The Museum of Wonder

In the beginning of last year, I wrote down 10 rides that I wanted to accomplish in 2011. This was both to prevent the night before dilemma of where to go and to encourage further exploration of Georgia and Alabama. In the end I was not able to cross off one of those rides. It was not a banner year for hogging any miles.

A new year brings the same goal, as well as a GPS to aid in navigating these trips. The weather was excellent this week and allowed me to cross off my first trip of 2012. Terence was home on leave, so he joined me on the experience.


I found our destination on Roadside America, which is one of the best places to locate those truly unique locations. I entered the address in the GPS for The Museum of Wonders in Seale Alabama. The default settings avoid all highways so we were able to cruise down the back roads and small towns of Alabama as we made our way South. It was so nice having the GPS and not having to worry about finding the next turn. I was able to relax and enjoy the ride - even when we hit a detour that sent us down forgotten roads.

When we got there we saw a mailbox and a long driveway that led somewhere way off the road. I stopped there and someone pulled up in a pick-up truck and asked if we needed anything. We mentioned the museum and he told us to follow him down the driveway. The person in the pickup was Butch, the curator of the museum. After we parked the bike, Butch unlocked a wooden structure designated as the museum. We went in to explore and he continued to work around his place.

The sun was right over the building and made for a rough picture

The museum far exceeded the high expectations that I had set after my Internet searches on the location. The building was packed, but not too crowded, with treasures. You could tell that he had spent a great deal of time on this labor of love. This place was truly awesome and had an atmosphere that was creepy, beautiful and comical.

Here are some of the shots I took there and later manipulated on the computer.

Upon leaving, I noticed that I had left my headlights one, which resulted in a dead battery. Butch pushed me down the hill and I was able to pop the clutch to get it going again. I had never done this before, so it was nice to learn a new trick.

I decided to take the main roads and interstate on the way home. The temperature had reached the low 70's and we thoroughly enjoyed some extraordinary January weather in Georgia.

Sprewell Bluff State Park

This could also be called the "Mist Tent Morning Ride" or "The No Wave Ride."

Elizabeth and I had not been out on a ride for several weeks and we were itchin' to get out there. I was on call this weekend so Friday morning was our only chance, unless we wanted to wait another two weeks. It has been raining all week but weather.com told us that there was very little chance of rain early in the day. Even their radar maps were void of green blobs.

I've been running a little hot lately. My temp was up there the evening before, all night and into the morning. I was looking for a good cool down, so I left the jacket at home. I had a t-shirt on and was looking forward to getting chilled to the bone. I wasn't disappointed as I was shivering, sneezing and jaw chattering by the time we got there - and it was good.



The start to the ride was great. It was cool and kind of dark because of the cloud cover. I was just enjoying being out there instead of being in a building. I passed one of my co-workers on the way to work while I was headin' out and it made me more thankful for the opportunities to take Fridays off. About 45 minutes into the ride we hit a heavy mist - not rain but also heavier than riding through a cloud or Georgia morning humidity. It was at this point that I took my first wrong turn - add 20 minutes to the ride and a heavier rain. We got back on track and had a horrible time finding the unmarked road that we were looking for. We ended up going back and forth down the same road three or four times. The cattle and horses would just watch us pass each time. Eventually we just turned at the 4.5 mile mark and that worked.


The road to the park was way off the beaten path and we enjoyed riding up and down some nice hills and leaning through the curves. Once in the park, the road ended near the Flint river and I made a mad dash to the bathrooms up the hill while Elizabeth soaked in the scenery. There wasn't any parking down there so we doubled back to a parking lot we had passed on the way in.


Once, parked we poured a cup of coffee to help us warm up. My shirt was pretty wet at this point and my pant legs were soaked through. Elizabeth, who had the jacket, was dry.


The paths weren't marked really well so we just started walking and tried to remember our turns - right, right, right. The path we took brought us to a parking lot which ended up having a Harley that looked just like mine. After realizing the circle we went in, we choose a different direction that brought us down to the river. The walk was peaceful and we stirred up several deer during our hike.




Saw lots of mushrooms on the hike. They were pretty big and I tried to get a good picture, but wasn't pleased with the way these turned out. It was hard to get a close picture and keep everything in focus.



The hike ended up taking us along the river. We saw no one else out there and it was very peaceful with the water on our left and open woods on our right.


This was back up in the parking lot. A fog was rolling through and was gone right after the picture was taken.


After the hike, we broke out lunch and enjoyed our daily PB&J followed by an apple. Once fueled we hit the road, still wet from rain - and sweat - but warm. The warm quickly went away once out on the main road, although I didn't get cold. It was actually very comfortable.

The ride home brought more mist and ended up in rain once we got closer to LaGrange. We were passing cars with their lights on and windshield wipers going. There was something about being out there in the rain cruising down the road that spoke to me on the way home - that is probably the Zen we speak of while riding. As I ride through more rain, I am finding that I like it more and more - you are just kind of out there experiencing it instead of being protected from it.

When we got home we both agreed that it was a great ride and a great morning. The next adventure should be in two weeks.