05/05/07 - Red's Catfish Cabin

I found this place on the internet called Reds Catfish Cabin down in Clay County. I chose something relatively close to Birmingham because I was going to take my daughter Jade on her first group ride. I climbed aboard the Goldwing that morning and met up with about 10 or so other riders at the local gas station, The ride there was mostly country back roads, I haven’t been to Clay county in over a decade, I worked there once when I was a bank auditor. I recall it was somewhat like stepping back in time and when folks asked where it was the answer was always, “You can’t get there from here”. The trip was uneventful until we got deep into clay county, That’s when the road I was following on the GPS dead ended into the wall of a large building that was under construction. I mean it literally led straight into a wall, If it were dark on a foggy night and I was an 18 wheeler there would be a massive hole in that building. There was a detour sign there but it led to a dirt road, not good for motorcycles, so I kept going. The GPS recalculates and sends me further down the road. Later on it tells me to turn left, I come to a dirt road… I’m staring to wonder now, I keep going, it tells me to turn right, there IS no road, I follow more, yet another dirt road, this one says something like “catfish crossover” or something. Up ahead I see a farmer trolling down the road on a tractor so I figured I'd "Old School" it like we used to do before the days of GPS. I stop next to him and ask for directions. He gives me these long directions that start with, “Turn around and go down the dirt road”. I politely waited until he finished, realizing this dude probably never saw a bike without knobby tires before, and asked him, “Is there a PAVED way to get there?”. He looks at me, and says “why yes, yes there is!”. So he proceeds to tell me to go further down the road and turn right, Which thankfully and finally led us to Reds Catfish Cabin. Sometimes when you pull something off the internet it doesn’t work out so well, but in this case, it was a home run. The place was awesome, the food was great, service great, and not too expensive. We all ate to our fill and had some pie. Getting home wasn’t nearly so complicated, because the catfish road connects onto hwy 49 which is one of the most beautiful roads in Alabama. It winds through the Talladega National Forest and dumps you just below the peak at Mt Cheaha. We went to the top and I showed Jade the view from up there. After that everyone wanted to go to 29 dreams but I split off and went on home. I didn’t want to keep jade on the bike all day on her first ride. Even still we covered 197 miles. I stopped by cold stone for some ice cream on the way home to reward Jade for being so good all day. I had 197 miles of zero complaints. Not bad for her first ride. She’s definitely a daddy’s girl.