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.