11/24/06 - Cave Spring Ride

After securing a baby sitter for the Friday after thanksgiving and finding beautiful weather for the day I posted a ride for my riding club and about 8 folks showed up. We met at Cracker barrel in Trussville. Let me mention that you should never go to cracker barrel the day after Thanksgiving. If some folks had not arrived early and gotten a table it would have been an hour wait. Once in we learned that the kitchen was a little backed up. The food was good but it took a total of 2 hours to get in and out. We departed Trussville and rode up highway 11 toward Collinsville and then turned right toward Weiss lake, we eventually got to hwy 411 and followed it to a little town called Cave Spring, Notice the singular on Cave Spring, that’s because there is one cave, and one spring. Not plural. The little town has a few antique shops that looked more like junk shops and a little café and chocolate shop. It wasn’t exciting but we weren’t looking for excitement, it was just a place to go. We went south from there until we hit 78 highway and followed it to Anniston where we ate dinner at the Western Sizzlin. They have a fantastic buffet. We had taken more time than expected so we hit the interstate to get back to the Birmingham area. It was getting quite cold by time I pulled back into the garage. This was the first time in a while I’d had a chance to ride. Unfortunately the weather is going to make those chances fewer and further between till the spring