Our original plans were to drive from Arkansas the full 500 miles to the Cheaha State Park in Alabama, but as I have gotten not only older, but wiser on this trip we had a slight modification to the plan. This was especially important as we had to pass right through Memphis about half way -- never an easy task. We found a nice, quite RV park on the Natchez Trace near Tupelo, MS and stopped for the night. We never even unhooked the trailer.
The next morning we only had 200 miles to go so we got into the state park at a decent time. Once again we were blessed with trees!
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| CAMPSITE AT CHEAHA STATE PARK ALA |
We began to explore the park. Turns out it is in a little National Forest called Talledega...right...adjacent to the Talledega SuperSpeedway for you NASCAR lovers--but we never went to the speedway. Instead we tried to walk every (moderate) walk and drive every dirt road in the small but beautiful park.
First we looked out at the park from the deck of the restaurant. There are lodges and cabins, restaurant, picnic sites, walking trails, campsites, a small museum and a wilderness trail of many miles along the backbone of the park.
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| VIEW FROM DECK OF RESTAURANT |
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| CHEAHA PARK BEACH AND SWIMMING AREA BELOW |
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| INTERIOR OF RESTAURANT |
Turns out this park celebrates the highest point in Alabama : 2407 feet ! Seems kind of funny after where we have been, but nevertheless it is something to appreciate. Inside the tower, built originally by the CCC to monitor the National Forest, is a small museum showing how the CCC efforts helped so many people acquire skills and earn a living for their families. Somehow it seems a shame that people who need financial assistance now don't think about working for their welfare checks!
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| TOWER AND MUSEUM |
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| ACCESSIBLE TRAIL TO BALD ROCK A point of Alabama pride seems to be that they have made the facilities of this park to be accessible to all visitors. While they have this nice boardwalk out to Bald Rock with a beautiful view of the forest and valley below, there is also the original trail through the woods (much less used) which Chick and I took. It is fun to see the difference in the types of trees and landscape back east from what we saw out west. (Both are beautiful!) |
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| ORIGINAL TRAIL TO BALD ROCK |
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| ALABAMA STYLE ROCKS |
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The next trail we tried was advertized as very steep. We figured we could do it, but after about 1/2 mile we encountered hand over hand stuff that did not seem worth it...much less trying to come back DOWN it later. Age does provide some wisdom. --So we quit and went to find another one. |
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| CREEK ON THE EASY PART OF THE TRAIL. Next we started to explore more of the park. This is a view of the "swimming beach" (from first photo looking down) looking back UP at the peak that is the highest point. It is really pretty and on the weekend the beach and water was FULL of swimmers and families having fun! |
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| CHEAHA PARK BEACH LOOKING TOWARD ALABAMA's HIGHEST PEAK Our next adventure was to take one of the short hikes in the park just to see CHEAHA FALLS. We had to laugh about the signs because when we started the CHEAHA FALLS Shelter near the falls was listed as 1.0 miles. We walked for half and hour, crossed a road, and came to a sign showing the Falls to be 1.0 miles. After about 20 more minutes we came to another sign showing the Falls to still be 1.0 miles. We figured they got a discount making the signs by making them all the same! |
Anyway, it was a nice walk. Along the way we had just decided to take the right fork at an unmarked intersection, when a lone hiker called to us asking us if we really meant to take that path. We have seen no one on most every trail this entire trip, so it was a little unusual. We said we were headed for the falls and had no idea which path to take. He assured us he had just come from the falls via the left fork and kept us from getting totally lost. We chatted for about 5 minutes and continued on our way. Talking about having "SOMEONE" watching over you!
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| FOREST TRAIL TO CHEAHA FALLS |
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| STREAM LEADING TO THE FALLS |
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| CHEAHA FALLS...VERY STEEP AND NO PATH SO COULD NOT GET GOOD PICTURE |
Another adventure was to locate Chinnabee Lake in the National Forest just outside the park. We found it, but it was pretty small and not much else. We then drove on every back road I could find. Chick was convinced we would never find our way out, but the park is not so huge. We managed to spend a few hours, see some beautiful scenery and have a good time. Nothing to take photos of, however.
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| CINNABEE LAKE, ALABAMA No camping vacation could be complete until Chick was able to have a campfire for us to enjoy. Ironically we had to get all the way back to Alabama to have one. Everywhere else it was either a commercial RV park or too cold, or too hot, or covered in fog...but at last the real thing! We gathered wood from the surrounding forest and enjoyed a beautiful campfire on our last night! |
WHAT COULD BE MORE BEAUTIFUL?
44 days - 9500 miles! (Snoopy did 6200 with us!) What fun!
THANKS FOR COMING WITH US. UNTIL NEXT TIME...
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