10/12/07 - Epic North Alabama Run

In the club we have a contest where you give $20, $10 goes to charity, the other $10 in a winners pot. This year the contest is to visit at least 11 of the 23 state parks in Alabama and take a picture for proof. It lasts all year and naturally I have gotten to the end and haven't gotten more than a few. So having reached critical mass in the stress department and looking at the 78 degree weather this day I arranged for a day off and a trip north. I met up with my friend Michael Brown in the morning and we took off northward. We first went to Guntersville State Park and went through there to Bucks Pocket which is a little known remote park north of there. Bucks Pocket is pretty much just a giant hole in the earth, the park is at the bottom. From there we went to Desoto State park and ate lunch at the lodge. From there we rode West, over and around Guntersville lake to Cathedral Caverns. From there we went north again to Monte Sano near Huntsville. From there we went West toward Joe Wheeler. Let me tell you North Alabama at this point is turning into one gigantic traffic Jam. They seriously need an interstate that runs East West basically paralelling hwy 72 to Florence. There's not a lot of empty space left between Huntsville, Madison, and Florence. From Joe Wheeler we headed home on 65. The plan was to hit Rickwood Caverns but Garmin threw me yet another curve ball. If you ask Garmin to take you to Rickwood Caverns it will take you a street near the park that never gets there and run you in circles until you figure out the stupid little box is crazy. The GPS has been a cool toy, if your looking for big stuff its pretty accurate, but its hit or miss on smaller things. It was a wonderful day, the temps were great. We ran over 400 miles doing this little trip and I am now three parks from completion. I have until mid november to get those three so look for a future blog about that.