Our trip to Mt. Cheaha... what an adventure!!!

Well, I have teased you about it... now, it's time for the whole story. It all starts on Sunday afternoon, while bf and I are headed to Mt. Cheaha (Cheaha State Park) in Alabama, which is about an hour east of Birmingham (give or take). We were almost there when my cell comes alive with text messages from Mikey and Rick, who are warning me about the severe thunderstorm watch for the area we are headed, with cells starting to fire up about 40 miles to our west. I seriously got text after text about the approaching storm, which is terrific and well timed... since they arrived just before we headed to the top of the mountain where our cell phone reception became patchy at best, and that is a serious over-statement. We stopped a couple of times at scenic overlooks, really soaking up the hazy moutainscape before us, a truly fine sight... picked some blackberries, which were yummy, but left abruptly when I was suddenly over-taken by evil bed of fire-ants, which began chomping, unthinkable.

Well, as soon as we arrived, we hiked out to Pulpit Rock, which was an amazing tower of rocks on the edge of the mountain, with an approximate 100 foot direct drop and maybe a 1000 ft slope down to the bottom, atop this 2400ft highest point in Alabama. It was awesome!!! What made it more awesome was the incredible storm approaching. PHENOMENAL!!! I actually crawled out to the rock (slightly afraid of heights, especially when significant outflow winds are bearing down... just didn't seem like a good combination), and we watched that storm... here are a few shots from that. I HAVE TONS OF SHOTS, so I'll just pick out my favorites... We were actually IN the clouds... talk about being in "Cloud 9"!! We were even treated to a beautiful almost-sunset between storms... which was absolutely breath-taking! Can you tell I enjoyed that part of the trip...? :O) Well, one of the storms got a little too close and was popping CG (I wasn't able to capture any shots of that), and we were out on a trail on top of a mountain on a ledge... and the sun was almost set... so we decided to head back to the vehicle, deciding to be cautious. It was hard to leave it all, but we needed light to make it back on the trail. Headed to our next stop, a family of deer crossed our path... most of the daylight was gone by this point, so pardon the blur...
We got checked into our semi-primitive camp-site, where we HAD prepared to cook a steak dinner... but that wasn't going to work with the amount of wind from the approaching thunderstorm... so we had to head down into town (Oxford/Anniston) for some IHOP... It made for a terrific breakfast (tender delmonico steak flame broiled over a fire pit, camp-side... sweet potatoes and roasted onion baked in the flames and bagels--the intended breakfast), and we actually had a guest for breakfast!! :O) Cute and photogenic little guy...
After the very filling and protein-filled breakfast, we headed to the amazingly picturesque High Falls, just outside of Cheaha State Park... It wasn't too bad of a 1/2 mile hike for the amazing view we got of that 3 tiered falls. Of course, I had to photograph all the flowers and other cool stuff along the way. I didn't know it at the time, but that first one has a snail at right center... cool.
When Alabama Mike arrived with two of his sons, we met him at Bald Rock and headed over to the Rock Garden trail where bf knew of a great spot to learn how to rappel, about 15-20ft above the surface below. Bf got me set up, and after a nervous, heavily-tensioned rappel, I got the swing of things. Here are those shots... (thanks, Mike for capturing my moment!!)... and I apparently made it look exciting and fun because Mike actually took a stab at it. Way to go, Mike!!!

Mike's boys were not willing to give it a try and were a little antsy to go fishing, so we parted ways to await bf's friend's arrival at the park. We hung out talking on the patio of our quaint cabin, past the gorgeous sunset into the wee hours of the night...
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end... We left Tuesday morning and headed home, before we arrived home, were surprised to stumble upon a very territorial rooster farm, lots of cock-a-doodle-dooing going on there... and a brief glance at some of the residual storm damage in Macon after the Mothers' Day tornado outbreak this year. Just along the interstate, there were homes with the tell-tale blue tarp roof. In the notorious words of Porky Pig, yeebity yeebity, that's all folks! What an AWESOME mini-vacation!

Of course, while on my mini-vacation, I missed our first named storm of the Atlantic Basin hurricane season, Tropical Storm Arthur, which drenched Belize. The tropical storm formed very close to Belize, actually one day before the season start date, being named on Saturday, May 31. The moutainous Yucatan peninsula made short work of that storm. I also missed yet another tornado outbreak... 20 reports (MN, MO, IN, IL, and OH) on Friday, 6 (MD, WV, VA (no Mikey didn't catch any... but he was out), and OK)on Saturday, 2 (WY and NE) on Sunday, 4 (MO and WY) on Monday and 16 (IL, IN, OH and MO) on Tuesday. Looks like a lot more destruction, many, many homes destroyed and many injured. I have, thankfully, not heard of any fatalities. Amazing... another 48 reports.The chart above continues to amaze me... the number now for tornado reports is at 1,286, as of yesterday... but there are two areas of moderate risk of severe weather for today, including over in Mikey's neck of the woods. Be safe, Mikey.

Good night,
~Dewdrop