Oak Mountain

So we decided a year ago (no kidding - I made camping reservations in August 2016) to make the trip up to Tennessee to view the total solar eclipse.  We are headed up to Cedars of Lebanon State Park, which is in the path of totality.  Rather than just drive straight up there and back, we stopped at Oak Mountain State Park in Alabama, one of our favorite parks.  On our way home we spent a couple of days at Lake Lurleen State Park outside Coker, Alabama.

Saturday, August 19, 2017  Oak Mountain State Park, Pelham, AL

We came in last night after about a 9 hour drive.  It probably would have been about 8 hrs but we misjudged the turnoff and ended up going about 20 miles farther than necessary and had to double back.  We didn’t trust the GPS because the last time we came through this area it took us through a mall parking lot to get to the park.  But we made it.  Bailey was very upset the entire trip.  She never lay down like she usually does, but paced and circled looking miserable.  She’s done this the last couple of times we went anywhere.  We are now thinking that she is suffering from motion sickness.  She seems fine once she gets out of the truck but just stands with her tail between her legs while we are moving.  Often she will rest her head on my shoulder and lean against me.  We are going to give her some Dramamine tomorrow.

Today we went up to the Grill for lunch for one of their magnificent cheeseburgers.  After that we hit the trail.  This time it was the Yellow Foothills trail which we followed to the end of Tranquility Lake.  There we cut over and picked up the mountain bike trail back to the trailhead.  Our total distance today was 8.16 miles, according to the map tracker on the phone.

Since we’ve been on this trail before we only took a couple of pictures.  This is the little stream at Maggie’s Glen.  We’ve taken pictures at most of these sites before but I just liked how the water was reflecting the sky and clouds today.

The same reflections were present in the glass-like surface of Tranquility Lake.

Both of these were taken along the Foothills trail.

At one end of the lake is a dam and I took a picture from the top of the dam of the water flowing over, and from the other side.

I swear that I did not change the colors in these pictures.  I did increase the contrast which increased the intensity of the color, but the actual colors of the water were a result of the lighting through the lens of the camera.  It was very similar to the prism effect in Antelope Canyon.

Back at the trailhead we took this picture of a particular bench that we had noticed on the way in.  It had not been here on our last visit.  We noticed that the three members of the Zhuravlev family had all passed away last year, probably in the same incident.  We asked at the Park Office, but no one on duty at the time knew anything about the circumstances. 

After a little computer research we did find that the father and son died in a car accident when someone ran a red light and T-boned them.  Perhaps they had made a memorial donation to the park.