Alabama's High Point - "Cheaha Mountain"

19th Feb 2006
After Florida's high point, we headed north into Alabama. We were in the deep south and I was a little apprehensive as we drove through Alabama. Passing shackled houses and way too many Baptist churches, thoughts of crazy white supremist people who probably hadn't seen many Asians was spinning through my head. A little narrow minded on my part I am sure, but c'mon. We stopped on the side of the road in a little town wanting to try some southern fair and got some pork bbq sandwiches. As we waited for our food, we listened to locals sitting in the basic restaurant talking in their southern drawl about their days' event of dirt bike riding. Ahh, gotta love the hicks of the deep south! Mark, who's into dirt bike riding loved it. Back on the interstate highway, we made our way past major towns Montgomery and Birmingham, both which has been significant during the civil rights' movement decades earlier. It was 12 midnight on the Saturday night (2/18/06) before we rolled into the small town of Oxford and stayed at the Red Carpet Inn. Nothing fancy and only a little dodgy.

Early Sunday morning, we headed to our second destination just half an hour away. Alabama's highest peak at Cheaha Mountain at 2407 feet was a drive up through the mountains, passing many white trash houses which has many broken cars outside, toys strewn everywhere and always a few dogs. There was one house in particular I remembered with more than 10 puppies in the front yard just running around with no fence. We had to take particular care not to run them over and risk having their owners come out with a shotgun or two. Alabama's highest peak is marked by a stone building. The view was ok, but with fog in the area made it hard to see too far across the plain. The bare tree brances were all frosted with ice, leaving the scenery a picture of white though there was no snow. A picture or two and we were off. Two down.