BamaGanza 2015 - Noccalula Falls

For our "FROGgy" friends, some pics from BamaGanza 2015.  We had a great time!  A big thanks to Bob, Dennis, and the many helpers who helped make this such an enjoyable rally.  Another big thanks to the Forest River folks, Hood RV, and Bankston RV for the food and entertainment.

Folks, you gotta watch this guy.  He will steal your grandbaby right out from under your nose!  ;)

Forbes and Forbess.  

Fort Payne and Gadsden Camping Trip – October 11-18, 2015

We just got home from a week-long camping trip to northeastern Alabama. We’d signed up to attend a Forest River Owners Group (FROG) camper rally at Noccalula Falls in Gadsden from Thursday the 15th until Sunday the 18th. Not seeing any wisdom in chopping a perfectly good week of vacation in two, we took the whole week off, left on the 11th, and pulled the camper down to Desoto State Park, right outside Fort Payne, to hang out there until time to move to Noccalula Falls. We had camped at Fort Payne years ago, when we had our first bumper pull camper, and remembered loving the place. We tried to go back a few years later, but the campground was closed for renovation. Since Desoto is less than an hour from Noccalula, we decided to re-visit the place and check out the renovations.

Overlooking the Tennessee River just east of Scottsboro, AL

Desoto Falls

The area along the Tennessee/Georgia/Alabama junction is a seriously beautiful place. Waterfalls, wooded hills, rocks, rivers…. When camping in that part of the world, we spend our days sight-seeing, sometimes with a specific destination in mind, but sometimes driving aimlessly just to see the countryside. On our first full day at Desoto, we made a swing by the "big" Desoto Falls, 5 miles or so from the park, on our way to check out Cloudland Canyon in northern Georgia, just a step over the Alabama line. We were about a week or two too early to see the fall colors at their peak, but it was still beautiful. We went back to Desoto via Mentone, Alabama, which is about as picturesque place as you’ll ever find.



A waterfall at Cloudland Canyon

In Mentone

 This was the second time we’d driven to Mentone. The first time, we stopped to check out the quaint-looking restaurants and log cabin shops that squatted alongside the road, but were disappointed to discover that none of them were open. I don’t remember what day of the week that was - could’ve been a Sunday, or late on a Saturday afternoon, but we didn’t find a soul at home. When we drove through this time, it was 2 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. None of the quaint shops were open. It was like a ghost town. Two restaurants were open, but one had a 30 minute wait and one was almost out of food. We were, like, "Whaaaat? 2 o’clock on a Monday?" Thankfully, a waitress directed us to a convenience store across the road where we ate burgers – none of that bean sprout and avocado and portabello crap – just good old-fashioned lettuce-pickle-onion burgers, in a simple but spotless dining room that might have been a garage, once upon a time. Back at the camp site that evening, we grilled a steak, hooked up the cable, and The Husband kicked back and watched TV while I started the Davy Crockett autobiography I’d picked up in the Cloudland gift shop.

Tuesday morning, I woke up with a screaming sore throat. As we were expecting children and grandchildren to join us the next day, I decided I’d better get some medicine in me. We drove down to a walk-in medical clinic in Fort Payne. The doctor, I’m guessing by his accent, was not native to the U.S. I told him what was wrong. When he reached for his ahhh-stick, I told him to put it away, as I could hold down my own tongue. When he said he was going to give me a shot of antibiotics and steroids, I told him I’d prefer antibiotics in pill form, thank-you, and no steroids, please. When he offered to give me a prescription for pain medicine, I declined. He tapped a few things on his computer, then turned around and asked me if I had a regular physician at home. I said I did. He then asked, without even a hint of a smile, "And do you also tell HIM what to do?"

While I was bossing the doctor around, The Husband was googling something to do in the area. He found a glass-blowing place called Orbix not far away, where you could blow your own glass ornaments, and we drove up there to see it.  http://orbixhotglass.com/   The place was on a breezy green hill in the middle of NOWHERE. We drove up, parked the truck, and walked around the porch. There was an office/shop, but the doors were open in the kiln area, and they let us walk right through the "factory" to some benches along the porch on the other side, where we sat and watched three guys pulling globs of molten glass from furnaces and turning them into impossibly beautiful delicate things. Although they want you to make an appointment if you want to blow your own glass ornament, the main guy would have let us try it and even coaxed me to try it when he found out I really wanted to, but he backed off when I said, "But I have strep throat, and you probably don’t want me putting my mouth on your pole thingy." A rather awkward few seconds passed before he agreed that it was probably not the best day for me to try glassblowing. We said we would just buy an ornament in the retail shop, and hurried off to choose one. There were four elderly ladies looking around the shop, and one of them told us that they’d come up highway 275 to get there, and that it had been a most harrowing drive. After we made our purchase, The Husband felt it necessary to see what highway 275 was like instead of going back the way we had come.  

Think roller coaster.

We passed by one road that bore a sign encouraging people NOT to drive down it. "WARNING: DANGER." Naturally, The Husband had to investigate. At the end of the road, we found a beautiful, serene lake in a narrow valley. 



