Tag: Features

Forever Preserved

Big Canoe Creek & Chandler Mountain Orchard

Story by Carol Pappas
Submitted Photos

It’s more than just a job for Wendy Jackson, executive director of the Freshwater Land Trust. When a piece of land, a creek or a stream can be preserved, it’s about the future.

It’s about her grandchildren and their grandchildren. It’s about partnerships, where public and private entities come together to preserve the past for the future. And it’s about sharing those protected treasures for generations to come.

Few know that better than Doug Morrison, who heads up the Friends of Big Canoe Creek in Springville. Since 2009, he and his group have been working with Freshwater Land Trust, St. Clair County Commission and City of Springville to protect this pristine area as a nature preserve in the state’s Forever Wild program.

Atop Chandler Mountain, Jerry and Janice Lanning know the value of the work, too. Their acreage is being preserved as an orchard growing a blight-resistant American Chestnut Tree, one of only two such orchards in Alabama and the state’s base of operations.

“It looks like a go,” Jackson said of the Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve, which is nearing an expected real estate closing in coming months. Forever Wild, a state program that buys land to protect and preserve it, has made an offer, and the landowner has accepted.

“Mayor (William “Butch”) Isley and the City Council of Springville, the St. Clair County Commission and the Friends of Big Canoe Creek really stepped up to the plate and did what others around the state have been trying to do,” Jackson said. Their success will mean 327 acres of land fronting Big Canoe Creek near Homestead Hollow can be preserved for the future and shared for the public to enjoy.

“We are so excited. It really is testament to a lot of leadership in St. Clair County. A lot of other counties haven’t seen this success,” she said. In addition to the obvious win on the environmental side, Jackson called it a “huge win on the economic front” because it is expected to lure tourism dollars to the county.

“This is a great example of how we work,” she said. “We’re not an advocacy group. We don’t file lawsuits. We believe hunters and anglers are some of the greatest conservationists, helping to preserve places that matter.”

Based in Birmingham, FWLT does its work in an eight-county area through public and private partnerships and a tool called a conservation easement. “It helps keep family lands in family hands,” she explained. Landowners can continue to farm or manage a forest while preserving it for the future. They can protect the land from future development and “preserve a way of life they care about.”

There are estate planning tools through conservation easements that can reduce estate taxes, but many people don’t know of their existence because the act that created it was not passed until 1996.

“We want to make sure farms stay farms,” she said. “In 50 years, we will need to feed two times the people we feed now. The average age of a farmer today is 60, and we’re losing farms every year.”

And they want to ensure that lands rich in biodiversity like Big Canoe Creek are protected and preserved. “Doug Morrison has really been a hero in this along with the city and county. He has really been a champion and stayed on it.”

“We are thrilled that this project is moving forward,” Morrison said. “The Friends of Big Canoe Creek originally nominated this parcel in July 2009. We were later approached by an adjoining land owner and nominated a second tract in April 2010. In May of 2010, we partnered with the Freshwater Land Trust and conducted a Bioblitz on the nominated parcels.

The Bioblitz was an intense 24-hour biological survey in an attempt to record all the living species in the area, land and water.

“We had groups of scientists, biologists, naturalists and volunteers participating. Some of the groups attending were professors and students from Birmingham Southern and Samford, a biologist from the Nature Conservancy, folks from Alabama Rivers Alliance, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, photographers from the Conservation Photographers of Alabama, and of course, many volunteers from the Friends of Big Canoe Creek. After the first tract is acquired we are hopeful the second tract can be added.”

When the property gets its official designation, it will become a nature preserve. Its nomination letter describes it as “hilly, forested terrain and aquatic and riparian habitat in and near Big Canoe Creek, including the drainage of a significant tributary of the creek.”

It has “abundant creek-side scenery and wildlife habitat. High points on the property afford views of the uppermost section of the Big Canoe Creek watershed, including beautiful rural Canoe Creek valley and the opposing ridges of Pine and Blount Mountains. The site is suitable for hiking, bird watching, paddling, mountain biking, horseback riding and a variety of other outdoor activities.”

“This endeavor is truly a community driven project,” Morrison said.

