Sunday, April 13, 2014


Sunday March 23, 2014-K- Open Pond CG. Conecuh National Forest, NW of Florala, AL.

You'll notice a little diversion on the map, out of Florala and up Rts. 9/331. That was to a rest area to empty holding tanks, as the rest area had a dump station, and supposedly, Open Pond CG did not. Supposedly. At 7 mpg, it was an expensive side trip we didn't need to make, but short-cutting it over some pretty farm country back roads to Rt. 55 and on to the campground, made up for it We discovered they had a dump station there too. Beautiful state, Alabama-kind of like Vermont, with flatter, rolling hills and farms of all types-dairy, cattle, hay and cotton on the eastern side, along the Georgia border. The back roads are all red dirt/gravel.


This will be a quick post. We had been here in 2007 on our first trip to Florida. Just a little pond that apparently has great fishing. We remembered it for the dire warning signs posted at the bathrooms about alligators. "WARNING: Alligators present! If someone from your party or a pet is missing, contact the authorities immediately", or something to that effect. They were quite startling, and in hind-sight, pretty funny. We were looking forward to getting a picture of one for the collection, but they were gone this time. Could the Feds, in a rare moment of regulation sanity, have actually caught themselves going overboard?

The CG was quite busy as the whole month of March is spring break time for everyone in the state, not just college kids!  Since we aren't on the coast, these campgrounds are all families on vacation. Mostly local's, where mom stays here during the week and dad comes at night after work.  

Everyone has their sites lit up like Christmas trees that they leave on all night, so the camping "experience" isn't quite the way we typically like it.  We need to get away from places on water, but that is where most of the CG's are, so until we are done with spring break, things will be a tad busy.




On the way to the CG we passed a sign on the Florida/Alabama boarder showing the way to the highest point in Florida, Britton Hill.  Well, we just had to go there!  It was just a little swell in the landscape just south of Florala, AL. We had a hard time catching our breaths from the altitude!!!


You have to go 50 miles due north from the Gulf just to gain 345 feet of elevation!



Oops-made her bald like me, and don't the girls look excited?   All 3 of the them!



Looking out over the view.  It was a really pretty area.


The trees are just thinking about putting out leaves.  In some places you could see that bit of lime-green tint that always starts getting you excited that spring is going to happen this year! 

That was kind of the high point of 5 days there (no pun intended), as we really didn't do that much. Worked on the camper, did a trail around the pond about 2 to 3 miles, tried out a catfish joint in Andalusia that had good reviews-okay but nothing we'd go back to-lots of cornbread breading with a thin layer of catfish in the middle. No chance for a grease overload! 

That's about it-sorry for a boring post that took place almost 4 weeks ago! More interesting stuff in the works....