Vacation Day One - Desoto State Park

When we moved to Alabama almost a year ago I went through my guidebook and started making lists of places that I wanted to visit.  We've slowly been checking them off, but we've haven't had a chance to see any of the interesting things in Northern Alabama.  That's because Brandon has to get special permission to travel more than 250 miles away from Fort Rucker.  He also has to get special permission to take leave, and since he was in flight school he really couldn't get permission to do that.

So when he finally had a break between Primary training and Advanced Training we decided that we were going to go on a little family vacation up to the Lookout Mountain area on the Tennesee/Alabama/Georgia border. At first it looked like we'd be able to go right after Selection Day which was perfect because the kids would also be on Spring Break that week.  But then there was a change of command ceremony and Brandon wasn't able to get enough time off to make it worth our while to drive up there.  

So we bumped the trip back by about two weeks.  That meant the kids had to miss a week of school, but I don't feel guilty about that because they are in Pre-K.

I should mention that we considered taking a two week trip all the way to Utah instead of going to Northern Alabama.  We'd been hoping to do that during the summer, but since Brandon's Advanced training is scheduled to happen all summer long we wont be able to visit Utah while the kids are out of school.  So we considered high tailing it to Utah so that Brandon could see his family before starting Advanced Training. But every time I thought about that plan I just felt sick. I was not looking forward to a 4000 mile round trip drive. And since it would happen earlier tean planned we weren't exactly prepared for it financially. Brandon admitted that he didn't feel right about it either.  So we decided that we'll just have to try to fit in a trip to Utah when we move.  

In the meantime we'd go have that long overdue family vacation in Northern Alabama.  

Brandon and I worked to get everything ready the weekend before our trip. We had food to prep, gear to pack, and clothes to figure out.  Here are the piles of the kids clothes.  I had a set of clothes for each day as well as a back up set.  I also had pajamas for each night.  

 Then I put everything into plastic bags and labeled them with what day/night they were for.  This actually worked out really well and I think I'll use this system in the future.

We packed the Honda on Sunday night and were all set to leave on Monday morning.  Since we didn't have that far to go we didn't plan on leaving until after breakfast.  That ended up being a good thing since Brandon's leave paperwork was missing and he had to wait until the guy in charge of that came into work at 9:00. Brandon had to do some running around to get the paperwork re-printed and taken care of, but finally we were on the road.  It was about 10:30.  We were so happy to get away.

The first part of our drive was pretty uneventful.  We've traveled the route up to Birmingham before.  But then we turned onto the I-59 and we were on a new road.
The first thing I noticed was that the trees seemed closer together - even for the south.  I mean look at this picture, this is the Interstate and yet it looks like a country highway.

The kids had all been doing well in the car.  They were just as happy to be going on vacation as Brandon and I were.  They watched Mary Poppins and had fun with that movie.  (Side note: That movie is incredibly slow moving.  But it's the prefect roadtrip movie because its really long.)  (Another side note: I promise we did bring Derrick and that he doesn't mind sitting in the back next to all the gear.)

We found a rest stop outside Gadsden and had a quick picnic lunch.  Brandon and I decided that we wanted a vacation from peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  So we didn't even bring bread.  We brought a lot of snack foods and fruit.  We basically just ate breakfast, 4 small lunches, and then dinner each day.  It worked out really well.

We continued on our way and soon we were driving into Fort Payne, Alabama.  We could see Lookout Mountain for the first time.  Lookout Mountain stretches 80 miles from Chattanooga Tennessee in the north to Gadsden, Alabama in the south. Part of it is even in Georgia. The highest point of the mountain is at 2389 feet.

For those of you familiar with Sanpete County Utah, Lookout Mountain reminded me a lot of the Wasatch Plateau on the east side of the Sanpete Valley.  And the Lookout Mountain Parkway on top of Lookout Mountain reminded me in some ways of the Skyline Drive above the Wasatch Plateau. 

We would be staying at DeSoto State Park which was roughly in the mid section of the mountain.  We drove up the canyon from Fort Payne.  Brandon said it was so nice to be in actual mountains again (even if they were hardly 2000 feet high.)

We drove along the top of the mountain for a little bit before we arrived at the State Park.  We checked in at the Country Store and picked up the key to the primitive campground.  The man in the store said that we were the only ones staying in that campground that night.

  We drove two miles to the campground and found that we did indeed have it to ourselves.  There were about 20 campsites that we could choose from.  We picked #4 because it had a large area where we could set up our tent and it was fairly close to the vault toilets and the water spigot.

The kids were really exited to have space to run around.

They all spread out pretty quickly and explored the area that would be our home for the next four nights.

The weather forecast said that we should expect rain and it had been drizzling for the past few hours. But things cleared up long enough for Brandon and I to get the tent set up.  It was only about 3:30 and the kids seemed antsy so we decided to go find our first waterfall - DeSoto Falls.

I'd assumed that the waterfall would be near the Country Store, but it really was 7 miles away.  The were good signs that led up there so it wasn't that big of a deal.  What was a big deal was that it started to rain hard as soon as we got to the parking lot.

Brandon was prepared for that and pulled out a poncho for everyone.  They were all huge, and Derrick refused to wear his, but overall we mostly stayed dry.  

At first I felt like we'd been misled by the park.  This was a spillway.  Not a water fall.

But then we walked down a little path and could see there were real waterfalls under the spill way.

It was tricky navigating the wet pathway, trying to make sure none of the kids went over the edge, trying to take pictures, and keep the camera dry.

The kids thought it all was pretty cool.

I was impressed by the rock walls that were on either side of the waterfall.

It was amazing to watch the water cascade over the edge.

The waterfall was really beautiful, and if the weather had been cooperating we could have stayed and enjoyed it much longer.  But instead we were all getting cold.  

So we went back to the car.  I dug into the my backpack and pulled out Derrick's back up shirt.  We changed that. Brandon shook off everyones ponchos and I gave them all their jackets.  (I hadn't wanted them to get soaking wet because I needed them to keep everyone warm that evening.)  We got everyone buckled in again and headed back to the campsite. 

The rain had calmed down a bit when we got there, but everything was still really wet.  I don't like camping in the rain, so I was feeling a little miserable, but I clung to the hope that everything would clear up by morning like the weather report promised.  Brandon set to work showing off some shelter building skills he'd learned at SERE.  He used our tarp to make a nice little rain shelter.  I was glad that it wasn't windy. 

We'd planned on having tin foil dinners for dinner.  I'd pre-cooked them on Saturday and frozen them.  When I checked on them in the cooler I found they were still pretty much frozen solid.  So instead I pealed a bunch of hard boiled eggs and we all just ate those and some other snacks.  

Pretty soon Veronica was asking to go to bed so I took her to the tent and helped her change into her pajamas.  Charlotte and Lydia followed soon after.  Derrick on the other hand wanted to stay and look at the fire.  So he stayed out and stared at that while Brandon straightened things up.  

Eventually Derrick said he wanted to go to bed too so Brandon helped him into the tent.  I helped Derrick into his pajamas and let him lay down near me.  Later, after all the kids were asleep I moved the kids around to get them to fit on their side of the tent.  They looked so cute all snuggled up together.

Brandon and I blew up our air mattress and then snuggled down ourselves.  We are reading Calamity, the third book of the Reckoners series, together and so we read a few chapters.  Then we turned off the light and listened to the rain pitter patter on our tent all night long.  Despite the rain it was so nice to know that we were finally on vacation.