Little Canyon Falls
 

Had to put the truck in low gear to get back out to 275 again. 275 follows the rim of the Little River Canyon and comes out near Little River Falls. We did not go to the little falls that day, opting to wait and go with the children and grandchildren when they joined us the next day. They arrived mid-afternoon, and we drove down to the little falls. If faced with the choice of seeing Desoto Falls or the Little River
, go for the latter. It is just so beautiful, and if you pick the more difficult walking path and if the water is low, you can walk out on the rocks and dip your toes in the cool water. Careful! Those rocks are slippery.





Noccalula
 

Thursday, we hitched up and moved to Noccalula for the FROG rally. I believe that Noccalula is owned by the city of Gadsden. There are full hook-up sites, and most of the sites are nice and level, but they are very close together. Don’t plan on just dropping by there on a whim and getting a campsite; I’m told it’s booked months in advance. We FROGs almost had the whole thing reserved for this rally. It is a good place for such events. There is a nice pavilion with picnic tables, and a good-sized hall for indoor group functions. I did not check out the bathroom facilities, but I heard they were acceptable. Next door to the campground is Noccalula Falls Park, where we rode a little train around the park. They have a pioneer village, a petting zoo, and several playgrounds that the children enjoyed.

Our Halloween Decorating Contest entry

The FROG rally was fun. There was a Halloween/Fall decorating contest, two group breakfasts sponsored by local RV dealers, a pot luck dinner, and a bbq dinner sponsored by Forest River and the RV dealers. The Granddaughters (with a little guidance from the grown-ups) decorated our campsite with witches and spiders and eyeballs and bats. The winning campsites were announced on Saturday evening, after The Granddaughters had gone home; the girls were delighted when we let them know that they had won the prize (a set of kitchen towels and some scrubbers) for the creepiest decorations.

We pulled out for home at 11:30 Sunday morning. Instead of going back the way we had come (across highway 72), we took the interstate down to Birmingham, then 78 back to west Tennessee. Got home about 6:30. After a week away, it was truly good to be home.

　

　

Old Stone Fort State Park, Manchester, TN June 14 - June 28, 2015

Sunday, June 14, 2015

We have camping reservations at Old Stone Fort State Park from Sunday until Thursday.  

We took our time getting on the road this morning and didn’t leave until about 10:30.  We took I-40 to exit 176, then 840 almost to Manchester.  We arrived before 3 p.m. and had no problems setting up the camper.

Bonnaroo is happening this weekend, and we figured that both the park and Manchester would be very crowded, but evidently the crowd stays confined to the Bonnaroo area.  The park was as quiet as could be, with a few empty spaces.

Dinner was grilled smoked sausages and grilled vegetables at the campsite.

After dinner, we set up a TV that I gave The Husband for his birthday.  To this point, we’ve had a rule against taking a TV on a camping trip, reasoning that we could stay home and watch TV.  But once when we took some grandchildren camping with us and it rained the whole time, we resorted to letting them watch movies on the laptop computer that we take with us for navigation.  It was,

“Move your head!  I can’t see!”

“He won’t move his head.”

Yada-yada.

So I got this TV, thinking we could hook the computer to it to play movies, and maybe, just maybe, get regular TV signals for weather reports, etc., when camping close to small towns.

On this trip, we are just outside Manchester, TN.  Chattanooga is not far in one direction, and Huntsville, AL is not far in the other, but the TV could find no signals.  Ah, well…who needs TV on a camping trip, anyway?

Monday, June 15, 2015

Today’s day trip was to Burgess Falls.  We’d seen pictures, and it looked like it was worth the 1.5 mile hike to see them.  There was a series of waterfalls, with overlook spots at each one. 

 

 

 

It wasn’t a bad hike; it was mildly strenuous only in one spot where there were steps to climb.  Mostly, the hike was just tedious.  There were lots of tree roots to trip clumsy folks like me, but we made it to the end of the trail without incident. 

 

 

 

At the end of the trail, we noticed a gravel road that led to the biggest of the falls.  It would have been a much easier walk to take that road, but we’d have missed seeing some of the smaller falls.

We also checked out Rock Island State Park on the way to Burgess Falls.  The campgrounds at Rock Island were very nice, but I’m not sure our 32-ft. camper would fit in many of the spots.

 

After leaving Burgess Falls, we grabbed a bite of lunch in McMinnville, then drove out to Cumberland Caverns, where Bluegrass Underground is filmed.  Despite the fact that I am completely creeped out by caves, I followed The Husband in on a tour.  The walk is about a mile and a half, and the tour takes about an hour and a half.  Inside the cave, the temperature was 56 degrees, which felt pretty wonderful after our hike in the heat at Burgess.  But it was still creepy to me.  In one place, there are 170 steps (according to the tour guide) that go over rock formations – up and down and back up and back down.  Some of the steps are steep, and this old lady with bad knees had a hard time navigating them.  Plus, I’m out of shape.  By the time we reached the end of the steps, I was wheezing like crazy.  At the end there was a “light show,” which, to be honest, was pretty lame, but it afforded me a few minutes to catch my breath for the return trek up and down those same 170 steps.  I was glad to get out of that cave!