American Chestnut making comeback

Meanwhile, another environmental project is taking root in St. Clair County on Chandler Mountain, where the Lannings have donated land for an orchard to regenerate a blight-resistant American Chestnut Tree.

Originally known as the Redwoods of the East, these enormous trees — once found in Alabama and St. Clair County — became extinct because of a Japanese blight accidentally introduced in the United States in the early 1900s.

Once the blight spread, there was no stopping it. It wiped out these majestic trees, completely changing the landscape of the Eastern United States. “My mother remembered seeing them as a child,” Jackson said. After that, they were gone.

Working with the American Chestnut Foundation, timber companies and other groups, FWLT is involved in the St. Clair project, which is predicted to take decades to reach its goal of a blight-resistant tree.

“It’s a long-term proposition,” Jackson said. The tree is planted and at a certain age, the blight is introduced. If it survives, that tree is propagated. “It’s a multigenerational thing that will take decades for complete regeneration.”

And just as partnerships have worked well in the Big Canoe project, partnerships are playing a key role in this one, too, she said. Timber companies are helping with seedlings. A whole team of work volunteers from Honda Manufacturing of Alabama laid pipe for an irrigation system and planted another tier of trees to expand the orchard.

What is happening on top of that mountain is a valiant effort to bring back trees that the country’s founding fathers used to build furniture and split rail fences. They were trees that provided food to support an abundance of wildlife. It’s about the ecosystem, and it’s about timber for wood products — all interested parties working together to make something good happen.

But it’s more than that, Jackson said, adding a personal view of it. She knows it can’t come to fruition in her lifetime. “My goal is for my granddaughter to one day be able to walk under the shade of a Chestnut tree” — a simple pleasure she wants for her grandchildren and the generations that follow after.

Features

Revisiting the Lovejoy Slinghsot Hunt

Annual event continues to draw attention

Words and Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Legend and tradition meet each year in Ashville when Lyman Lovejoy hosts the Lovejoy Slingshot Hunt in honor of his father, Sim Lovejoy. Breakfast and lunch, cooked over an open pit is always a treat, and the Lovejoys supply flips and ½ inch ball bearings for ammunition.

Today, the flips are produced by Don Hulsey. Don has succeeded in carrying on Sim’s design tradition.

Sim’s ability with the flip was legendary. As young as seven, he was known for killing running rabbits as well as squirrels running through the branches of trees. His accuracy has not been matched by his progeny, and they will not try to tell you otherwise.

His generosity in crafting flips for children was legendary, too. And there is no shortage of children at the Lovejoys each year. They are as much a part of the hunt as flips and squirrels.

Participants, young and old, practice with their flips and take to the woods for the grand hunt after breakfast in wagons pulled by tractors. Trees are shaken, dogs bark, and comparisons are made to previous years. Another spot is always better, so the hunting party wanders through the woods with heads tilted back, searching feverishly for any sign of a squirrel.

An occasional ball is hurled toward a bundle of leaves stuck in the high branches of a tree, in hopes that the elusive prey will be rousted from the suspected nest. Squirrels, wily as they are, either pretend well to not be there, or are not there at all.

Once one is spotted, the chase is on. Shouts of “Get ahead of him!” ring through the woods as men, old men, bound through the brush like youngsters. A fuselage of steel balls fly through the air as the squirrel dances from limb to limb, searching for shelter. “Get around him!” “There he goes!” “Knock him down!” “He’s comin’ back this way!”

Most escape. It is not easy to hit a squirrel with a slingshot.

Once a squirrel is bagged, adolescent boys will give sincere testimony that it was their ball that brought it down. If there is a dispute, the compromise is, “Well, I hit him right when you did,” which is acceptable, and ends any conflict.

The little girl, whose shot barely left the flip, is encouraged by her father saying, “Well honey, you didn’t hit him, but you sure scared him.”

Sim Green Lovejoy died one day after his 92nd birthday, on Oct. 14, 2006. Buried in his overalls with a flip in the front pocket, his fishing pole by his side, Sim was wearing his favorite cap.

That is not a bad way to go, and the annual hunt is not a bad way to be remembered.

Editor’s Note: This year, the hunt captured the attention of Fred Hunter and will be aired on Fox 6’s Absolutely Alabama Feb. 20.

