Geocaching Trip - December 29, 2011

Today was a good day for caching. I found eleven caches in Bartow and Floyd County. One of these was my 900th find.  Near the end of the day I visited  Antioch Old Cemetery. This cemetery is located off of Big Texas Valley Road Floyd County about a quarter of a mile from Antioch Church within the boundaries of Rocky Mountain Public Fishing Area .

Yondering: A Week In December

Monday, December 19, 2011

Daddy has three doctor appointments this week. I left Calhoun for Double Springs around three in the afternoon. In Leesburg, Alabama I took my new favorite road… Highway 68… north up onto Lookout Mountain. In Sand Rock I took Valley Road. Valley Road is a road cuts through farm land and connects to the Lookout Mountain Parkway near an old house that I will be featured on my Flicka account. With the sun quickly vanishing on this overcast day I had enough time for two stops. The first was at Antioch Church of Christ...a modern cemetery. The second stop was a Black Creek Baptist church cemetery…. there were several pioneers and CSA soldiers buried in the is cemetery.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Started the morning taking Daddy to Jasper for a back procedure. After lunch he wanted to take Christmas flower to mamma's grave in the Blaylock Cemetery before it started raining.

After performing this task we started back home. East of Hamilton, Alabama I took Marion County Road 49 to a cemetery at Sullins church. While visiting the cemetery we were visited by two very friendly and loud locals. One walked past me talking to him. He walked past the truck and gave Daddy a long look. He then walked down into the roadside ditch and disappeared. He walked out of the ditch and into the road. Another fellow then came down to the cemetery. From a distance he was joyously wishing me merry Christmas. I was ok with his Christmas cheer until he hollered that he hoped I weren't planning on being buried down here. That was just a little alarming...so I told him I was just visiting and got in the truck and high tailed it out of the area. We then road on to visit a very old cemetery on Highway 253.  The Burleson Cemetery was also identified as Buttahatchee Cemetery.  Nightfall was coming and we needed to cook an aluminum pan of lasagna so we headed off toward Double Springs.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Left my Daddy's house in Double Springs and took Highway 195 north toward Haleyville. Visited Ashridge Methodist Church cemetery.  From there we  drove  northward to Rabbit Town and Winston County Road 26..also called Kinlock Road. 

If memory serves me this Rabbit Town is close to the Byler Road.  There is a National Forest Service sign at this intersection that notes that this is the site of an early tavern. On the Kinlock Road I visited Shiloh Cemetery. This is a hidden cemetery with only two marked graves located several hundred yards beyond Shiloh Church. From Shiloh we continues on Kinlock Road to the intersection with Winston County Road 60. This road is also known as Cranial Road. I wanted to visit a cemetery on this road named Wolfpen Cemetery. What a curious name....wonder the origin?  Wolf pen Cemetery turned out to be filled with many local sandstone markers without carved names. Most makes graves were from the early 1900's. I stayed Cranial Road as it followed a ridgeline into Lawrence County on intersected Highway 33. We turned south and drove to through the Bankhead National Forest to Winston County Road 76.  I looked along this rode for a couple of cemeteries shown on the highway map with no luck. We did happen up on a cemetery located across the road from New Home Baptist Church. This was a productive visit for CSA soldiers. After backtracking to Highway 33 we drove to Winston County 2. This road took me to Antioch Baptist church and a relatively modern cemetery.

At this point, Daddy told me that we needed to go to a cemetery on Black Pond Road. This is a familiar road to me...it is lined from one end to another with Shewbart and McCullough cousins. So we shifted out travels from north of Double Springs to the south along this road where many of our relatives are buried in Pinetucky and Williams cemeteries.

We drove to a rode road identified as J.A.Bennet Cemetery Road by a hand-painted sign out on the main blacktop rode. The road went out over a fresh cut over and through a stand of tall Loblolly pines. The road ended in a muddy turn around at t the cemetery. Sage grass hides many of the rock markers.  

What stands out is a row of plastic flowers. There are nineteen evenly spaces grave along the edge of the cemetery. Each grave is marked by a nondescript small rounded sandstone rock Next to each marker is a small granite mark infant all nineteen granite markers are inscribed : Infant of Clint and Lula McCauley. Nineteen infants. Is this correct?   

Thursday, December 22, 2011

No Yondering to speak of…Daddy had two appointments in Birmingham.

Friday, December 23, 2011

We changed our base of operation to Sulligent, Alabama this morning. I love this time of the year. The missing foliage exposes rock formations, barns, old buildings, chimneys....a multitude of geographical items that spend six of seven months hid behind green leaves.  After visiting with the family I went to see my momma’s Christmas flowers at the Blaylock Cemetery. After leaving momma I circled over across a series of bridges referred to as the John Black Bottom. On the Splunge Road I visited with some Irvins and secured permission to photograph an old frame house sitting on their land. This house has belonged to the Pickle and Irvin families for generations. I made to cemetery visited on this afternoon ride: Crenshaw Cemetery and Baker Cemetery.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

I was sitting on the gravel road that surrounds the cemetery at Smyrna United Methodist Church when the sun came up. This cemetery is located in Marion County, Alabama on Highway 19.  I worked my way back down in to Lamar County by visiting the Rudicell Cemetery, Kingsville Cemetery north of Detroit, Alabama, the Carter Cemetery in Detroit and finally Wesley’s Chapel on Lamar County Road 8. I was back to my brother-in-laws house and Christmas dinner and present giving by 10:00 AM. In the afternoon everybody left for our house and the arrival of Santa Claus (he is a Yondering  guy). I took the 278 route and visited Daddy one more time. In Double Springs I located the geocahe Dual Destiny #3 (#894). I stopped at the Houston Jail for heading home and found the geocache Old Houston Jail (#895).

Catching Up

It has been a year since I posted anything to this blog. Does that mean that I have not been anywhere? On the contrary, I have spent most of the time between posts in a vehicle traveling between Calhoun, Georgia and Doubles Springs, Alabama and Birmingham, Alabama. Throughout Momma's battle with lung cancer I made the trip to Double Springs one or two times of week. After a while, I started to take detours and alternate routes to find caches and visit cemeteries.  After Momma died in August I continued to make the trip every other week or so to take care of Daddy and his affairs. During this time I have visited a lot of cemeteries and recorded a lot of information. I am posting this information in several blogs and on other websites. Take a minute and read through my travels...you may find something that interests you.  Drop me a comment..or suggestion..or any tidbit of information...