A business trip to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center didn’t allow me much time for sightseeing in Huntsville, but I still managed a sample of the city. The lay of the land around Huntsville is typical of the South, with dense forest bracketing the stretches of grassy fields that border the highway, with rolling hills in the East giving way to mountains farther in the distance. The portion of the city I saw was decidedly low-rise, save for the full-scale up-right mock-up of a Saturn V rocket at the Space Museum, which is illuminated by spotlights at night and is visible from quite a distances. Marshal Space Flight Center, together with the Army’s Redstone Arsenal, occupies a large stretch of land that is mostly rural, which made the morning drive to work enjoyable.
|
|
Favourite spots: |
I didn’t have time to check out the Space Museum, which would be a must if you’re in the area (though the standing Saturn V is a mock-up, a real one separated into stages is displayed horizontally inside, along with a Space Shuttle mock-up.) Near the building I was working in, there is a small on-site outdoor rocket museum (not opened to the general public) that gives a visual history of earlier liquid rocket motors. Near the eastern end of Redstone Arsenal there’s a static display of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and an AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship complete with inert Hellfire missiles and 2.75 inch unguided rocket launchers.
|
|
What's really great: |
The Five Points district at the eastern end of town is rather quaint. The area is situated at the base of some low hills and it’s older buildings convey a small town feeling. And then, of course, there's Visions...and Raine. Oh yes, Raine...
|
|
Nightlife: |
One of the guys we worked with took us to a gentleman’s club called Visions. It’s your basic pasties ’n’ beer club, with a few tabletop stages with brass poles running from the center to the ceiling, and a row of perhaps half a dozen booths for private dances ($20). The club was smoky and loud, but thankfully we were in for a bit of Raine, a rather tall, sexy, long haired and long-legged Filipina working her way through school (and she really knew how to work it, and really knew how to fill out a pastie and thong, too.) She was a very sweet and engaging girl and was by far the highlight of the evening.
|
|
Restaurants: |
Thai Garden (the only Thai in town) at 800 Wellman Ave. NE in Five Points; Tai Pan Palace (Cantonese Cuisine) at 2012 Memorial Parkway SW.
|
|
Published on Tuesday July 30th, 2002
|
|
Publish on Facebook
|
Information: |
Login if you are a member, or sign up for a free membership to rate this report and to earn globo points! |
|
Burma |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cambodia |
|
|
France |
|
|
|
Germany |
|
|
|
|