Sim Lovejoy Squirrel Hunt

282 photos

Features

Laster Sundries

Memory-filled soda fountain reopens in Springville

Story by Tina Tidmore
Photos by Mike Callahan

On a 48-degree Friday afternoon in December, eight-year-old Clara Hughes sits at a small round table at Laster Sundries. Despite the temperature outside, Clara enjoys licking her multi-colored sherbet. In doing so, she is following the tradition of her mother and grandfather, going back to the 1960s.

Many in Springville fondly remember after-school walks down Springville’s Main Street to the combination soda fountain/gift shop. Yet, for at least a year and a half, Laster Sundries was closed. It reopened in December under new ownership.

“I came here when I was 12 years old,” said Sandra Tucker, a former owner of the business and current chairman of the St. Clair County Historical Development Commission. “That was the place to go for ice cream, candy, school books and school supplies.” Now that it has reopened, Tucker said she hopes local people will remember it’s there and support it.

“Everyone in Springville has a story to tell of the place,” said new owner Amy Harris. “I wanted to bring back a place for families to make memories. It tugs at my heart strings.”

The long-time Springville resident quit her 19-year nursing career in October to revive the landmark business. Even though her son Taylor questioned whether she’s going through a midlife crisis in making such a drastic career change, Harris is receiving much support from her husband, mother, son, brother and nephews. Usually, one or more family members can be found serving customers in the shop, including a young man wearing a period-style white plaid shirt with a red bowtie.

Harris’ mother, Dean Franklin, can be found there regularly. She is retired and also has lived in Springville for many years. As any good mother would, she’s helping her daughter’s dream come true and is a co-owner.

“I always loved cooking and baking,” Harris said. “I always dreamed of owning a business like this.” After the previous owners closed it, Harris said she just kept looking at the building, and the desire to act continued to build. “I loved the history,” she said of the building and the business.

Much of that “history” is in the mahogany, floor-to-ceiling display cases, along with a marble counter purchased in 1930 and a soda fountain purchased many decades ago from Pennsylvania. The building itself is included in the Springville Historic District, which is on the U.S. National Park Service list of historic sites. Harris did some painting and wiring work in the building and is keeping the dark green and white, checkerboard-style floor.

While reviving history, Harris is also looking forward to the future, hoping to create a viable business by making the right choices and offering food and gifts that her customers want. On top of the Laster Sundries ice cream case are bananas, just waiting to be sliced and put in a bowl with mint chocolate chip, butter pecan or one of the other cold and creamy delights.

In addition to the Blue Bell ice cream and cherry or vanilla cokes, the menu includes made-from-scratch soups and sandwiches. “I’ve been overwhelmed with how busy it’s been,” Harris said just two months after it reopened. “Most of the business has been the food.”

It’s no wonder. Their Facebook page has soup-of-the-day announcements that include hearty winter flavors, such as potato soup, tomato basil soup and wild rice soup. The sandwiches include Mama’s Favorite Chicken Salad, Triple Grill Cheese and traditional choices. The menu offers a Brown Cow, Black Cow, Purple Cow and Orange Cow; all float flavors.

One holdover from the previous owners is the Egg Cream Soda. Harris said she’s not sure why it’s called that because it doesn’t have any egg in it.

Harris is considering adding free Wi-Fi service to attract students to do their studying at the shop. The gifts, said her husband Brian Harris, will be trendy and for showers or birthdays. They plan to make the building available for after-hours events by appointment. As the temperatures warm up, customers can look for the shop to offer picnic lunches that can be taken to the neighboring public park. They have also been approached to do some catering for weddings.

This is not the first time the business has been resurrected. According to an excerpt from Heritage of St. Clair County, the Lasters started the business in 1927. It remained in the Laster family for years. But at one point, it stopped operating and the building ended up in disrepair. Then Gerald and Sandra Tucker, along with Lillian and Frank Buckner, did the repairs and opened it back up, still as Laster Sundries. Amy Harris said the Tuckers and Buckners owned it for 16 years.

At this time, Harris is using a Facebook page, Laster Sundries on Main, to communicate with the community.

