SO... Sunday I woke up and rolled out of bed, head not feeling so hot and trudged over to Adams for some hungover food and movies. Not long after getting there, my buddy Feeny called me; he wants to play outside on his day off. I sit up and look around me: Dark room, dark concert DVDs, dark Adam... "Yes! let's go play outside!"
Feeny comes to Adams, follows me to my house to get Lady Elu, and we're off. Headed North to the Warrior River. The weather report gave us a 70% chance of a beautiful day!
This was Elu's first time riding in the back of a pick-up truck, and boy doggy did she love it! wind ALL UP in her little Doggy Face! Feeny's dog Lulu was with us too.
As we pulled out of Birmingham, Feeny admits to me that he's not "100% sure where this place is," but Adam knows, so we can just call him. Adam gives us some really shotty directions: turn-left-at-the-first cow type of directions, so we're left up to our own sense of directions... it's a big river, we'll find it, RIGHT?!?
Feeny's heard about a canoe put in, not far from Hayden, Al where they hold the Acoustic Cafe (check it out labor day weekend next year)... so we drive through Hayden all the while keeping an eye out for what seems to be a good spot to stop along the river. Driving... driving... left turn on Hwy 31. stop at a country gas station to ask for directions to a "swimming hole" Dude sends us west for a few miles, and then right on country road 5... there's a creek right there, it's pretty much dried up. Pit stop along the way to let the restless puppies run around:
Then back in the car...
And back to Hwy 31... we pass under the interstate, turn around decide to get on I65 and go north an exit. at the next exit we stop again at a gas station to ask directions, I hung out with the girls:
We SAW THE RIVER RIGHT THERE>>> now how do we get to hit?
So from here, we drive east for a little while, taking right hand turns onto dirt roads and driving until we dead end into someone's trailer home. We found a very promising road... didn't see a "no Trespassing sign" so we proceeded. This little dirt road was certainly not a "county road" any more. We came upon someone's SWEET camp sight.... and as we're turning around bout ready to hi-tail it out of there a dodge truck comes moseying around the corner... "Ya'll ain't supposed to be here..."
I'm not really sure how the conversation went down, 'cause I was in the back of the truck holding onto Elu, who had recently discovered that she can jump out of the bed when we're going 10 miles an hour and a rabbit runs by the truck.... but basically we were told to get off this man's property, and we did. Back out to County Road five-0-something and take a right, the next county road 5-0-something lead to THE SAME PLACE... turning around...
At some point we entered a factory plant entrance where signs told us we needed to have on reflective gear, three-point turn number 319. Back on County Road whatever, headed in the general direction of nowhere... There's a road sign indicating a curvy road ahead. I said "Curvy Road, totally means water, 'cause they have built the road around the river." There's the water!!! now how do we get to it? We drive for a little longer, decide to take a right and then another right and guess what... we're back on Hwy 31. and we found the SWIMMIN' HOLE!!!!
We walked up the creek a little ways:
Feeny and I cracked a beer and watched the kids play... Elu actually managed to wear herself out...
We left about 8 o'clock, decided that we would never find our way back the way we came, and probably didn't want to so we just took a left on Hwy 31. Drove about ONE MILE and passed the road that we had been on at the very beginning, the one where we had taken a left, if we had have taken a right and driven one mile, we would have found our Swimmin' Hole!
But the adventure is not always about the destination, now is it?!?!
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