How North Alabama Takes Southern Hospitality to New Heights: When Destinations Make Accessibility a Priority, Visitors Notice

by Penny Zibula

Photography by Simon Lock/MyEclecticImages

“And what would she like for dinner?” A perky-sounding waitress asked my husband after taking his order.

“She’d like the shrimp and grits,” I replied with an edge in my voice that could have cut through concrete. Suddenly, the perkiness was gone as the waitress sheepishly asked me what I wanted to drink.

This scene has played itself out more times than I can count, and I become more irritated, frustrated, and on the verge of screaming each time someone assumes my lack of sight prevents me from speaking for myself. It feels as if I’m invisible or not worth acknowledging.

Fortunately, these incidents have become fewer and farther between due to disability-related training programs for employees in the service and travel industries. One of the most promising examples of the effectiveness of such programs is North Alabama’s commitment to making tourists of all abilities feel welcome, relevant, and valued.

My husband, guide dog, and I spent four days experiencing first-hand the results of North Alabama’s ongoing efforts. What we learned was that the area cities and towns incorporate the needs of visitors with disabilities into how they market the destinations and what visitors find when they choose to spend their time and money in North Alabama.

Wheelchair Accessibility and Beyond

When accessibility is discussed in conversation and in the media, the emphasis is usually on wheelchair access. After decades of consciousness raising, advocacy, and legislation, society is finally coming to the realization of the challenges of traveling independently when the simple ability to put one foot before the other is off the table. Equally important are the technological and architectural advances in removing barriers to inclusion in all aspects of life.

Disability awareness and inclusion have many components. Vision impairment ranges from near-sightedness to total blindness. Deafness varies between hard-of-hearing to profound deafness. And deaf-blindness has its own range of impairment that affect two senses. Then there are those with sensory challenges, such as autism, who face an entirely different set of barriers when traveling. The goal of accessibility for travelers with disabilities is a lofty one, but North Alabama has made great strides toward meeting it.

“Accessibility is not just about ramps and doors,” says Tami Reist, President/CEO of the Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association. “It’s about opening North Alabama to every veteran, every grandmother, every child, and making sure no one is left out of the experiences that bring us together. ”

North Alabama is walking the talk and seeking input from experienced travelers with a variety of disabilities. I am one of them, and it’s a joy and a privilege to be a part of this exciting journey to accessible and inclusive travel. All my experiences in North Alabama were priceless, and although it’s hard to pick a favorite, here are three that stood out.

Ivy Green

Our visit to Ivy Green, Helen Keller’s birthplace in Tuscumbia, was a pilgrimage of sorts, at least for me. After all, I’m blind, and Helen had set the bar high for generations of individuals affected by vision loss and deaf-blindness. I was curious to see how her story would be presented, particularly to someone who was herself blind.

Upon our arrival at Ivy Green, our guide, Lynne Weaver, greeted us and introduced us to the house, the property, and Helen’s inspiring story. In general, as tours go, Lynn’s presentation was factual, fascinating, and filled with anecdotes about Helen and her family. What made it outstanding was her attention to detail in her descriptions and the fact that visitors who are blind are encouraged to see with their fingers.

Helen’s grandparents, David and Mary Keller, came to Tuscumbia from Virginia and built the simple white clapboard house in 1820. The original home and outbuildings still stand and contain many items used by the family. Ivy Green was added to the National Register of Historic Sites in 1954

Civil War captain Arthur Keller and his second wife, Kate Adams, made the house their home, and there, on June 27, 1880, their daughter, Helen, was born. The child contracted a high fever at 19 months, which left her blind and deaf. And the rest is history.  Every summer, the grounds of Ivy Green become the site of the play, The Miracle Worker, which helps fund the property.

In the first bedroom, Lynne handed me a pair of tiny gloves. “These were crocheted or tatted,” she said. “They're family pieces. Can you feel the different little stitches on the top, little rows? I could, and felt a surprisingly strong connection to the women who lived in this house.

And so it went. We walked through the house with Lynne, pausing her narrative to let me touch furniture, china, silver tea sets, and fragile pieces of clothing that Helen and her mother, Kat,e wore. Lynne described colors, shapes, and sizes, which added clarity to the mental pictures I was developing.

In a bedroom that is now a small museum, were Helen’s braille writers, typewriters, books, and her handwriting when she was eight. I could relate to these things as part of my own journey with blindness. But the item that gave me goosebumps was the famous two-century-old water pump outside. This was where Helen made the connection between the letters her teacher, Anne Sullivan, was tapping into her palm and the water Ann was sprinkling on her other hand. Helen’s world suddenly opened up, and at the age of six, she realized the taps represented the names of things and people. She knew she could finally communicate.

