Lake Shore Drive

A couple of weeks ago Allen and I drove back up to Guntersville to deliver pottery to the museum of that same town for their gift shop.  The building above is NOT the museum!  The Guntersville Museum is actually a large, somewhat modern looking building; very nice.  Their little gift shop is kinda small but at least I can say I have my work in a museum giftshop! lol!  Anyway, while we were in town we decided to make a day of it as Guntersville is a huge tourist destination due to copious amounts of lakes, rivers and state parks.  The building above is just an old school I think that is constructed using a method that I think, you mainly see in the south.  It is built using chert rock as the exterior and due to the looks we always called them 'peanut' houses or buildings.  I think it's kinda of a neat look myself.  It does look a bit better when the rock is combined with wood siding in a somewhat Craftsman style.  I suppose that this method is prevalent here, only on older structures, because it was a way for poor people, which the south had a lot of, to have a stone house.  Nowadays you cannot buy chert rock really because nobody wants to fool with it but you can pick it up lots of places.  Most people are happy for you to come get it off their property.  I have picked up, and laid, my share of this stone.  It will tear your hands up if you don't wear gloves.

So after dropping off the pottery and having lunch we drove up to Guntersville State Park.  I think they are serious about keeping people out of this area because they had a herd of these emus in there and those things can be mean!  I thought it was a little odd myself.

We drove through the regular campgrounds and then up the mountain to where there is a large, luxurious lodge. (Say that 5 times fast!)  The view there was really nice.  The lakes to me are kinda more like rivers because they are so many and vast.  They also had a number of cabins and chateaus you could rent up here or just rent a room in the big lodge.  The rates were not too bad really.

If you look in the lower right corner you can see just a bit of the campgrounds below.  Or what is left of them really after this area got hit 4 times last year by tornadoes.  The grounds used to be quite wooded and some areas are fairly bare now as they are still cleaning up downed trees.  They had cleaned it up pretty good though and there were quite a few people camping and all.  Some areas of the grounds still had a good number of trees.

The lodge was very nice and had some spectacular views.  I can see where it would be really relaxing to lounge around up here!

There were a number of decks too, to choose where you wanted to do your lounging.  They have a nice restaurant in the lodge also.  I thought it might be nice to go up one Sunday for the brunch they offer and then hike it off later on one of the many trails through the park.

This was one area inside near the restaurant.  Some of the artwork left a bit to be desired but otherwise it's a nice place.  Lots of people come here at various times to watch the bald eagles that nest in the trees below the lodge.  I think that is one of the biggest tourist draws here.  It would be really cool to see.