We had an
unexpected change in our plans after we left Santa Fe on October 13. We headed south to Albuquerque to get the RV repaired. We had to cancel our reservations at several
locations, including our stay in Carlsbad, NM and the Carlsbad Caverns
tours.
Due to a problem
with our airbags, used to level the RV, we were advised to take it to a local
Freightliner chassis dealer in Albuquerque to have it fixed. This was the start of a 1,200 mile detour to
Red Bay, Alabama to get our RV serviced at Tiffin, the manufacturer of our
Phaeton motorhome.
While our RV was
in the Freightliner chassis shop, we spent the day at Camping World and in Old Towne where
we toured the Museum of Natural History.
We headed back to
the shop around 4:00 expecting everything to be fixed. Murphy’s Law…it would be
a 2-3 week repair and it sounded suspicious so we took our RV and spent the
night at American RV Park. The next day
Mike was on the phone talking to his contacts to find out that we needed to
alter our plans and drive to Red Bay, Alabama to the Tiffin Service Center for
service and to have the air bags taken care of. We extended our stay in
Albuquerque a few more days while Sharon got on the phone to cancel about five
reservations at various RV parks in New Mexico and Texas and replace them with
RV park reservations to get us to Red Bay and then back to Texas.
We had a nice stay
in Albuquerque and our neighbors, Bob & Pat from North Carolina invited us
over for cocktails before we left!
On the road
again. It took us three nights to get to
Red Bay which included stays in Amarillo, TX, Oklahoma City, and Memphis, TN
(next to Graceland).
Our first stop was
at the Oasis RV Park in Amarillo, where we previously stayed. We arrived on
October 17 to spend the night. As we
pulled in, we met our neighbors, Nancy & Terry from Florida. They invited
us to join them in a limo ride that would take us all to the popular Big Texan
Steak Ranch on Route 66, famous for the 72 ounce steak, free if you inhale it within
one hour!
It was a fun
evening and we made new friends who we will visit in Florida, or at their
summer home in Colorado.
We arrived on
October 18 at the Checotah/Lake Eufaula RV Park outside Oklahoma City. We ate
dinner at the park restaurant and took a walk through the woods to the lake.
On October 19 we
headed to Graceland RV Park in Memphis, right next store to Graceland. However,
we arrived too late to visit Elvis! Mike
almost had an accident on the interstate going through Memphis trying to cross
over six lanes of traffic to our exit! Thankfully, we made it across without
incident! We vowed to avoid big cities in the future, if possible!
We rolled into Red
Bay on October 20. Our first appointment was for the air bags and the 5,000
mile service at the local Freightliner Chassis shop. Again we disappeared for
the day and upon return, Murphy’s Law…long story, but the air bags were still
not fixed. Mike got on the phone again and found out that there have been
several RV’s that have experienced the same problem but there was no easy
fix. It would take months before the
engineers come up with a solution. In
the meantime, we had to wait a week at the Tiffin Service Center before we
could get our several other minor issues fixed.
During our stay in
Red Bay, our drives would take us past vast cotton fields, nearing the end of
their season.
Dismals
Canyon made our detour to Red Bay a worthwhile adventure!
The difference
between an ordeal and an adventure is your attitude, so we discovered a place
called Dismals Canyon in Phil Campbell, AL, a short drive from Red Bay.
Dismals Canyon is
an 82-acre privately owned and operated natural conservatory, secluded
wilderness tucked deep within the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It was designated a National Natural Landmark
by the National Park Service in 1975. Dismals
Canyon illustrates one of the finest examples of the ecological and geological
features in the nation’s history. Dismals Canyon was featured on the Travel
Channel in 2014.
This place was an unexpected surprise. The 1.5 mile hiking trail took us past Rainbow Falls and down into the canyon across a swinging bridge which opened up to huge moss covered boulders with ferns and giant trees. There are no mosquitoes, flies, or poison oak in this canyon. The canyon temperature on the canyon floor is about 14 degrees cooler which made for a comfortable walk.
Along the trail there were fissures and 60’ canyon walls. During the massive earthquake the rocks were sheared off the 60’ canyon walls and shoved out just enough to make this winding natural rock stairway. At the top is Pulpit Rock with a panoramic view of the canyon.
In 2006 a Hellbender (giant Salamander) was found at Dismals Canyon. It is currently the most recently encountered hellbender in Alabama, and one of only three specimens that have been found in the state in the past twenty years. It’s about 2 feet in length. We did not see the Hellbender, but you can check it out at www.alaparc.org and click on the Initiatives drop down menu and click on the Alabama Hellbender Initiative.
We came across many interesting stops such as Burr’s Hideout, Phantom Falls, Stove Pipe, Indian Head Rock, Fishing Hole, Dance Hall, Fat Man’s Misery and Witches Cavern. We also stopped at a cool green Grotto where 10,000 years ago a massive earthquake tumbled these house-size boulders together to form the natural bridges.
Temple Cave was a
bluff shelter about 10,000 years ago and was home to a tribe of Paleo Indians,
first man known to inhabit this part of the U.S.