 

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

 We decided to stick around the park today and investigate some of its features.  The “old stone fort” for which the park is named is one of those mysterious Native American structures that no one seems to understand.  It is a wall, a double row of stones filled with earth that goes almost all the way around a 50-acre plateau that sits between two rivers.  The professionals estimate that it was used until about 500 years ago.  The consensus seems to be that it was not an “ordinary” village, as they have not found archaeological evidence of everyday life.  Instead, they believe it to be a ceremonial center.  There is a breach between two mounds in the eastern wall where the rising sun is framed between the mounds on the summer solstice. 

 We walked the trail all the way around this thing, not a difficult hike except for the maze of tree roots and the sweat pouring off my head.  Parts of the trail snaked right along the edge of a cliff, where we could look down and see the rivers.  It was quite beautiful, with several waterfalls visible along the way.  After the hike, we toured the museum.  I was so hot and sweaty and the museum was so cool and wonderful that I did not really pay much attention to the artifacts.  Instead, I asked the attendant to “play the movie,” the type of informational film that always seems to be available in these museums, so that we could have a cool place to rest our feet for a few minutes.

Back at the camper, The Husband stretched out on the couch for a nap.  I traded my sweaty clothes for some dry ones and laid down across the bed to read.  Just as happens at home, the minute we dozed off, our cell phones started ringing.  I gave up on the idea of a nap and went outside to tease the squirrels with peanuts we’d brought along for road snacks.  Dinner was a thick steak on the grill with sautéed mushrooms and baked sweet potatoes, not bad fare for “roughing it.”

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

As soon as we cleaned up from breakfast this morning, we hopped in the truck and headed for the George Dickel distillery just a few miles from here.  Our GPS sent us down a road that dead-ended in a field, but we turned around and soon found our way.  We had toured Jack Daniel’s distillery years ago, and this tour was much the same.  At the end of the tour, we tasted four different types of whisky (that’s the way George Dickel spells it) and bought a couple of bottles to take home.

Our next destination was Bell Buckle, Tennessee, home of the Moon Pie Festival.  This year’s Moon Pie Festival will happen this weekend, but we will be gone home by then.  Bell Buckle is a tiny town, really just one main street lined with old buildings which house antique stores, gift shops, and restaurants.  We had lunch at the Bell Buckle Café then went around the corner for ice cream. 

Back in Manchester, we drove to the site of the Bonnaroo music festival.  It is on the edge of town, on a 700-acre farm.  Last weekend, nearly 100,000 people had descended on Manchester, many of whom camped out in the fields.  All that was left of the festival today were mounds of bagged garbage and a lot of equipment.  On our way back into town, we passed a winery where we bought a bottle of “Bonnaroo” wine and some cheese, which we sampled shortly after arriving back at our campsite.

Tomorrow, we head home, so we spent the afternoon “battening down the hatches” in preparation for pulling out in the morning.  Dinner was grilled bratwurst and chips.  As we were grilling the hot dogs, we heard thunder in the distance.  As I write this, the thunder continues and a soft rain is falling.  It should make for good sleeping if the storm doesn’t get scary.

All in all, this has been a fun trip.  We like the Old Stone Fort park campground.  The campsites are shady and nicely spaced apart.  It is one of the quieter campgrounds that we have visited, partly because the campground is arranged in “loops” with only about 10 campsites per loop.  Our only complaint is that there aren’t any sewer connections.  Today, the third full day of camping, after only two showers each and sparse use of water in the kitchen, our waste water tanks filled up, and we had to use the “turd wagon” to siphon off some of the gray water.  There is one weird thing about them:  the water hookups are on one side of the site, and the electric hookups are on the other.  We had to run the electric cord beneath the camper (which isn’t a big deal, since the cord was long enough) to reach the electric hookup. 

The other thing we like about this campground is that there are a lot of interesting parks and things to do in the area.  Nashville is about an hour north, and Chattanooga is about an hour southeast.  Huntsville is not much farther.  There are a number of state parks in the area.  Rock Island State Park is 30 minutes away in one direction, and Tims Ford State Park is a few minutes away in the opposite direction.  Fall Creek Falls is a little over an hour away.

And did I mention that this part of Tennessee is absolutely beautiful?  Rolling hills.  Waterfalls.  Lakes and rivers everywhere.  And it is glorious in the fall when the leaves turn colors.

Thursday, June 18, 2015 - Home Again

Yesterday at breakfast, we cooked enough bacon and sausage for today, and so this morning, all we did was nuke the meat, toast some bread, and wolf it down.  No sooner had we swallowed our last bites than we started readying the camper for the trip home.

Four and a half hours later, we pulled in our driveway and began unpacking the camper (which is not nearly as much fun as packing it).

Ahhhh, it's good to be home!