2025 May 9, Mystery Day Trip with Backroads Tours Scottsboro, AL

Travel to Scottsboro: Board the bus by 8:00 A.M. The tour and Admission to the animal park are included at $125 per person. The pickup location is Patches in Scottsboro. 

Tours & Admissions, including lunch, are self-pay 

We will cover the cost of our lunch, and a decadent dessert is also included. 

If you love fantastic food, nature, and exotic animals, this trip is for you. 

We were up by 4:30 A.M., got ready, and were on the road by 5

We stopped at Jack's in Athens for breakfast. 

I ordered gravy and biscuits with Diet Coke

We stopped at McDonald's in Scottsboro for a restroom break

We arrived at our bus location, loaded onto the bus, and began our mystery trip

Our first stop was the Farmers Market in Section, where we bought cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, onions, and cauliflower.

Our next stop was Bama Bucks Restaurant and Exotic Animals.

Our host gave us the history of how Bama Bucks got started,

Our servers took our drink and food order. My husband and I split a cheeseburger and onion rings, and he ordered a salad.

Small animals, including baby alligators, ring-tailed lemurs, and kangaroos, were brought out and shown to us as we ate.

Outside, behind fences, we saw black bears, bison, ostriches, Zebras, kangaroos, emus, lemurs, elk, and camels. 

This family-owned restaurants feature steak, chicken, wild game, seafood, soups, sandwiches, and salads. 

There is a fun menu for children. 

Our next stop was at the Anniston History Museum. 

We began with a reptile show of a small alligator, a large Turtle, and a small screech owl. Several of us walked outside to see the rescued birds of prey. 

We walked through the museum, and there was so much to see,

I bought my grandson a dinosaur necklace and a bracelet for his birthday. 

We loaded onto the bus and began our journey to Scottsboro

We played bingo for prizes on our ride back

We arrived in Scottsboro, said our goodbyes, and began our journeys home

We stopped at Taco Bell in Rogersville for dinner

I ordered two Soft tacos and a Diet Coke.

I saved one of my tacos for breakfast. 

We arrive home between 8:30 and 9 P.M.

8816-8818 8:38 A.M. Section Farmers Market

8819-20 9:56 AM Sardis 

8821-8852 10:15–11:18 A.M. Bama Bucks Restaurant Sardis, AL

8853-8889 1133-11:45 A.M. Exotic Farm 

8890-8924 BaMA Bucks Grounds & Group Photo 

8925-8927 1:18-1:21 Anniston History Museum

8928-8946 1:45–2:08 P.M. Animal Show 

8947-8948 2:24 P.M. Outside Raptors 

8949-68 2:35–3:58 P.M. History Museum 

8969 4:03 P.M. Banana Bread

8970-8974 5:45 P.M. Traveling the Tennessee River, Scottsboro 

The Groundhog mishap

We had planted our vegetable garden in the early spring of 2013, and it was growing and producing nicely.

I started to notice leaves and beans missing, like someone was picking them, or something was eating them.
Early one morning, I saw a groundhog, and later that evening, I saw him again, now I know where my vegetables were going, down the mouth of that groundhog.
Hubby and I both knew that Groundhog had to go!

Hubby went to the gun shop near our home to buy a pellet gun in hopes of frightening or even killing the groundhog. 

After sitting and waiting every evening to kill the groundhog, he decided to borrow a cage.

Days went by, but no groundhog. 

It has been almost a month with no capture of the groundhog I guess he is just too smart for us.

I decided to put some onions and carrots inside the cage.

The next morning (May 10, 2013, Friday), I peeked out the window to see if we had captured the groundhog, I could not see clearly because it was foggy because of the downpour of rain the night before.

To my amazement, there was an animal inside the cage.

I called hubby on my cell phone and said, “We have got him!” We’ve got what? The groundhog, I said.

Later that day, after the fog had cleared, I decided to go visit the animal. 

The first time I saw him, he was curled up in a ball, so I could not see his face.

Later that day, I went back to the cage, I wanted to take pictures of him,

I guess I frightened him because he hissed at me. 

He had a long tail and a pointed nose and was covered with fur.

I thought to myself, he doesn’t look like a groundhog.

I emailed the picture to hubby, and he said that it was not a groundhog but an opossum. Hubby said opossums are not a danger to our garden.

That night, when he got home, he opened the cage door to let the opossum out.

The next day, the opossum was still sitting inside the cage with the door open.

That evening, when hubby came home, he went to the cage to see why the opossum was still sitting inside the cage. 

The opossum’s tail was caught in the latch of the door, and he could not get free.

Believe it or not, hubby reached inside and untangled the opossum's tail, the opossum just sat there, for he did not realize he was free to leave the cage.

When he realized his tail was no longer caught, he scurried away. 

We never saw the opossum again.

We did see the groundhog now and again, for he had moved his burrow to the field behind our house. The field behind our house is covered in clover, which the groundhog feasts on every day. 

Not to say the groundhog did not visit our garden now and then. 

Hubby never tried again to kill the groundhog.

On May 1, 2014, hubby was looking out the window, and guess what he saw? Another Groundhog.

We just planted our garden, and I guess he is scouting it out for future food!!!!!!!

The groundhog hubby saw maybe the same one from last year or one of his offspring.

We seem to attract groundhogs because the first year that we planted a garden, we had a groundhog, which was May 2005.

2005 was the year that hubby borrowed a shotgun and was going to shoot the groundhog. The groundhog was cute, but working in the garden is hard work. 

Hubby would sit by the window every afternoon, waiting for the groundhog to appear. Every time hubby shot at the groundhog, he would miss. 

So after many tries to kill the groundhog, to no avail, hubby was ready to give up. 

But to our dismay, on that day, as we were leaving the house, we saw the groundhog lying on the road. The irony of the story was the groundhog was too fast for a shotgun but too slow for a fast-moving car.