Biscuits, A Phantom Road, and Cheaha

This past Thursday, I had to go to Atlanta for a conference--so Lauren and I had dinner Thursday night up in the Buckhead District. We went to Uncle Julio's Casa Grande--of the same Uncle Julio's in the DFW Metroplex. And the food was the same. The chips were the same. The salsa was the same. Some good ol' Tex-Mex right here in the heart of Atlanta. T'was just what we needed.

On Friday, we had our crosstown football rivalrly--the two schools here in town played each other. It was surprisingly close in the first half--Carrollton was behind--but they came back to win, 29-3.

On Saturday, we headed out for the Cheaha Wilderness in Alabama. We were going to go hike the mountains--but Lauren has been sick, so we just drove around.

We began the day at one of Lauren's favorite southeast restaurants--Jack's. People in the southeast love their biscuits--and Jack's makes good ones. While we were there, it hit me--there are no Whataburger's in the southeast--that is sad.

After stopping at Jack's in Bowdon, we headed off for Alabama (only 15-20 minutes west of Carrollton). We saw this Sno-Biz in Bowdon. I worked at one of these in high school and have loved their sno cone goodness since. This isprobably the largest one I have ever seen--complete with their own ice cream. Interesting.

We drove through some really pretty country--really pretty country. All sorts of colors in the trees this time of year. Rolling hills. In Wedowee, Alabama, we saw this Bill's Dollar Store. It has been years since either of us have seen one of these. Lauren had a good point--it's like time stands still, to a point, in the southeast--many of the stores we grew up seeing (Bill's, Piggly Wiggly, etc.) still thrive in this part of the country.

On the way to Cheaha, we basically got lost. Or wait, to put it better--our map got lost. Did you know maps lie? Well the two we have sure do. We made it to Lineville, AL, from where Highway 46 was supposed to head off for the State Park. We now know Highway 46 DOES NOT EXIST. We drove around town looking for it for 30 min's, then finally stopped and asked at a gas station. The first two people I talked to had both never heard of this highway or the town on this highway that is shown to be five miles away from the town. Good grief.

Well, I finally talked to a guy who knew what he was talking about. I knew he was legit--when he said to come outside and he would show me where to go, then he sat his Mello Yello bottle down. I knew to trust to him. His instructions were to go down that road over there (he pointed in the direction), go down the hill for about a mile, down the hill, then turn right on the paved road. We did. We got to that other town (Pyriton), but then the highway just ended. Inexplicably. So we drove around for a while, then finally decided to turn on a road that was on the map.

The lesson we learned is to always check google maps. We had two maps--one showed highway 46 connecting to a highway (though this map left highway 46 unnamed). The map that named highway 46 did not show it connecting. I thought I would combine the knowledge of the two maps. Stupid. Always check with google maps and go with what it has--google knows all.

We finally made it to Cheaha State Park--probably a little over an hour east of Birmingham. The drive is spectaular--up mountains. This is the view from the restaurant at the State Park--we had a sack lunch here. There is a bit of a hue--sort of like what makes the Smoky Mountains so smoky. Sort of hard to see in this picture--but look in the horizon. Supposedly, on a clear day, you can see five to six surrounding states from up here.

You can see some of the different colors in the trees here.

This is the observation tower on the very top of Cheaha Mountain--the highest point in Alabama.

We climbed all the way to the top--up a very narrow set of stairs. We got to the top and were very disappointed in the view. So, I wanted to take a picture of something--so I chose this graffiti. I found it interesting for two things: 1. the misspelling of this great name of American cinema history & 2. we were probably less than 20 miles from talladega speedway.

This is at the bottom of Cheaha Mountain--at Cheaha Lake.

A nice day.

Like I said, Lauren is sick right now. We're hoping she can get better before tomorrow--she has a really difficult week ahead at school. School has been really intensive for her--but she is hanging in there.

Things at church are going well for me. We continue to feel more and more settled, more and more normal here in Carrollton. I am looking forward to heading to Texas this coming weekend for a quick weekend trip to see family.

--be