Factory Tour Trifecta in Birmingham, Alabama

From our last camping spot in the woods, we drove an hour and a half east to the Cherokee Campground outside of Birmingham, Alabama. A private campground, we were back to being parked side-by-side with 100 other RVs. But the good news is we were sitting under a canopy of very tall pine trees, with a pretty lake that allowed a nice hike without leaving the campground. We saw many pairs of Canadian geese here, but only one that was already nesting on the little island in the lake. We called her "Mother Goose" and made that loop around the lake several times just to see if we had goslings yet.

Father Goose was less attentive, wandering on the side of the lake and posing for pictures while he pondered his toes.

We made this move to Birmingham because we were scheduled for a very fun factory tour! We knew it was going to be a good day when we pulled into the parking lot at Bud's Best Cookies and could already smell chocolate chip cookies baking. To make it even better, we were joining a group of pre-schoolers for the tour. We posed for this pre-tour picture adorned in our stylish hair nets.

Then we boarded the cookie express for a great tour. The engine of this train was decorated with some of the many different cookies that they bake here.

We rolled by the mixing machine as it just finished another batch of chocolate chip cookie dough,

then by the next machine that cut the dough into small pieces that were ready to ride through a long oven set at 600 degrees.

The bite size cookies were just gliding out of the oven on the conveyor belt. If we thought the smell in the parking lot was good, it was spectacular right next to the cooling rack with thousands of cookies gliding by.

But we noticed there was a space with no cookies on the conveyor belt.

The inspector determined that these cookies were too dark, so they went into the yellow "inedible bin." We also found out that any scrapped cookies are recycled into food for cattle.

Once they were again perfect, the conveyor was reconnected, and those little bite-size goodies connected down the belt to be cooled and bagged.

But not before our cookie express driver snagged a bowl-full of the hot bite-sized cookies to share with everyone on our train. Chew-Chew!!

He warned us to be careful eating these little cookies because they were still hot! Mark is all smiles with his warm cookie, and looking very stylish with a hair net that perfectly matches his shirt!

We sat there eating our hot cookies, watching the fresh cookies roll out of the oven on three different lines. There are the bite-size chocolate chips closest to us. Closer to the wall is a line of chocolate and vanilla cookies that will have creme put between them to form sandwich cookies. The third line that is closest to the back wall is baking their number one selling cookie--vanilla wafers.

We made our way through packaging, mesmerized by those automated machines that package them into trays and bags. Then through the warehouse, where cases were stacked to the ceiling as far as we could see. As many cookies as there are, our tour guide told us that all of them would be shipped out of here within two weeks. That's why they must continue to bake cookies at the feverish rate of one million cookies per hour!

Just like most factory tours, we got free samples of their number one seller--vanilla wafers, and their classic chocolate chips.

After such a wonderfully sweet stop, we headed to another factory. The Sloss Furnaces made steel here in Birmingham from 1882 until they closed their doors in 1971. A part of the city sky line for well over 100 years, it was decided to turn the manufacturing site into a national historic landmark.

Visitors can walk and climb around the machinery that was the latest technology in the early 1900's.

We learned about the process that happens inside this blast furnace that turns iron ore, limestone, and coke into steel.

Knowing that Mark likes to climb on trees, no one would be surprised to know that he also likes to climb on old rusty stuff and down old tunnels.

You can barely see Denisa in her bright pink blouse standing at the bottom of these towers that produced enough heat to melt steel. It was a huge place to hang out for an afternoon.

We finished the Birmingham factory tour trifecta on another day when we had an appointment with the biggest potato chip producer in the south. Golden Flakes has been headquartered in Birmingham since the 1920's. This time we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the plant. So we only have this picture in the visitor's center.

They turn over 100 million pounds of potatoes into potato chips each year. That doesn't count all the corn chips, tortilla chips, cheese puffs, and popcorn they package up in this manufacturing plant. One should come to the tour hungry, since there are generous samples of potato chips served hot off the line. As we passed the stage where corn chips were being bagged, a supervisor opened a bag that had just been sealed and handed it to us to snack on for the rest of the tour. Of course, there were more samples as we left the building, and we were pretty excited to get to take our hair net home as well.

Another fun part of the tour was getting to take it with a group of first and second graders from a private school in the area. There is something about a first grade boy wearing a tie that is just endearing.

Birmingham is an industrial city with many factories. We have enjoyed several of them, but we also enjoyed the more traditionally tourist parts of the city. More on that in the next blog!