Features

Eye in the Sky

Capitalizing on the business of aerial drones

Story by Jim Smothers
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

You can thank General George S. Patton if you’ve seen a small UFO buzzing around Lake Logan Martin recently. Chances are good you were watching one of David Smith’s remote controlled copters. Smith and his son, Cameron, have three copters set up for taking videos and still photos, and they hope to get in on the ground floor of potential business opportunities using the small flying machines.

What does Patton have to do with it?

The colorful general put one of his ivory-handled pistols to the head of Smith’s father, Walter, during one of his infamous fits of anger during World War II. That evening, motorcycle courier Smith saw a sign in the mess hall asking for volunteers to sign up for the Army Air Corps, which seemed a much more attractive place to serve.

Smith flew 49 missions in B-17s, most of them in a bomber he named for his wife, the Birmingham Jewell. That plane flew 128 missions, a record at the time.

Smith returned to Alabama to operate an aviation business that inspired his sons to learn about flying, a family tradition now reaching down to his great grandson.

David Smith seemed destined to get involved with today’s generation of remotely controlled aircraft. His background includes remotely controlled aircraft, he’s been a licensed General Aviation pilot for 30 years, he worked as an electronics communication technician for a number of years, and more recently he has worked as a videographer for ESPN. If you’ve seen Chris Fowler and Desmond Howard on ESPN’s College Game Day, you’ve seen his work. He hasn’t missed a national championship game in 20 years.

Smith started flying string-controlled model airplanes when he was seven years old, and graduated to flying radio-controlled airplanes as a teenager. He and his brother, Walt, once mounted a small camera in the cockpit of one of their models and succeeded in taking photos during flight using old-school technology.

Call them what you will — drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, multirotor systems or remotely controlled airplanes and helicopters — they’ve gotten a lot of attention in the past few years. Military uses first caught the world’s attention, with pilots comfortably and safely operating surveillance and weapons systems from a safe distance, sometimes a half a world away.

Now there are remotely controlled copters so small and inexpensive they are being sold as toys and recommended for indoor use only.

Flightworthy units are also becoming more available and more affordable, opening the doors to new opportunities for recreation and service to more people.

Smith sees a number of ways to use the machines as flying camera platforms to provide valuable visual information in a number of ways. The regulatory environment is currently something of a gray area. The Federal Aviation Administration has been given until next year to propose rules and regulations for the small flying machines, and Smith wants to get in on the ground floor of providing low level aerial photography services.

He’s a member of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), and he’s taking pains to be responsible with his flights.

“We don’t fly higher than 400 feet, we always keep a line of sight on them, and there’s always a spotter with me,” he said. “We also have $2 million of liability insurance.”

When taking a copter up, Smith is the pilot, and Cameron is the photographer. Cameron also makes sure his dad isn’t interrupted while flying.

“If you’re out where other people are around, sometimes they’ll want to come up and talk while you’re flying,” he said. “Cameron talks to them until we get it back on the ground.”

Smith said they’re careful not to fly over people, and to get permission before flying over other people’s property.

He and others interested in using the new technology are concerned that negative publicity could result in overregulation that would impair growth of a the new industry.

“The Association (AUVSI) estimates that by 2018 there could be 70,000 jobs created and $2 billion changing hands,” he said.

As for how they could be used, Smith said they could be helpful in many ways.

“Farmers could fly these over fields to survey crops and see if there are any problem areas, such as where water is needed. They could be used for inspections for cell phone and radio towers, solar panels and windmills without having to send a man up there,” he said.

They could also be used to assist in the inspections of bridges and steeples, reducing the danger and expense of putting a person at risk. Aerial photography can be used to monitor progress at construction sites, to survey tracts of property, and in providing detailed mapping. They could also be used in searches for missing persons and surveying damage after a storm or flood.

And of course, there are more traditional uses of the airborne cameras, providing new angle for photos and videos of landmarks, recreational activities, landscapes and more.

“There are thousands of ways these things can be used to make our lives better,” Smith said. “I see them all the time in movies and reality TV shows, too. You can tell. These can’t be flown higher than 400 feet, but airplanes and helicopters aren’t supposed to fly below 1,000 feet. There’s a much more detailed view at the lower level.”

