Keller Fest

This post is dedicated to my friend Lauren, who needs to check out this Etsy merchandise!

Last week my friend Lauren found information about a Helen Keller Festival that occurs every year in North Alabama. I'm not sure why it was Googled in the first place, but who cares! We found it just in time too, since the festival takes place at the end of June every year. And it was extra special that we got to go today since June 27th is Helen Keller's birthday! Today she would be 134. Unfortunately, Lauren wasn't available to drive up with me, so hopefully I can do something fun with her within the next three weeks.

My friend Shital (pronounced She-thal) was free today and we made plans to drive up together. She came over around 10:30am and after I got the correct address that would punch into my car's GPS, we were off! I was super glad that the weather wasn't extremely scalding since no matter what I was going to wear a certain outfit. I call it Pioneer Me, which I showed off previously on my blog, but my hair is longer now. And it didn't really rain either and the clouds were pretty. Yay!

A decently sized Amish-looking tiny house. My dream home!! For real. =)

The town of Tuscumbia was cute and had some nice shops and a bookstore, but with so many roads and the main map facing South meaning everything was backwards from where we were standing, it was hard to figure out how to get to the Keller house from where we were at the park. I even stopped to ask the mailman for directions, but I don't know where he was trying to lead us. Luckily, Shital noticed the huge green sign that read "Helen Keller's birthplace" with a big arrow pointed towards a gated house. I paid our $12 admission fee and we led ourselves on a self-guided tour. 

 I didn't know she learned to write too!! My goodness, I was surprised enough just knowing before that she learned how to talk. Was making the connection between feeling objects and the sign language letters in her hand not good enough? After getting this inspiration everyone else these days need to shoot their goals up by 500% compared to what we only think we can achieve. What a role model she is!! However I did find it odd that she looked different in every photo I saw of her.

The back yard was so pretty and I almost liked it more than the inside of the house, which I did expect to be bigger. I thought that family was rich, but perhaps they remained humble and used all of their savings to hire Annie Sullivan. I really liked her small cottage here (although did the houses still not have bathrooms inside?) and learned online that they drove Helen around in a horse and buggy for a while before returning to this side cottage with Annie, so Helen would think she was miles away from her family and couldn't rely on them as an escape to stop learning.