Touring the hills of Northern Alabama - Alabama's Mountain Lakes Region - Brief Article

Travel America, Sept, 2000 by John Handley

Rockets and recreation lure visitors to the Heart of Dixie

Aspiring astronauts, boaters, fishermen, hikers, golfers, and shoppers are all heading for northern Alabama.

Astronauts? Absolutely. The U.S. Space Camp is one of the unique features at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama's No. 1 tourist attraction.

The realistic training at the Space Camp is similar to what actual astronauts receive. Though targeted primarily at youngsters, the program has adult sessions, too.

Huntsville is known as "Rocket City" and "America's Space Capital," but it is just one of many enticing attractions in the northern part of the state, which is blessed with much natural beauty. Here the Tennessee River winds through the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, creating a prime destination for outdoor recreation.

Known as the Mountain Lakes region, it boasts the state's largest national forest and wilderness area at Bankhead, the state's largest collection of covered bridges in Blount County, four state park resorts, the Deep South's only snow ski resort at Cloudmount/Mentone, and one of the nation's top 10 factory outlet centers at Boaz.

Many visitors to northern Alabama begin their exploration in Huntsville, which once was a sleepy cotton town. But in 1950 German rocket expert Werner von Braun arrived with 118 of his fellow German rocket scientists to work on America's space program at the U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal.

Today, visitors at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center can view the world's most comprehensive collection of rockets, missiles, and space hardware, including a full-scale space shuttle, a 363-foot-high Saturn V rocket, and the actual Apollo 16 command module, which went to the moon in 1972.

Before you leave Huntsville, check out these other attractions:

* Alabama's Constitution Village, a historical replica of what life was like in 1819. Guides in period costumes perform such tasks as baking bread and spinning.

* The Historic Huntsville Depot, dating from 1860, is one of the nation's oldest remaining train stations. An antique steam locomotive is outside, and inside are messages written on the walls by Confederate soldiers in the Civil War.

* At EarlyWorks, a hands-on museum that presents the past in a lively fashion, visitors can hear stories from a talking tree and walk aboard a 46-foot keelboat.

* Harrison Brothers Hardware Store, dating from 1879, is jammed with vintage merchandise.

Celebrities from many fields have had their roots in northern Alabama. Tallulah Bankhead, one of Huntsville's most colorful characters, rates a sign commemorating her birthplace on Courthouse Square. The sultry-voiced actress--movies, Broadway, radio, and television--was known for calling everyone "Dahling" because she had trouble remembering names.

W.C. Handy, "Father of the Blues," was born in Florence in 1873. Music buffs can tour a small museum that contains such memorabilia as his trumpet and the piano he used to compose the "St. Louis Blues." A music festival is held at the site every August.

Track star Jesse Owens is honored in his hometown of Oakville with a monument and park. Owens won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

Music greats star at the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in Tuscumbia. Showcased are the careers of such Alabamians as Nat King Cole, Hank Williams, W.C. Handy, and the country music group Alabama.

Helen Keller, one of Alabama's most revered natives, was a deaf and blind woman who earned a college degree and spent her life working to improve the life of others like herself. On summer weekends, her life is dramatized in outdoor performances of The Miracle Worker at her birthplace in Tuscumbia.

Martin Luther King is commemorated with a statue at Kelly-Ingram Park in Birmingham, the gathering point for many historic civil rights marches in 1963. Now visitors can view dramatic sculptures that depict those events, including the use of police dogs and firehoses against the African-American marchers.

Across from the park is the famed Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and the Civil Rights Institute, which houses fascinating exhibits, including the door from the cell where King wrote the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

Outdoor options are virtually unlimited in northern Alabama. Hiking trails snake along the mountain ridges and wind through national forests. On one of these trails in northeast Alabama, you can see cascading waterfalls, including Noccalula Falls near Gadsden.

You can choose from six state parks: Buck's Pocket, DeSoto, Joe Wheeler, Lake Guntersville, Monte Sano, and Rickwood Caverns. Among the top spots for fishing are Wheeler Lake, Lake Guntersville, Pickwick Lake, Wilson Lake, and Weiss Lake.

Because of the Tennessee River's length and width, water skiers can glide along for miles without having to turn around. Sailing is popular as well as power boating and houseboat cruising.

Alabama fits golfers to a tee. The legendary Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, which includes 18 courses in the state, begins at Hampton Cove, nine miles from Huntsville. Its two championship courses are set amid hills and lakes. The Goose Pond course in Scottsboro offers views of the Tennessee River from almost every hole. A hilly layout will test your skills on Little Mountain at Lake Guntersville State Park.