Sweet Home Alabama

After our wonderfully relaxing stay at Cheaha State park, we departed on Sunday 8 June and drove 100 miles West and 20 miles North to our next location, Hidden Cove RV park near Arley, AL.  The RV park is located on the shore of Lewis Smith Lake which ,we understand, has 500miles of shoreline and the cleanest water of any lake in Alabama.  Suffice it to say we will not be seeing the entire lake.


Hidden Cove RV Park is a member park of the Thousand Trails club which we belong to and as such we are staying here for 2weeks for $6.  What a deal. 

  It rained fairly regularly for the first 4 days we were here so we didn't do to much sightseeing initially.  Eventually the weather improved and we got out more to see the area.  Going back to the clean water, it is so clear we could stand at the edge of the pool pictured below and see bluegill and catfish swimming by.



 

One of the things that is interesting is we see mushrooms (maybe toadstools) everywhere here.  This one is one of the most unique.  We tried doing some research to see what kind it was but couldn't find anything like it.  The colors in the picture are not tampered with.

On Saturday we talked to a guy who was fishing out on the boat dock above and he told us about the dam and the river below the dam so we decided we needed to drive down and see it.  We pack a quick picnic lunch and headed to the dam which is about 20 miles from our campground.  As it turns out Alabama Power company has a Hydroelectric plant at the dam so there is no access to the dam itself but there is limited access to the river below.

We learned that when they are passing water and producing electricity that a warning horn goes off to tell everyone downstream to get out of the river.  As it turns out the water rises about 15 feet in depth.  The picture below shows one of the river access points under water.  Normally the river bank extends about 10 to 15 feet from the end of the stairway.

There are currently only 2 access points to the river but we read they are going to add 5 additional points in the future.  The trails themselves to the river are also interesting.  We really liked the feeder stream in the picture below.

The trail alongside this feeder creek was covered in Blackberry bushes.  They were pretty but a little tart.

We also took the time while we were out to go and look at the National Forest campgrounds to see if we might want to stay there next.  As it turns out the 2 campground in the area are verrrrry nice.  We stopped and talked with the campground hosts and this led to that and they offered us a job as campground host at Corinth Recreational area campground.  After considering our options we have decided to take the jobs and will be staying in Alabama a while longer.  More on this in our next post.  For now we will leave you with a picture of our new home in Alabama.