroad, came more people. And so the town grew.

In 1893, the people of Crenshaw County, where Luverne is, changed the county seat to Luverne. Since it had grown in size.

The town of Luverne has been given the nickname of “Friendliest City in the South.” It’s a name you will see on every welcome sign for the city. But the happenings of the town have not always been the “friendliest.”

The only recorded lynching in Crenshaw County happened in Luverne. On June 22, 1940, an African American man named Jesse Thornton was lynched for not calling a white man “mister.” The body of Jesse was found in a nearby river called the Patsaliga River. The white man was later found to have been a police officer. The reason I say recorded was because most lynchings were kept on the down low. There is a good chance there were many more than just this one.

On a lighter note, in the town of Luverne there is a Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company. Around almost every corner in the downtown Luverne area you will see Pepsi painted on a wall. I may have seen Pepsi painted out at least seven or eight times. There are about two or three different Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company buildings around town. It is definitely a major trademark of the town. The company mainly makes Coke products, but they also make coffee products such as Starbucks.

The town is a very beautiful town. It appears to have been kept up very nicely for years. Usually with old towns they, unfortunately, start to wither away. But the citizens have done a good job with Luverne. The downtown area is very neat and my favorite spot I saw of the town. I will definitely be going back! And i recommend the ice cream shop in downtown. The ice cream is delicious!

Youngblood Dam

Some of my favorite places to go to are hidden gems. Unfortunately, I do not find enough of these places. But when I do find them, they bring me a lot of joy. This week I was about to find a gem a little outside of Troy called Youngblood Dam.

The dam is located around 6.5 miles outside of Troy closer to Youngblood, Alabama, on Youngblood Lake. It is a beautiful spot that quite a few people enjoy to fish at. If you look closely in the picture above you will see people doing just that.

The area itself does not have too much history I could find unfortunately. In what I could find, there is not even a census to prove how many people live in the area. So, the community of Youngblood is a bit of a mystery. For me at least. The area is a gorgeous area though. With the dam, the lake, an abandoned building on the shore, and a really lovely area that a family could easily have a cook-out on. And is, once again, a nice place for fishing. The woman in the picture actually caught one shortly after I took it. The wildlife around the area also create a really nice effect.

There is a little trail that goes down to the water, and it is very easy to climb down. The hill is not too steep to go down. Making it easy for any age to get down to it.

The place is absolutely beautiful and I very much recommend anyone to go to it! Next time I go, I am hoping that it will be warm so I can actually get in the water!