“Batten down the hatches, Matey!” as the old saying goes. All the signs and predictions called for a sodbuster of a lightning-thunder storm, slated to begin its performance about 9 p.m. central time on Monday, April 4, 2011.
In the Talladega National Forest, the only Internet/wireless reception I could find was high up on a hill across Coleman lake, roughly 20 miles from Heflin, Alabama. As I set up my portable Internet station at 6:00 p.m. that night, clouds raced by me in an easterly direction, aglow with sunset colors reminiscent of renaissance paintings: salmon-pink with tones of gray-white against an azure blue sky. As viewed from my position high on the hill, the clouds appeared to be running from something. Having checked and sent my email, I wove my way back toward my lakeside campground thinking to batten down my trailer hatches…be ready.
Instead I wandered off down a “calling”, dirt, side road to Sweetwater Lake. This is a four-wheel drive kind of road with mounds and hillocks challenging enough for a mountain goat. It was getting late but I thought I would make good use of my time prior to the storm. The setting sun was creating magnificent tree shadows, stream luster, and turning everything it shone upon to a beautiful shade of Tuscan Orange.
TALLADEGA FAIRYLAND-Talladega National Forest is a wonderland of forest management. The National Forest Service has done intentional burns to minimize undergrowth causing the forest floor to be relatively clear in a landscaped effect. The setting sun on the ground cover gives a sense of a fairyland as it settles below the horizon.