But he has concerns about how negative publicity could result in unreasonable restrictions being placed on their use.

Even though they’re being used all over the country and around the world, most of the time news articles are written when there is a problem with them.

Smith mentioned a case in Serbia when someone flew a remote copter onto a soccer field carrying an Albanian flag during a match between the two countries.

“That just about caused a riot,” he said. “I don’t want to see idiots ruin it for the people that want to make a living doing this.”

He said reactions to the machines have been mixed. Most people seem to be interested and impressed by what they can do. Some see them as a threat to privacy.

“These things are as noisy as they can be,” Smith said. “I don’t see how you could use them to spy on anyone. But like anything else, it’s all in the hands of whoever is using it.”

Smith has used his copters to capture videos of windsurfers on the lake, unique views of Bald Rock at Mount Cheaha, of watching the floodgates open at Logan Martin Dam and many other scenes.

While there are toy remote copters available very cheaply, those capable of carrying higher quality cameras cost a bit more. The Smiths currently have three copters and accessories valued at about $30,000. Two of the units are DJI Phantom quadcopters equipped with GoPro cameras. The third is a more expensive and more powerful octocopter, which carries a Canon digital SLR. The camera mount for that copter — the gimbal — is equipped with servo motors to provide movement for different angles of view, and is so finely balanced it works only with one specific camera model and one specific lens. The gimbal alone was a $3,000 expense.

The octocopter with the camera mounted and batteries installed weighs in at 22 and a half pounds and provides about 15 minutes of flight time on a set of rechargeable batteries, which cost about $600.

The models he uses are equipped with GPS sensors that can detect their precise launching point. In the unlikely case that the remote control should fail, they are programmed to return to that spot on their own. They also sense their own battery levels, and are programmed to return to that spot before they lose power.

Smith said he typically spends about three hours on maintenance for every hour of flight time. He uses a torque tool to check every screw on every copter, and keeps logs on how many times each battery is used and charged. And like any good pilot, he uses checklists to make sure he’s not overlooking anything that could result in a failed flight.

Editor’s note: Smith expects his website to be up by the time this edition of Discover is published, where viewers can see some of his videos. Check it out at StarAerial.com

Features

Welcome Home for Christmas

Holidays at the Capps
house a special treat

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan

When Deanna Capps and her late husband, Curtis, were planning their new house, they wanted something light and airy that would bring the outdoors inside.

Curtis didn’t have a whit of architectural training, yet designed a two-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath home with spacious rooms that flow easily from one to another. Although Deanna has changed the function of a couple of those rooms, the design retains its original intent.

“This house floats” is the way Deanna describes it. “I like to entertain, and people can float from one room to another.”

It’s difficult to describe the style of the house. With its stone steps and pillars, stucco walls, wide, wrap-around porch and clerestory windows, Craftsman cottage meets Mediterranean villa comes to mind. Deanna says she doesn’t have a theme to her decor, either. She likes to mix things up so she doesn’t get bored. That’s why some kitchen cabinets are brown, some are black. Some drawer pulls are in the shape of roosters, others are plain. Kitchen counter-tops are granite and marble in three different color combinations.

African animals are repeated, but not enough to become a theme. The great room is home to a mother elephant and her baby, an adult giraffe and a zebra. A baby giraffe guards the loft bedroom. There’s a ceiling fan with pond-frond blades in almost every room. And everywhere, on almost every wall, is Deanna’s artwork. Three-dimensional musical instruments hang over the piano in the Great Room, while landscapes, animals, angels and crosses are everywhere.

“Angels are my signature,” she says. “I started painting when my husband was sick. It kept me busy and my mind occupied on spiritual things.” Curtis Capps, who owned Royal Foods next door to the house, died in July of 2013 after a two-and-a-half-year illness.

Deanna’s right about the house floating. The great room that runs the width of the front leads into the eat-in kitchen, which leads to a hall that’s flanked by pantries the size of small bedrooms. Down that hall is the master bedroom. A series of pocket doors open the bedroom into a bath, the bath into another bedroom, and that bedroom into a back hallway that, in turn, leads to a bathroom-cum-closet and large laundry room. Of course, guests don’t wander into the master bath. But if they did, they could hold a party in that room alone.

