Covered Bridge Ride

[Guidedawg]

Mrs. Guidedawg and I went with another Montgomery couple to a Widow's Sons Rally held over the weekend at Lake Guntersville State Park.

Since I had taken off the entire day to go up there, I asked my friends if we could make a trip through Blount County to visit three of the covered bridges in our state, especially since they are open to traffic.

It sounded fun to them, so off we went.



As we drove through Vincent, my eyes glided over to Hwy 25 and I started wondering how long of a detour it would take to ride up through Leeds.  I chose wisely by continuing one because I caused other delays before we got to the lodge and we had plenty of other twisty driving throughout the weekend.

According to an article on AL.com there are 11 remaining historical covered bridges in our state. (There are also some more modern covered bridges)  Blount County is home to three of those and is also home of the state's Covered Bridge Festival.

It took a bit of back tracking to work them into our route, but the distance was not great and I wasn't sure when I would ever be back through the area on a motorcycle so it was a must-do.

[Guidedawg]

Our first stop was Horton Mill Bridge.  The original bridge so named was about ¾ of a mile from the present location and built in 1894.  The current bridge is much newer – construction began in 1934 and took about 1 ½ years to complete.

(My approach from one side, crossing from the other, and friends Bryan and Kem crossing)









The first thing you notice about this bride is its height.  At 70 feet above the Calvert Prong of the Little Warrior River, it is claimed to be the highest covered bridge above water in the US.  This isn't fully appreciated until you look from below.





And I did look, several times as I first went down to find a geocache and came up short.  As I arrived back to my friends, slightly frustrated by having taken so much time to look only to fail, I realized I had dropped my hand held GPS receiver.  It took quite a bit more time before I was able to find it among the tall grass, so there was a lot of exploration and climbing on my part.

But it was still a fun visit

[Guidedawg]

Our second stop was at Easley Covered Bridge built in 1930 or 1927 according to different sources and spans the Dub Branch of the same prong of the river as the previously visited Horton Mill Bridge.

Easly (also known as Rosa Covered Bridge) is much shorter and smaller and has tin along its sides.  We even had to cross a very small (uncovered) wooden bridge to get there.

Although my initial approach was successful, on a second pass I was very wobbly and came off the raised driving surface and had to continue up the center of the bridge, as I ended up doing on the previous bridge.


That's when my friend Bryan noticed and said "Act like you've been on a motorcycle before, dumb@$$!"  Well, those weren't his words, but it should have been.  What he actually said was that I was looking down at the bridge rather than ahead where I wanted to go. D'uh..I knew better, and once I kept that in mind, I had no further problems.

[Guidedawg]

Which is a good thing because our final stop was Swann Covered bridge and it is 324 feet long making it the longest covered bridge in Alabama and one of the longest in the nation.  This bridge crosses the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River and was built in 1933.

This was from about halfway.  In fact, I met 2 vehicles while I was walking it and had to climb on the side rails to allow them to pass.

[Guidedawg]

Vandals forced the closing of Horton Mill in 2007 and the other two were deemed unsafe and closed after inspections in 2009.  All three have been restored and are now open to single lane traffic.

There isn't a lot of room to turn around on a big cruiser and the shoulders are soft, but it's a great visit if you are in the area!

[kdtrull]

Very nice.  Glad y'all had a good ride...except for the GPS hunt.
Thanks for sharing the good time with the rest of us.

[VWCarlos]

Cool pics and cool ride destinations! Glad you and Mrs.Guidedawg had fun. Looks like Brian and Kem did as well. I have some time off coming up soon... I might copy your route. Thanks for posting.

[Chitza]

Thanks for the ride report Guidedawg. Those bridges are close to me house and i forget about them as an easy afternoon ride. I'm glad you reminded me.

[Crandon]

It was good to see you and Rebecca this weekend.  Seems like y'all had a blast just making it to the state park. 

[Guidedawg]

We did, but we had a much better time at the rally.  I'm looking through video and pics now to see if there is anything to put together in a 2nd report for the weekend.

[klaviator]

Glad you had the chance to ride around some in the northern part of the state.

[Crandon]

We did, but we had a much better time at the rally.  I'm looking through video and pics now to see if there is anything to put together in a 2nd report for the weekend.

Glad you had a good time.  I messed around and have just two short videos and one picture my daughter took.  I even had a brand new camera there that takes really nice pictures and it never got taken out of the bag.