Life has been happening recently and we decided that we needed to getaway for the weekend. So we decided to head back north to Guntersville. It’s a cute town not far from home and perfect for a quick getaway.
We left on Friday afternoon in the rain. It rained hard on us almost all the way. We took our time and arrived right at check-in time for the place we rented. It was a cute house right by Lake Guntersville called “Lake Escape”.
We unpacked and decided to grab an early dinner. We decided to go to Big Mike’s Steakhouse at City Harbor. It is a popular place but we were thinking maybe since it was raining it wouldn’t be that busy and we were right. They seated us as soon as we got there. We had a view of the lake and a really nice dinner. We started with their housemade cheese wedges. Jeff had one of the specials, chicken alfredo. The waitress didn’t say that it was cajun. He said that it was good but really spicy. I had a ceasar salad, steak and broccoli. The broccoli was really good, I don’t know what kind of seasoning they used on it, but it was cooked and seasoned really well. My meal came with two sides so for the second I did the twice baked potatoes and Jeff enjoyed those.
Saturday morning we started the day shopping the downtown area. We stopped in The Monkey’s Uncle, Fants, Red Elephant, Stach, Baker’s on Main and a couple other places. We bought a few things.
Then we went to the Bama Bash. It was at Civitan Park on Sunset Drive. You paid $10 to get in and they gave you a coin that you were to use to vote for your favorite. They had samples of barbecue, wings, ribs, pulled pork in just about every form you can imagine. There were samples of banana pudding, peach cobbler, apple dumplings, pimento cheese and other things. Several vendors selling things. The lemonade vendor had a long line. We found the free sweet tea. But out of all of the things we sampled our favorite was a smoked cream cheese with some kind of peach something in it. Not sure what they said that it was but it was delicious! Have to say that they got both of our coins!
We then headed back to watch the Alabama game and then for dinner we went to Pizza Ed. This has become one of our go-to places when we visit. We started with the meatballs, I had a ceasar salad and we couldn’t bring ourselves to try a different pizza so we went with The Meat pizza again. It is so good!!!
This morning we got up and packed up and on our way out we took a detour north to Buck’s Pocket State Park in Grove Oak, AL. This park is located atop Sand Mountain and is in Dekalb, Jackson and Marshall counties. It is a 2,000 acre recreation area in a natural canyon in the Appalachian foothills. We headed towards the day use area and found the camp store, camping area and the trailhead for the off-highway vehicles. This is the first state park to have an off road trail. We talked with the lady in the camp store and she told us that we could take a 2-mile hike with a gain of 800 feet of elevation to the overlook or we could drive there. Well we aren’t hikers, so we told her to give us the driving directions. She told us it was 3 lefts from where we were. To take a left at each of the stop signs. So off we went. The overlooks is a 1,000-foot view looking down into the massive green bowl of the canyon. Everything was so green and you couldn’t see the bottom of the canyon. Jeff made sure I didn’t get to close to the edge. We were the only ones at the overlook. A car did come in behind us but they drove on through.
Then we drove to Bama Bucks for lunch. We arrived and checked in. The hostess told us the wait was about 30 minutes. We got the text that our table was ready 7 minutes later. I think it was because there were several large parties in front of us that were having to wait for big tables. We saw some of the cooks there from the Bama Bash and also Big Foot. Guess they were stopping in before they all headed back home.
This was our second time at Bama Bucks. Jeff went with the same thing he had the last time, the mac and gouda bites, bison chili with cornbread and a grilled cheese. I had the Boone & Crockett which was an 8 oz. beef tenderloin topped with herb butter. It was the most tender steak I’ve had in a really long time. I had a side of grilled veggies which was zucchini, yellow squash, bell peppers and onions and I had a ceasar side salad.
Jeff told me that it was a good thing I had my back to the dining room that they were bringing out snakes and alligators and taking them into the lobby. Guess they were showing them off to the guests. Glad I didn’t see!!!
On the way home I had made plans to stop in Odenville at Grace Farms to pick up a few things from their farm store. I got a couple tomatoes, some black pepper spaghetti sauce and some farm fresh eggs. We then stopped at Howard Family Farm and Jeff enjoyed a scoop of ice cream and here I got some frozen fresh black eye peas, yellow squash, zucchini and some farm fresh waygu beef patties. We finally made it home to catch some of the afternoon football games and settle into our chairs.
It was a great weekend getaway!! Where will we end up next??