“The master bathroom is bigger than my bedroom,” Deanna admits.

A 109-year-old grand piano dominates one side of the great room. A whimsical polyresin butler stands silently in one corner, between the powder room and the stairway leading to the loft. “He doesn’t wait on anybody, he just holds our instruments,” Deanna says, pointing to the bowed psaltery in his outstretched hands.

A long, farmhouse table separates the seating area from the music area. While the table seats 10, Deanna frequently sets up smaller tables to accommodate larger crowds. “I used to bring folks home from church for Sunday dinner, to get to know them,” she says. Her church is First United Methodist of Pell City, where Deanna is keyboardist for the contemporary service.

The seating area has a red leather couch and two matching love seats that face a stone fireplace with the television mounted into the stone above it. “We don’t have a problem with the piano at one end and TV at the other, because we don’t use both at the same time,” Deanna says.

A powder room under the stairs features a crown bowl with bamboo-style faucet and fixtures and has faux-painted walls with a ceiling of gold and gold leaves. Local artist Laura Darnell painted the twig-themed red wall behind the sideboard next to the powder room door to pick up the red in the sideboard.

Overlooking the Great Room is a loft bedroom with twin “swing beds,” as Deanna describes them. The beds are held to the ceiling by chains, but are also attached to a wall and held up by floor posts. Sateen quilts with gold-threaded patches of bright turquoise, hot pink, blue and orange cover the beds, while a Tiffany-style lamp tops a small table at each head. A bath and closet are at the far end of the loft. “The grandchildren always loved this room,” Deanna says. “They’re 18 and 20 now, but they still use it when they come to visit.”

In the kitchen, pendant lights with glass prisms hang over a bar-height table. In fact, the house is full of prisms, another way of bringing light inside. “The glass in the front door was cut to reflect lights,” Deanna says. “It’s particularly beautiful at night when car lights reflect as colors. The window above the front door has prisms around its perimeter, and the kitchen blinds are silver-reflective, like metal. I can sit in my breakfast nook and see who is coming up the drive by looking in the window next to it.”

The slate flooring starts in the kitchen, then continues through the hallway and into the pantries. It’s repeated in the master bath and dressing room, the back hallway and laundry room. One of those pantries measures 10 feet by 7 feet and serves as a preparation and clean-up area when Deanna hosts dinner parties. It has an ice maker, sink, dishwasher, toaster-oven and other small appliances. “It’s like a second kitchen,” Deanna says. “The prep and clean-up can be done in here, which cuts down on the visible mess and leaves the main kitchen free for serving people.” Across the hall is the butler’s pantry, with a second refrigerator and storage for china and glassware.

The hallway leads into the master bedroom, which Deanna also uses as her office. It has a curved desk for her computer and shelves in one corner, and twin, horizontally-mounted Bogie fans Deanna never uses. “They’re strictly for looks,” she says. “I’m afraid to use them, because they aren’t balanced.”

Dominating the bedroom is the mural that covers one wall. Another creation by Laura Darnell, whose signature is Genesis. It’s a blue sky with fluffy white clouds and flying doves. Deanna’s own small painting of an angel, which is her signature, repeats the sky motif in such a way the painting melts into wall, as if they were one.

The master bathroom features not only his-and-hers sinks and vanities, but his-and-hers toilets, each in its own little marble cubicle with twig sconces. The double shower is large enough to dance in, and Deanna recently removed a leaky hot tub from one corner of the bathroom to add a walk-in tub.

Behind the bath is what Deanna calls her Pink Room. Originally a sitting room, it became Curtis’s sickroom after he suffered a stroke. Pink was Curtis’s favorite color, so after he died, Deanna moved out the hospital bed and moved in iron twin beds with pink bedspreads. The beds face an electronic keyboard where Deanna sometimes practices for Sunday morning worship in the middle of the night when she can’t sleep.

“It soothes my soul,” she says.

Behind the keyboard is the carport that the Capps screened in to become a sunroom before Curtis died so Deanna could wheel him through the French doors to enjoy the fresh air and scenery. Off the back hall is the laundry room and a former bathroom that she turned into a closet. “I needed storage space more than another bath,” she explains.

