Falling Waters & Sweet Home Alabama

On Thursday, Oct 21 we set out to visit Falling Waters State Park which is located in Chipley, Florida.  Christie and the kids had recently visited there so we were aware that the falls were dry due to the lack of rain, but we thought it would be pretty neat to see the sinkholes and the park in general.  It is definitely a place I recommend, but I would suggest contacting the park to see if the fall is actually flowing.  We plan to go back.  It's hard to really see the details of the sinkholes in the pictures because of the dappled lighting at the time of day we were there.  It has a nice playground, picnic area and a small lake for swimming.



This is where the fall should be falling

 

Me at the non-falling fall

 

The Swimming area



The next place we stopped was Birmingham.  We visited the Vulcan which is the world's largest cast iron statute.  I had been there when I was about 10-12 years old, but I couldn't really remember much about it.  In 1999 it was taken down for repair.  We took the glass elevator up and took the stairs down.  After leaving there, we passed through Talladega by the raceway. I took a picture of the flags as we were passing by. 

Me at the top of the Vulcan Statue

Gary at the top of the Vulcan

The Vulcan View from the Parking Lot

Talladega Flags

The next stop was Cheaha State Park in Delta, Alabama.  The park has motel rooms and cabins for rent, but all but one hotel room was booked and it required a 2-night stay, so we passed on that.  The park is very beautiful and I would like to visit it again and maybe rent a cabin.  We hiked a little and visited the main attractions there. Surrounded by the Talladega National Forest, this foothill of the Appalachian Mountains is the highest point in Alabama. Standing 2,407 ft. above sea level.  The local Creek Indians named this place “Chaha,” which means high place.

 



This is the deck of the restaurant on Mt. Cheaha



Observation Tower

This is Gary on Bald Rock

This is the lake that has a beach area and playground

We tried to find a hotel room near Auburn, but there was a big game that weekened against LSU so we decided to go a little further to find something.  We actually stopped at a Marriott Golf Resort, but they didn't have any rooms available and it was probably a good thing because it was several notches above the type of place where we usually stay.  The guy did tell us of another hotel nearby that had a room for $299!  Ah no, I don't think so buddy!  We wound up spending the night in (or near) Eufaula and then left the next morning for the last stop - Dothan to go to the Wiregrass Festival.  That was a pretty cool place that reminded me a lot of the Tallahassee Museum (FKA the Junior Museum).  They had old tractors, engines, a quilt show, cane grinding, demonstrations for soap making, iron smithing, wood turning, wood bowl making, etc. They also had a tractor pull with the old tractors, but we left before that event.  It was H-O-T and we were ready to get up out'a there!

This is where the music was going on

Bailing up hay

Wood Bowl Maker

Wood Turner

Country Church

Blacksmith's Barn

One of the many old tractors in the parade

This is the barn where the quilts were displayed

Some of the old engines

Little Girl Weaving

Mule grinding some cane





Two Tots Turning Two

Well I think I may need to rename our blog "A Day Every Now and Then in the Life" because I have not been very good at posting daily, weekly or even monthly! However, today is a very special day, so I am going to make the time to do it. Our sweet little Thomas and Gracie turned two today and we can hardly believe it! It seems like such a short time ago they entered our lives. My how times flies! They may be two peas in a pod, but they are not the same kind of pea because they each have their very own personalities, likes and dislikes and that's okay because that's what makes them special, besides the fact that they are two of the cutest and adorable kids (along with Sy of course) in the whole wide world. We are not not biased or anything - just stating the facts.  Anyway, here's a special birthday song just for Thomas and Gracie from Grandma and Pa Pa.



Loggerhead Turtle Eggs

I have lived here for 8 years now and have never witnessed a mother turtle laying her eggs, the eggs hatching, or the baby turtles crawling out to sea.  What I did witness this evening just before sunset is loggerhead turtle eggs being dug up and very gingerly placed into coolers along with some of the wet sand from the nest.  The reason for the removal of the eggs is due to the BP oil spill.  According to one of the biologists conducting the egg removal, relocating the eggs to the East coast will hopefully ensure that the hatchlings have a better chance of survival.  It is their belief that if they hatched here and continued on their natural course, they would starve because the areas where they feed along their journey in the Gulf have been affected by the oil.  Many older turtles have already been stranded and found covered with oil.  I forget the names of the folks in charge, and while all four of them were very nice, one in particular (the girl in the white T-shirt and Cubs baseball cap) was very informative and very enthusiastic to share information about Loggerhead turtles as well as other sea turtles.  She very patiently explained what they were doing and why and also explained how to distinguish the species of the turtle by the crawl tracks they leave behind.  It was actually very interesting.  When placing the eggs into the coolers, they made every effort to place the eggs just as they were oriented in the nest. It was explained that the membrane in the egg is very fragile and any change in position could damage it. I forget the number of eggs in this nest, but I believe it was around 100.  These turtle eggs and others that they will harvest and have already harvested on the Gulf Coast will be taken to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to incubate and when they hatch will then be taken to different areas on the East coast and released into the Atlantic.  I was told the eggs from this nest should hatch in 7-10 days.  Here are some photos.

 

Nest are typically about 18-22 inches deep and have between 100-125 eggs

My neighbor/friend Janice and her dog Lucy also stopped by to observe.

Happy Birthday America!

I never seem to get these posted on the actual day of the event. This one is for 4th of July weekend.  It started off with Sy spending Friday night with us.  Since I am getting old and can barely remember yesterday, I am not sure what we did that night.  I do know that the next day, Christie, Joey, Thomas and Gracie came down and we mostly hung out in and under the house.  Christie and Joey went to the Blue Parrot to eat lunch and the tots stayed with us.  Later, Ryan and Ashley came with oysters, so we had oysters, hamburgers and hot dogs (some burned to a crisp like me and Christie like'um) on the grill.  Of course there was watermelon too.  Yummy! Terry, Vicky, Aidan and Aubrey came by too and all the kids made beautiful art on the concrete with sidewalk chalk.  Thomas and Gracie were infatuated with taking ice out of the oyster cooler and putting it in a bucket of water.  On Sunday, we got up and had a big breakfast (Thomas helped mix the pancakes) and then we rushed to get the boat ready for the parade.  The weather was looking a little questionable, but we decided to go on with it.  Everything was going quite well until we started getting blasted by water guns and water hoses.  It's all part of the parade, but Miss Gracie was not particularly fond of getting blasted.  Joey, Christie, Thomas and Gracie got off at the Lighthouse so that left Ryan, Ashley, Sy and Me on the boat.  We did eventually get out of the parade ourselves because it was beginning to literally "rain on our parade".  We all gathered back at the house and dried off.  I attempted to get a picture of my three precious little grandbabies in their 4th of July outfits, but let's just say they were less than cooperative.