A cool and crisp late autumn morning
made the next day a great time to be on a motorcycle. When we rode out of Hoover, the road led us south through the towns of Bessemer, Hueytown, Concord and Rock Creek. They were all built long ago as sim- ple mining company towns. From Lock 17 Road, we turned onto Nancy Ann Bend Road, having been attracted by the “No Outlet” sign we saw and the Oak Grove Mine sign. A long, curving road built to service the
mine brought us past huge slag piles filling and leveling the once rugged hilly terrain. A little further down the road we found the active Oak Grove Mine. Just a year ago, the massive operation was still producing roughly 3.6 million tons of coal per year despite the coal industry reeling from the recent recession and downturn in Alabama coal production. Coal prices have tumbled across the Central Appalachia region, yet like steel, coal production remains an inte- gral part of the area economy. To see one open pit coal mine is to have
seen them all, and we left the same way we came in. Back on Lock 17 Road, we rode to its namesake, the actual Lock 17 near Burchfield Branch Park on the Black War- rior-Tombigbee Waterway. The meander- ing road ended at Holt Lake, and we had no option but to go back the way we came to continue our lazy day of exploration. The names of the roads we traveled
sometimes seemed to make no sense. The GPS led us down Groundhog Road, which became County Road 59 before becoming Lock 17 Road again. We continued past more open pit mines near the small towns of Searles, Brookwood and Peterson. Vet- eran’s Memorial Parkway took us into our destination of Tuscaloosa. A tour of the University of Alabama cam-
pus would have to wait. Significant time had passed since leaving Hoover, and a late lunch was in order. I had yet to reach my southern barbecue saturation point, so we headed off to Dreamland Bar-B-Que. There’s something about the smell outside a good barbecue joint that makes you smile and your stomach growl at the exact same time. Dreamland did both. A brick mason by trade, legend has it that
as John “Big Daddy” Bishop searched for a way to support his family, and he believed either a mortuary or a restaurant was in his future. The story goes that after much
From atop a mountain of slab, the Oak Grove Mine processing equipment is seen in the distance.
prayer, God told Bishop in a dream that he should build a café next to his home. That was 1958, which, coincidentally, was
the first year that Paul “Bear” Bryant began coaching at Alabama. Today, Dreamland Bar-B-Que serves their delicious ribs and white bread at seven locations across Ala- bama, and like Dreamland, the Crimson Tide has done pretty well, too. Bellies full, we rode the short mile or so
to the University of Alabama campus. Arriving from the east on University Boule- vard, the unmistakable look of student housing, buildings and signage lets you know you’re on a college campus. Riding past the Walk of Champions in front of Bry- ant Denny Stadium, you know you’re at the University of Alabama. Construction of the university campus began in 1828, following the move of the Alabama state capital from Cahaba to Tuscaloosa two years earlier. The 22-acre quad at the heart of the campus is home to most of the university’s original buildings. In the early days of the American Civil
War, the University of Alabama was consid- ered the “West Point of the South.” On March 29, 1865, General John T. Croxton, along with 1,500 cavalrymen, came to Tus- caloosa with orders to destroy the bridge, factories, mills, university and “whatever else may be of benefit to the Rebel cause.” Only four buildings survive today, as Tusca- loosa, which had managed to get through
four years of the war unscathed, ran out of luck less than a week before Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appo- mattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865.
A violent EF4 multiple-vortex tornado
devastated the area just east of campus in April of 2011, and the destruction was still visible as we began our ride back to Hoover. As good as the riding is in the outlying
area, Birmingham is a city rich in both his- tory and culture. A ride there is not com- plete without visiting the Civil Rights District. In 1963, Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttleworth and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. captured the nation’s attention here with the struggle they led against the city’s system of segregation and the police dogs, water hoses and brutality levied against them by police commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor. Not far from Birmingham’s downtown is
Sloss Furnace. It was instrumental in the growth of the city through the production of iron and is now recognized as a National Historic Landmark. Sloss Furnace is also the site of a two-day music and lifestyle fes- tival each July. Attractions like this, an annual BBQ and
Blues festival, a jazz festival and the unique cuisine of the south found throughout the area all help make Birmingham a destina- tion to add to every bucket list of rides.
May 2016 BMW OWNERS NEWS
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