Outside, behind the screened carport, Deanna has an outbuilding that she calls her flower house. It’s where she stores seasonal decorations and silk floral arrangements, which she designs herself. She normally decorates for Christmas before Thanksgiving, and leaves the decorations up until February. Why?

“Because I enjoy them,” she says.

Deanna Capps House

68 photos

Features

Where the Road Takes You

Driving directions to
St. Clair’s scenic spots

Words and Photos by Michael Callahan

For many of us growing up, the Sunday evening drive was something both parents and children looked forward to. It became something of a ritual down through the decades. I was fortunate that my father was something of an explorer. He never found a main or side road that he did not want to investigate. As my Mom often said, “There is not a pig trail” in this county your father has not been down. This was a trait he passed along to this writer/photographer son.

Somewhere between finishing high school, furthering my education, marrying and the demands of life, my spirit of adventure and my father’s beloved Sunday evening drive got lost. Add to that Arab oil embargoes in the mid-1970s and for so many of us, a wonderful tradition was all but lost.

The good news these days is that oil prices are on a decent downward trend. Add to that fact we live in a beautiful county with diverse landscapes from the northern to southern county boundaries, and we have the makings for many a great Sunday evening drives.

So this writer/photographer, armed with a full tank of gas and ample photographic gear, spent many days traversing scenic roads in the northern part of our county to capture some new memories. Why the northern part? Well, elevations bring out a bit more color during the Fall season. What I want to leave you with is a sense of, “Hey that looks like a great way to spend a couple of hours on Sunday evening.”

Starting out on U.S. 231 from Pell City, I made my way north toward the Ashville area. As I passed the city limits of Ashville and started my climb up Straight Mountain, the views were becoming exactly what I had hoped for. At the top of the mountain, I turned on to County Road 12. I drove roughly 100 yards and turned on to County Road 24 for a short but winding trip of about two miles. As I rounded the final curve, an immense vista of St. Clair County lay before me. It is a view you will want to relish and just stand and soak in. Bring a camera. You will need it. Too soon I had to move on. As I started back down Straight Mountain into the valley, the mist made for some wonderful viewing.

At the bottom of the mountain, I turned hard left onto County Road 35/Gallant Road and immediately was in awe of the views unfolding before me. Further down the road, I turned left onto County Road 44/Camp Sumatanga Road. As you can see from our pictures, you must take the Camp’s loop road. Back onto Gallant Road, awesome views were around for many a mile.

Wanting to explore further, I came back down Gallant Road and turned onto County Road 42/Chandler Mountain Loop Road. After ascending the mountain, Horsepens 40 invited me to make a short visit. What a place. Rock climbers from all over the world come here to try their skills against some of the incredible rock formations — a must see.

Continuing down the loop road, I was treated to wonderful scenic views of the rim of Chander Mountain to the east. Just a quarter mile down the road, the tomato fields stretched out before my windshield for hundreds of acres. Stopping by a roadside produce stand, I was able to buy some of the last succulent Chandler Mountain tomatoes of the season. You can also grab a five-gallon bucket and pick them right out of the fields yourself.

As I made my way back down to U.S. 231, I knew my next drive would be U.S. 411. Just go to the square in downtown Ashville and head northeast on 411. Beautiful farms and huge expanses of “Big Sky” await you. While driving down 411, I decided to turn right onto Mountain Spring Road leading over to County Road 33. I was rewarded with scenic farms and large expanses of sky. Well, it was getting time for me to head back and wrap up my drive and returning down to 231, I came across the turn-off to County Road 26. I had to stop and capture some of this beautiful valley before I wrapped up the afternoon.

Just so you folks that take short drives don’t think we have left you out, I have included some short but really nice drives you can do close to home. So go ahead and treat yourself and your family. Just sit back and enjoy the drive in this breathtakingly beautiful county we call home.

Photographer’s Note: Thanks to Mr. Roland Thomas, who inspired this article, and Jerry Smith of Discover Magazine, who served as a tireless tour guide for my camera and me.

Scenic St. Clair Drives

53 photos

Features