Jack stood under the Saturn V for a full minute without saying a word, which has happened maybe twice in his eight years. The real rocket lies on its side, raised up on stands in a hall built for it, and it's so long you have to walk the length of it to take it in. Nora took a panorama and it still didn't fit.
Fall break this year was October 6 through 10. Ryan has been working Saturdays at the plant this fall, so we kept it to a Tuesday and Wednesday, and the plan was simple: rockets for the kids in Huntsville on Tuesday, white sauce chicken for us in Decatur that night, one hotel, and a second barbecue lesson on Wednesday before the drive home. Huntsville is about 100 miles from our house, straight down I-65 past Pulaski, across the state line, then east on I-565. Same time zone, an hour and forty-five minutes and only six rounds of "are we there yet."
Rockets
We spent five hours at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and could have stayed longer. Outside in the rocket park, Jack ran from one rocket to the next and read every sign out loud. Inside, the Saturn V hall held him in place. Nora spent a good part of the afternoon watching kids from Space Camp walk past in their flight suits, and she has since informed us that she is going someday.
Lunch was at the center, hot dogs and chicken sandwiches, the kind of food you buy because you are not leaving. The gift shop sells freeze-dried astronaut ice cream, and under our one-bite rule, where everybody tries one bite of the local thing, it counted. All four of us tried it. Jack gave it a 4 and said it tasted like a chalkboard eraser that used to be ice cream.
A white sauce lesson in Decatur
Late in the afternoon we drove about 25 miles west to Decatur, checked into a hotel near the Tennessee River and went to dinner at a barbecue place that has been making white sauce since the 1920s. North Alabama is the only place I know where the barbecue sauce is white. It's mostly mayonnaise and vinegar, with a lot of black pepper and a little lemon.
What I didn't understand until I watched: they smoke the chicken halves first, then dunk each hot half into a tub of white sauce right before it goes on the plate. The heat loosens the mayonnaise so it runs into every crack in the skin, and the vinegar cuts through the smoke and the fat. It's tangy and peppery but not hot, which matters in our house. Nora, who has never liked a barbecue sauce in her life, asked for the bottle and put it on her potato salad. Jack gave the chicken a 9 and his banana pudding a 9 too. Before we were back in the car, Ryan had decided he was making it at home.
The hotel was nothing special: two queen beds, a view of the parking lot and a waffle maker at breakfast that Jack operated like heavy machinery. After breakfast we walked by the river and stopped at the visitor center at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, which is free. The sandhill cranes don't arrive until winter, so we saw ducks, a heron and a lot of empty field, and it was still a nice hour. Lunch was a second, smaller barbecue spot in Decatur, for comparison: pulled pork sandwiches with red sauce and white sauce side by side. White won the table vote, four to nothing.
We were home by 3:00 with a tired eight-year-old, a sixth grader with Space Camp plans and a list of what to buy for Ryan's next smoker weekend. Mayonnaise is at the top.
What it cost
- Gas: $32 (about 245 miles for the whole loop, roughly 11.1 gallons at $2.85)
- Lodging: $129 (one night in Decatur, tax included, breakfast in the price)
- Food: $159 (lunch at the center $46, astronaut ice cream $6, white sauce dinner $58, Wednesday lunch $41, road snacks $8)
- Admissions: $118 (U.S. Space & Rocket Center for four)
- Parking: $0
- Total: $438
- Food per person: $39.75