There was also a
Champion Tree, an Eastern/Canadian Hemlock.
There were two Champion Trees until an ice storm destroyed one of
them. The tree is 138’ tall, 8’9” around
and has a crown spread of 50’. It is the
largest of its species in Alabama, and one of the largest in the world.
The light filtered
through the tall leggy trees that reached toward the blue sky. In the heart of the canyon flows Dismals
Branch, a winding stream that enters the canyon through Rainbow Falls. Mike stooped down to feel how cold the stream
was and it was too cold to dip your toes into!
We walked across a
little bridge that was not at all level, slanted like a fun house you would
find in Orlando! It made Sharon a little queasy so she quickly got across to
the other side while Mike inspected some wild mushrooms he found on a log.
We climbed up a
hill to view Secret Falls. The water
creating these falls flows from an underground mountain stream that opens onto
the earth’s surface about ¾ of a mile upstream. It was just a trickle this time of year.
Our hike ended a
few hours later and so we worked up an appetite. The visitor center was a country store with a
soda fountain and grill. It had a lot of
character with fox furs and raccoon furs hanging from the rough cut wooden
ceiling beams.
It was the wrong time of year to take a "Dismalite Night Tour" at the canyon to view the tiny bioluminescent creatures known as Dismalites. These "glowworms" require a select habitat to survive and are unique to only a few places on Earth. Although the creatures known locally as Dismalites are "close cousins" of rare glowworms found in Australia and New Zealand, they are actually fly larvae.
The steep, well-shaded rock faces and very humid cave-like setting with a lot of algae offers a place where they can concentrate their numbers. On nights when conditions are right the steep rock face looks like a star-filled sky. Best viewing times are May through September.
The blue light is produced biologically, similar in principal to what fireflies produce. The insects use the light to attract tiny flying insects into a web-like substance. They trap them in a sticky substance, not really silk but the same idea, like a spider's web.
Tour of
The Rosenbaum House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
On another day, we
took a drive to Florence, Alabama. Florence was founded in 1818 along the
northern banks of the Tennessee River at a time of westward expansion in the
years immediately after the Louisiana Purchase and the War of 1812. Sharon loves architecture, especially designs by architect Frank Lloyd Wright! So we stopped at the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in town, followed by a tour of The Rosenbaum House. It is the only Wright-designed structure in the state of Alabama and has been called one of the purest examples of Wright’s Usonian design, his vision of an affordable home for average Americans. The 1,540-square-foot-house was built in 1939, on the heels of the Great Depression, for a mere $12,000.
The house was built in 1939-1940 for Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum. Wright later designed an addition for the Rosenbaums, who were sole owners and occupants for 60 years until 1999, when it was purchased by the City of Florence and opened as a museum. The City of Florence spent almost $700,000 restoring the home before opening it for guided tours.
The Rosenbaum House is constructed of cypress, glass and brick, and has been meticulously restored. The flat roofs and large overhanging eaves, the expanses of glass and the flowing space are all hallmarks of a Usonian and are found in this house. Typical of many of Wright’s projects, the house also includes furnishings designed by the architect.
After nearly two
weeks at the Tiffin Factory, Freightliner advised us that the fix would be
several months down the road, and we should resume our travel plans with some
precautions, so off we were again to retrace our 1,200 mile trip to Texas.
Our Return
Trip to Texas for the Winter
After our
unplanned time in Alabama, it took us three nights in Mississippi, Louisiana
and Texas to get back on schedule and return to Texas for the winter.
We decided to
drive part way along the Natchez Trace Parkway that winds south from Nashville
to Natchez, Mississippi covering 444 miles of diverse scenery and
cultures. It is one of the nation’s
oldest National Scenic Routes and it passes through the northwest corner of
Alabama.
The Natchez Trail is the story of people on the move, of the age-old
need to get from one place to another.
It is the story of Natchez, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Indians following
traditional ways of life, of French and Spanish people venturing into a world
new to them and of people building a new nation.
In 1809, famed
explorer Meriwether Lewis (a/k/a Sharon) died under mysterious circumstances at
one of the stands along the Natchez Trail near present-day Hohenwald,
Tennessee. Lewis, along with William
Clark (a/k/a Mike), began the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1803 that
opened much of the northwest to settlement.
Today, the Natchez
Trace Parkway is among the most popular of all the National Park Service’s
properties. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/natr.
We left Red Bay on
October 29 and began our trip to Texas where we planned to spend our winter. We
stayed at the Swinging Bridge RV Park in Byram, Mississippi.
On October 30 we
travelled to Westlake, LA and spent the night at Whispering Meadow RV Park.
We arrived at the
Houston West RV Park on October 31. This
is where Sharon had a near miss accident on the interstate in Houston trying to
exit across six lanes of traffic! We vowed
to never go through another city like this again….really!
Finally, our detour
to Red Bay, AL has come to an end. See
our next blog post on Medina Lake where we resumed our RV Adventure!
Mike & Sharon
“Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of
traveling.”
Margaret Lee Runbeck
