Leaf Peepin' in North Alabama

We spent 3 days this week on a trip to north Alabama to visit the Bankhead National Forest area where we used to live in the little town of Haleyville in Winston County. It was raining when we got up Tuesday morning and it rained all day. We stopped along the way several times and arrived in Haleyville just as it was getting dark. We were amazed that the Imperial Inn was still operating and the Galley restaurant was just as we had left it 22 years ago.

We met some old friends, Nancy and Tom Stovall, for breakfast and got "caught up" on Haleyville news of the past 22 years. Tom told Jim he really didn't think he wanted to go back to the plant where they used to work - that it was so sad to see how the building had deteriorated over the past few years. Yes, it was very sad but we had to go see for ourselves.

Everything in the town looked pretty much the same; not many changes over the years. Later that morning we drove northeast of town toward the Bankhead National Forest to look for our old house. Had to get a map of Haleyville to find out way around and locate the road leading to our house! Once we started driving the 6 miles we remembered many of the landmarks along the way. The autumn leaves were beautiful, just as I remembered it in October 1986 when we moved to Haleyville.

We found our house and it looked pretty much the way it looked in 1987 when we left except for the landscaping. All the beautiful azaleas were gone, as were other flowers and trees. You could hardly see the house when we lived there. We had to hire a yardman to take care of all the flowers and big lawn. I guess the new owners didn't have time for all of that. 

We had a catfish pond at the edge of the yard and it was surrounded by azaleas and other flowering shrubs and trees. Not so anymore. There was a beautiful balsam tree at the edge of the water that I didn't remember.

We continued east from Haleyville to Double Springs, the county seat. It looked the same as when we lived there. We traveled on to Corinth National

Recreation area on beautiful Smith Lake and enjoyed the beautiful leaves while we had a picnic lunch. The weather was beautiful.

We continued east until we got to Cullman, and then headed south to spend the night in Opelika, AL.

The next day we spent going to cemeteries in that area, looking for graves of my ancestors.

More about that later.........