May of 2016, and my oldest daughter is graduating from college!!! YIKES! She went to school at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota Florida, and I am super proud of her. But, true to form for me, the trip to Sarasota gave me the opportunity to do some additional travel – to visit some new NPS properties I hadn’t been to.

This trip was a doozy!

I flew from Sarasota to Birmingham and picked up a rental car.

I then drove it to Austin, TX for a conference I needed to attend for work. After a few days at the conference, I drove to Des Moines, IA for another conference, then finally home. In all, it was over 3000 miles of driving. I adjusted my route so that I could take in as many NPS properties as possible! I have a separate post to describe each one.

On this day, I visited the William Bankhead National Forest. The website for the National Forest can be found here: http://www.stateparks.com/william_b_bankhead.html

I landed in Birmingham in the morning, and drove straight to the National Forest. I stopped in Double Springs, AL at the Forest Service building, but they were closed, since it was a Sunday. Fortunately, there was a map posted outside the building, and I randomly selected a spot to hike. I chose the Sipsey River Picnic Area, and it was beautiful! There was a nice hiking path that I followed along the river. I saw a few waterfalls on small "tributaries" - they were more like drainage areas that went to the main river. I spent a bunch of time trying to get a selfie at one spot. I had forgotten how to do the timer on my camera, so it took a bit.

The path had several spots to stop for a picnic along the river, with picnic tables and one shelter that I saw.

When I got back to the car, there was a large group there getting ready to head to a swimming hole. They went along a different path than I had taken, but by then I was done with my hike and I did not follow them.

#Alabama