Lake Lurleen State Park

Wednesday, August 23, 2017   Lake Lurleen State Park, Coker AL

All we really did today was move from Tennessee to Alabama, but we passed the neatest house on the way.  On our way up to Cedars of Lebanon Park, we had seen two turrets rising from the mountainside on I-65 between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham.  It looked like a castle so when we saw them again, I googled it and found an article about Castle Gwynn.  We were too far away and moving too fast to get a good picture, so I will insert one from the internet, as well as some info on the fascinating story.

The following information is from an internet article on the castle.  Mike Freeman, the owner, and his wife built the castle a little at a time, as they had the funds.

Castell Gwynn is the realization of Mike Freeman's dream, one begun in 1970 in a high school architecture class, in which he drew the first sketches of his dream house. With the help of parents Joe Paul and Bessie Freeman, he established his professional photography career and began his search for the proper location for such a structure. Just south of Nashville, near the small town of Triune, a landowner named John Covington made it possible for the young dreamer to purchase a portion of his land.

The first tower was begun in 1980: five stories of which the first-floor kitchen is the crowning glory. Master mason Kenneth Canady worked two years molding the 14,000 bricks into 60 arches. (An interesting side story from a different article is that Freeman was dating Canady’s daughter when he approached the mason about someday helping to build his castle.  Canady’s answer was yes, provided that Freeman stop dating his daughter, which he did). Tilemaker David Wright highlighted his feat with his reproduction of the castle coat-of-arms.

Castell Gwynn will be completed as a four-towered structure. Finer points of the plans began to take shape when Mike visited a twelfth-century border castle in Wales. Castell Coche, or "Red Castle," became the prototype of Castell Gwynn, or "White Castle."


The second tower, begun in 1985, boasts a focal point of Castell Gwynn: a second-floor Great Hall. Under a 28' ceiling, a balcony with a minstrel gallery will lead into the area. The great hooded fireplace is Indiana limestone: 14' tall x 6' wide x 3' deep. The mantel, resting at a height of 5 1/2 feet, is 7' thick and 6' long. Finished with a coat-of-arms, the fireplace will center a room with cut-stone ceiling arches. The third and fourth towers will feature Guest Suites, including a "Honeymoon Suite" with personal elevator and hot tub in a glass gazebo on the roof.

There is a Renaissance Festival held each year in May on the castle grounds.

I’m going to try and work out some way that we can visit the castle on the way back from our upcoming trip to Michigan.

We made it into Lake Lurleen park around 3 pm and secured a “pull through” site with full hookups.  They call this a pull through site, but it’s more a “park on the side of the road” site.  It took a little maneuvering to get us in and straightened out and hooking up again when we’re ready to leave might be a challenge, but it will be nothing compared to our problems at Lake Chicot.  I doubt that we’ll need a tow truck this time.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

We spent most of the day hiking.  The park has a 23 mile hike/bike trail system.  This morning we did the 4 mile Ridge Loop.  We saw one couple running the trail and a couple of bikers.  It was actually a good trail for either.  There were no steep slopes and not a lot of roots and rocks.

We saw quite a few of these “giant leaf” trees of various heights along the trail.  They had the biggest leaves we’ve ever seen.  Since we walked to the trailhead and back, we actually covered 5.7 miles.

Lunchtime brought grilled cheese and a short rest.  We drove up to the park entrance to get a couple of pictures of the lake.  It is quite large, with boating, fishing and a roped off “beach area”. 

I took a couple more shots of the lake to test out the new lenses I bought for the phone camera.  The picture at left is taken from the same spot as the one above, just in the opposite direction.  Then I added the wide angle lens and took the same picture.  The colors at the bottom right of that picture are actually the grassy shore and the sand showing through the shallow water.

Our last hike of the trip was along the Tashka trail up to the Stormy Loop and back.  It was a total of 8.75 miles.  Coupled with our morning hike, we made 13.5 miles today.  In the three days of hiking this trip, we covered a little over 30 miles.

Bike/hike trails are fairly easy walking, but they are also a little boring.  There are no destinations—no waterfalls, canyons, streams, etc—at the end of the hike.  You just get to the end.  However, we did see a deer, lots of little tiny toads, and a dead luna moth.  Here are a couple of pictures of the trail.  I have to admit that the blue water showing through the trees and the sunlight reflecting off the trees was quite nice.

We covered a little over 31 hiking miles this trip, but the highlight was the eclipse of course!