grrr . . .

As so eloquently described by Will over at DBH Dance Party, last weekend was less than pleasant for me. I tend to not pay much attention to basketball, only noticing so far that Alabama seems to suck this year and that, well, Tech hasn't been much better. I did notice for a while about the whole Kelvin Sampson thing at Indiana, since my Grandpa taught at Entomology at IU for quite a few years and my Grandma still lives up there, but that's been the extent of my basketball interaction this year.

Up until this weekend. I went over to Brian and Ashlyn's on Thursday and noticed that Alabama was actually beating Florida, so I of course texted Lonnie from seminary to talk trash with him. Alabama amazingly held on, so I began paying attention to basketball, albeit momentarily. Then came the tornado. Then came U(sic)GA. Then I look up and see Georgia assistant Pete Herrmann on ESPN. So not only do they come onto my team's home floor, disgrace it by their mere presence, and win a conference championship to get into the NCAA tournament, they get a dude who's stolen all but 4 letters of my first and last names as an assistant coach to help them do it. Thus, Will and I had the text message and phone conversations that led me to ask why he, knowing I work in a church, would try to get me fired.

And as if that weren't enough, I walk into my house last night and find sitting on my couch a certain female congregant with a Georgia t-shirt on. As soon as I saw it, I expressed my dismay and found a Tech hat. Then I got my "I think therefore I am NOT A DAWG" t-shirt and wore that. I imagine that exchange was a first for a UMW meeting at Cullman First UMC.

And, speaking of my place of employment, our contemporary services are now being recorded in their entirety.

Cheaha State Park

And now for what we do best - post pictures. The only problem is that we forgot our digital camera on our last trip, and are stuck with only throw-away camera pictures. Some didn't even turn out at all.

We really enjoyed a recent trip to Cheaha State Park, near Anniston, Alabama.

We met some cool people in the country store, and we enjoyed eating in the restaurant at the park. It has a gorgeous view. Cheaha State Park is in the middle of the Talladega National Forest, and Cheaha is the highest point in Alabama, so you are looking out over trees and trees and trees. The restaurant has a view as great as the five-star resort Blackberry Farm where we went on our honeymoon - but the food is a lot like camp food. We enjoyed it anyway.

We stayed in a bluff-side cabin built in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps. It was made of rock and really cool - the cabins there have been renovated pretty recently and they are very nice. Ours had a big fireplace, queen-sized bed, full kitchen area, and overlooked the Talladega National Forest. The cabins were well-maintained, much better than the bed-and-breakfast/hotel we stayed at in Anniston for the end of our trip, but that would be a whole other story to tell you about that rather strange experience, so let's stick to happy things. . . The bluff-side cabins face west and are great for watching sunsets over the national forest. There is a big firepit area and patio furniture behind each cabin.

We took short hikes that were really just walks over hilly, rocky terrain on a few of the trails they have at the park.

Here is a tree that was used to mark a trail a long time ago. The trailblazers bent it over and it deformed like this. Peter says this is a way to tell that a trail is really old. This is on the Pulpit Rock trail which is part of the Pinhoti trail we think.


And finally, if you are too fragile to walk on a real trail, or you want to take along a toddler or a kid in a stroller, or someone in a wheelchair, etc., here is something really cool - a boardwalk trail. It is pretty long, maybe around a mile, and has some signs with information on the history of the park and the wildlife of the area. It has a great view at the end.