Making the Best of Things and Finding Adventures - Red Bay, AL

When you find yourself having to make the best of things, finding adventures is definitely the way to go. First off, we are still at the Tiffin Motorhome facility in Red Bay waiting to have a recall issue and some other minor problems corrected. Tiffin has a "campground" that enables customers to continue living in their coaches as we wait for our service, but the campground is pretty basic. We have hook-ups but there are no amenities - no pool, no club room etc. Since they don't do appointments, there is generally a wait of a week or two when a customer arrives and we've been told we'll be up sometime next week (we've already been here a week). On the plus side, having service done here means returning to the mothership - they do nothing but build and service Tiffin motorhomes, unlike dealers who might work on every make and every type of RV. These are the experts and Tiffin's reputation is second to none. Since we aren't on a strict schedule, we're fortunate to be able to play the waiting game but not gonna kid you, it's been frustrating. The weather has been unseasonably cold here - no, not Chicago cold but we've been wearing coats, which we had hoped to never have to do again. On the other hand, I always said that winter would be tolerable if it only lasted a month and in this case it won't be quite that long (we hope!) before we can be on our way south again. And we're staying toasty in the moho.

Red Bay is in the northwest corner of Alabama and pretty much in the middle of nowhere. So about the finding adventures thing...we'd been taking drives to nearby towns to shop or just see the local sites and we really hit pay dirt a couple of days ago. We drove out to Muscle Shoals, about 40 miles from here to pick up a prescription at Walgreen's and on the way back we decided to seek out a place I had read about called Cane Creek Canyon Nature Preserve. Following the GPS took us off the main road and down a narrow gravel road that started getting progressively scarier. Just about the time we started imagining we heard banjo music and decided to look for an opportunity to turn back, we found the preserve "office" which was a simple house in a cleared area. We were greeting by Faye, a lovely lady and the owner of the privately owned preserve. She gave us a trail map - there are about 15 miles of hiking trails through the 700 plus acre property - and pointed out a few of the highlights that would be within the first mile or so. So we started out and soon came to the waterfall.

We spent some time there since you can walk over the rocks and get right behind the falls without getting too wet and of course, I can't resist a waterfall.

We hiked on further to an overlook marked on the map as "The Point" and it did not disappoint either. The place was absolutely spectacular and I'm afraid we barely scratched the surface since we had not come prepared for a long hike - no water or appropriate shoes. But we are definitely planning to return before we leave this area. Faye and her husband are amazing people. They own the entire property, they have built and maintained the trails and they share it with anyone who wants to hike through it at no charge. Not even a request for donations. Both are retired teachers and just very inspiring folks.

Next up was - ready for this one???

We had been hearing about the coon dog cemetery since we got here and of course we had to go check it out. It was about 5 miles down a dirt road and it was probably one of the most bizarre sights I've ever seen. Apparently, only coon dogs can be buried there and it dates back to 1937. We walked around and saw dog graves from 50 and 60 years ago, and others from this past year. Every single grave had flowers on it.

This place is pretty much pure Alabama and I'm really glad we experienced it. One of a kind, for sure.

Our plan from here is to stick around till next Wednesday, then close up the moho and leave it to be serviced while we're off on our Christmas travels. The drive to Atlanta (where my brother and nephew live) is about 4 hours and that's where we'll be heading. From there we'll fly to Seattle for Christmas, so we'll be gone a couple of weeks before getting back here. Hopefully, we'll be all ready to roll by that time. We're ready to head south and get out of the cold!