Returning home through Alabama

On a clear sunny morning, we left our friends from the ‘60s in Tennessee -see my last two posts here and here - and decided to get back to Georgia through Alabama. We did not take the big highways so we could stop anytime to look at the scenery and take pictures.

click on any picture to enlarge

Some friends left comments on my last posts saying that the '60s and ‘70s had not been agents for change. But my reply is that if there had been more of us we could have taken responsibility for the ‘80s and ‘90s but we were a minority, even though the media made much fuss about the movement of peace, love and universal good. The “Silent Majority” was the numerical majority in this country and they took over along with the “establishment” and the large corporations. Instead of more understanding, they created more polarization and instead of a lasting peace, more wars. There is more division now - a world study last year found that the US has the largest gaps of inequality between rich and poor compared to all the other industrialized nations – the top 1% receives more money than the bottom 40% and the gap is the widest in 70 years. The ‘60s conservative boomers did not want social change and they won. Unequal societies create more tension, unhappiness and crime. Money is powerful and has been changing the country. It will continue to do so. I read that Karl Rove, President’s Bush top adviser, has helped in the creation of a new soft money organization which has already received commitment of $30 millions. They are seeking to raise more than $60 millions to quietly alter the next elections in favor of their chosen more conservative candidates, using dirty tricks if necessary. So, money and big corporations will continue to be all powerful. But this is not a political blog, just my observations, so let us return to our trip through Alabama. Luckily we left Tennessee before the terrible storms which caused so much flood and misery.

We drove by peaceful country scenes like the one on the little rural road below.

Click on this picture, when enlarged, click again

I stopped for a few minutes to take some pics of the soft bovines looking at me.




Then we rode along the beautiful Guntersville Lake located on the Tennessee River in Alabama. It received its name from John Gunter, an early Scottish settler who was an adopted member of the Cherokee tribe. The town was established one year after the American Revolutionary War ended.




In Scottsboro, Alabama, we went back to visit Unclaimed Baggage Center. We had been there a couple of times and stopped by to see if there was anything new of interest. Their merchandise comes from unclaimed baggage. When the airline cannot track the owners, the baggage is declared unclaimed. You can see more information on this here




Last year I purchased a Chinese watch, with Chinese characters, for $10. It works like a charm. I also like to look at their books as they often have cheap mysteries, bestsellers or foreign books. They also sell lost freight I think because they sell linens, dishes, etc. Here are a few things I purchased there –

Apart from the books all this merchandise was brand new

After driving up a curving Appalachian Road we found a spot to admire a pretty view of Guntersville Lake and took some more pictures.

From our vantage point we could see how long this lake is – the shoreline measures close to 950 miles and the lake is spread over 70,000 acres.




Many visitors come to these clear waters for good fishing, camping or picnicking in the beautiful Appalachian Foothills.




Twenty five miles further on, towards Georgia, we crossed the bridge over the Little River Canyon. It was such a sunny afternoon and we were in no hurry so we decided to park and get down closer to the river.




The Little River Canyon is a National Preserve, part of Alabama’s DeSoto State Park. It is 14,000 acres in size and very scenic. It actually begins at a 45 ft waterfall which has been a landmark for thousands of years. Centuries before European pioneers entered the area Native Americans knew of this fall. During the Civil War both Union and Confederate troops passed through this area.




Many millions of years have cut into the heart of Lookout Mountain to create this canyon, one of the deepest in the Eastern USA. The canyon is about 11 miles long and more than 700 ft deep. It features sandstone cliffs, forests, caves, boulder fields –




crystal-clear waters,




diverse forests, rock cliffs, caves, and boulder fields.




During the late 19th and early 20th centuries a mill was built above the waterfall and the rushing water was used to create power. The Edna Hill Community as it was known then also comprised a store, a church and several homes. But they are all gone now.




A steep scenic drive runs close to the canyon and allows visitors to stop by and admire the splendor of this canyon in a series of overlooks. We did not take this drive. We walked on a trail along the canyon for a while before returning to our car.



When we arrived home we saw that one of the little squirrels in our yard had eaten all the bird seeds.




He was showing no sign of remorse as he kept munching on a sunflower seed and letting me take its picture.