The story of Ivy Green and Helen Keller is one that everyone should experience. For me, it felt as if I had derived at least as much from Ivy Green as every other visitor, and perhaps even more..

Alabama Music Hall of Fame

I’ve always loved music. All kinds of music. So I looked forward to our visit to the Alabama Music Hall of Fame (ALAHMOF) like a child waiting for Santa. The reality turned out to be even more of a treat than I could have ever imagined. 

Victoria Mitchell, ALAMHOF Museum Curator, did a masterful job of bringing the museum and its exhibits to life for me. “We work with Camp Courage that comes from Ivy Green,” she explained. The camp has children who have eye accessibility issues and hearing accessibility issues.” “Everyone,” no matter your station in life, no matter if you're the richest man in the world or the poorest man in the world, everyone deserves a museum experience. So it was no wonder Victoria knew how to make my time at the museum magical.

ALAMOF opened in 1990, featuring exhibits celebrating the outstanding achievements of musicians from throughout Alabama in every imaginable genre. At the time of our visit, there were 86 inductees, and the list grows annually.

The museum contains the true stories of more than 1,000 Alabama musicians through artifacts, photos, and text panels. The music playing as we moved through the exhibits brought back many memories of favorite songs and what was happening in my life when they first came out.

One of the items Victoria showed me was an Apex Golden Reel award, given to the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section for their work with Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band for the song Against the Wind. This was one of the treasures that children from Camp Courage are able to touch and experience when they visit the museum.

I had the opportunity to play with a 27-channel recording console that came out of what is now known as Cypress Moon, the second location for Muscle Shoals Sound. Victoria showed me where to put my hands and explained the actions various buttons, slides, and knobs performed. 

And the surprises kept on coming. I touched microphones used by Elvis and Johnny Cash, touched a snare drum for the first time, and walked through the tour bus Alabama ate and slept in for years.

Victoria was patient while I explored the famous Pontiac Bonneville, known as the “solid gold country car”. She pointed out the genuine silver dollars on the pedals and other parts of the car, as well as the hand-tooled leather seats. The entire interior was covered with various guns with no firing pins or bullets. The gear shift was a gun, and the door handles were pistols.

And then there was the piano Jerry Lee Lewis played and abused. Victoria guided my hands to the keys that were distorted by Lewis’s feet when he danced on the piano and the keys on which he put out his cigarettes. She also described the show clothing and other memorabilia protected behind glass in such detail that picturing them was easy.

Whether you can see or not, ALAMHOF is a must when visiting Tuscumbia. I found my experience to be extraordinary on many levels, and I look forward to the opportunity to immerse myself in Alabama’s rich musical history again.

Cullman County Museum of History

Cullman is a charming town with a rich history. We had the opportunity to learn about Cullman via a downtown walking tour and a visit to the Cullman County Museum of History.

Julie Burks was our guide. She showed great consideration by explaining Cullman’s history inside the air-conditioned museum before leading us into the mid-July heat. Julie was also considerate in describing the museum building in a way I could see it in my mind.

The museum opened on August 31, 1975, and is a replica of the home of John Cullmann, the German visionary who founded a colony in the 1870s that would thrive and later become Cullman County.

We followed Julie outside and began our tour. All the while, she was describing buildings, explaining their history and what purpose they served today.“This gave me a clear picture of the structures and how they related to Cullman then and now.

The museum, with artifacts dating back 1,200 years, was equally fascinating and much of it was touchable. I stroked animal skins, listened to detailed descriptions of life in the 1880’s in the main street exhibit, which included the six pack of the first cans of beer produced in Cullman County and the doctors and hospital displays.

One of the highlights for me was operating a washing machine from 1889. With verbal descriptions on where to stand and what to do when, I used the lever on the side to agitate the imaginary laundry by rotating a wheel. A wooden box held the laundry, and two pieces of curved washboards - one was convex and the other concave - cleaned the clothes. This was the kind of tour I would love to experience in every museum I visit.

The Future is Accessible in North Alabama

North Alabama’s commitment to welcoming visitors of all abilities was evident everywhere we went. It was like a breath of fresh air when the woman behind the registration desk at Renaissance Shoals Resort & Spa in Florence described where the elevator was in relation to where I was standing, where to find ice on our floor, and other locations relevant to our stay.

Restaurant servers told me where they were putting my water glass. Tour guides described our surroundings and warned me of upcoming stairs and changes in terrain. And nobody asked my husband what I wanted for dinner. It was a joy to be around people who knew how to make me feel as if I mattered.

North Alabama has much to offer. It has made significant progress toward making the area accessible and welcoming for visitors with disabilities. And it will only get better as the future becomes the present.

As a travel writer, I would encourage destinations to follow North Alabama’s example and broaden their disability awareness to include potential visitors with a wide variety of challenges. It’s smart. It’s compassionate. And it’s good business.