Wednesday, April 26

As we gave Jerry a cup of coffee and a banana for breakfast, he said “no such thing as a woman too hot or coffee too black!”  He packed up Babe, hugged us and hit the road. I think he may have even got a little emotional. We certainly were. He is a pretty unforgettable man. We wish him well.

It was time for us to hit the road as well. We waved frantically at Jerry as we drove by him, sauntering along the road. Instead of heading toward Mississippi, we decided to head south of Tuscaloosa into Belmont, AL. It took us about 5 hours including stopping at a random McDonald’s for an hour to poach their wifi to bring you these wonderful stories. 

The things you may find in Alabama include:

One 16-foot Tin Man

This

Clearly, the world's first riding lawn mower.

This place is sweet. Belmont Park. Probably 15 campsites total and all of them have a picnic table, a fire pit and a lantern hook. Also available are restrooms, running water and electricity in one location! Did I mention this place was FREE, and WATERFRONT, and that we are ONE OF TWO OCCUPIED SITES??  Oh chit chat! The only downfall is that the closest place to buy beer is 40 minutes away, around the lake, unless you have a boat… which we don’t.   Glad we came this way, it sounds as if further west was getting some nasty weather including hail. We don’t need that.

I suppose we will wake up tomorrow and decide where to go from here, as today, we decided which way to turn as we sat idling at the end of the driveway of the campsite.

Did we mention it was Cooper’s birthday today? He turned 6 years old. He has been surprisingly good on this trip so far, which is shocking. I think we have both been enjoying his company.

This is living. And it is great.

Thursday, April 27

We were woken up at 2am to one of the craziest thunderstorms ever.  The sky was constantly lit up by lightning. We also woke up with poison ivy. This was inevitable. Alabama is covered with poison ivy. It must be the state flower or something. 

It was a leisurely morning, we hung out at the camp site until mid afternoon. Ryan “fixed” our bikes from when we dragged them for over a mile on steep dirt road. Now were aren’t carting around 2 broken bikes, yay!

We did go into town, two of them in fact. All that we could find was a bunch of chain restaurants and the Dollar General. Sonic, Hardee’s and Dollar General seem to be a staple ‘round here. 

Anyone hear of a Lay Bag before? We got something similar called Sloth Saks. We’ve been dying to trying them out, Ryan decided to try his out on lake we are staying at, Demopolis. He got out pretty far and hollered in, “You think there are any gators in Alabama?”……who’s to say? 

tempting fate

(Apparently, yes there gators around according to Google, and Ryan thinks he heard those two fishermen mutter something about him losing his feet)

It was 80, sunny and breezy today. Absolutely perfect.

Friday, April 28  

We decided to stay one more night here in good ole Belmont, AL. The reason being for a boiled crawdad dinner and a live jazz concert outside.

Ryan spent the day puttering and fixing.

We headed for Demopolis around 2pm in search of some wifi to research where to go next and how to get there. What a pain in the butt, it was way too hot out to sit in the car googling and too hot to leave cooper alone in the camper.

At 5 o’clock we went to Foscue House, the restaurant advertising the boiled crawdad dinner. You order these by the pound for $4.99. When the plate came, there were 20 baby lobsters staring at me.  I only ate a couple. One, because they were really hard to open, and two, because I felt really guilty. One of our sides was fried green tomatoes, which was another first for us. Those I can get on board with.

tiny little spicy lobsters

mmmmm... bug meat!

After dinner, we headed over to Old Downtown Demopolis for some Jazz. The first hour was great! A little smooth, a little funk. Then their singer came and the next hour was like an Aretha Franklin concert. Eh, it was free. 

Cooper was hanging in there like a trooper at the concert, until some kids came over. I told them Cooper doesn’t like to be pet. I guess I need to start telling kids that he is mean, they didn’t get it. They came closer, I had to yell. The scrawny, buck-toothed boy came back a little while later and said, “I really want to pet that dog” in the best "down south" talk imaginable. We moved to another spot. 

It was hot today, 88 degrees. Looking forward to some cooler weather.

Also, the mosquitoes are ridiculous down here. The best invention ever is the bug zapper tennis racket. Hats off to the creators!

Saturday, April 29

Alabama turned from amazing, breezy, beautiful, high 70s to hot, sticky, sweat death in no time at all. Yesterday was HOT, but we really wanted to stick around for the jazz and crawfish (crayfish in my native tongue) boil. It was totally worth the experience, but it seemed like we couldn’t get out of there quickly enough today.  

As Emily mentioned that the Alabama state flower is likely Poison Ivy, I believe the state bird may be the Mosquito.  My feet are on fire, from one or the other. Too difficult to differentiate at this point.  

All in all, I (we) really did enjoy the landscape of Alabama, and I love that nearly everyone in a truck will wave as you pass on the road (even more so than in New Hampshire). Everyone seems so incredibly friendly, and despite the confederate flags hanging along the roadsides everywhere, there seems to be a fair amount of cultural harmony, as far as I can tell.  I would visit again, and I said to Emily that Alabama was my favorite state so far on the trip.

Today, we passed through the entire width of Mississippi, which had a wonderful welcome center rest area, complete with a dump station to unload our unmentionable waste (AKA shit) for FREE! Not to mention, the woman inside the welcome center had a wonderful attitude….. and that’s all I have for Mississippi … a septic system and a friendly lady.

I wish I had that much intel on Louisiana, but pretty sure we just hammered through there to get to Arkansas.

Our campsite just outside of Norman, AR had some nice reviews on freecampsites.net (which has been hit or miss thus far) so it seemed like a solid plan.  3 miles out a dirt (sometimes slick and muddy) road, and a knowlegeable local came zipping down the road in his Wrangler.  “This ain’t a good place to camp!”  We asked him about the supposed campground just down the road.  “Oh sure, but not tonight!  It’s in a flash flood area, and you may get stuck out here if we get the 3 inches of rain they’re calling for!”  After chatting with him about some other camping areas, we confidently made our way North a half hour or so, and found ourselves at another “FLASH FLOOD HAZARD” camping area.  And that, my friends, is how we found ourselves parked on the side of a Wildlife Management Area road, in a  gnarly thunderstorm.  BUT, it’s on a hill. No creeks around us. That’s good enough for me! 

<as a side note, we had to turn around at the campground that the local warned us about, and it was absolutely gorgeous, with a babbling brook, and bathrooms… but the way the weather is now, I can almost guarantee you that we’d be stuck there for who knows how long>

Sunday, April 30

After last nights thunderstorm, which raged from 7pm to 2am, we woke up to a halfway decent morning on the hill, and went for a walk near a “Day Use Area” along the swollen Ouachita Creek (also a flash flood zone).  A couple of miles down the forest service road, we found what would be our evening’s roost right next to the river, complete with a fire pit and plenty of Fatwood* around to get a fire going, even with the wet conditions.  

The rest of the day consisted of driving around, exploring the area (The city of Norman, population 378), checking out some creepy crystal stores, and searching for beer (the nearest liquor store was about 20 miles away… oh, and it was Sunday in the Bible Belt) No campfire beers for us! I suppose there are worse things in the world…. maybe…

Norman Public Library. 4 book shelves and a desk. They were closed.

thriving metropolis

Jay Bird Auto.

free campsite win.

And our Monday plans? Drive to Oklahoma, home of suicidal Armadillos.

*Fatwood has completely blown our minds on this trip. Derived from the resin rich heartwood of some pine species, fatwood is rot resistant, and can be chopped from what appear to be just rotten Pine logs. Fatwood takes a flame with unbelievable ease. The fire produces some black smoke, which dissipates when the heat level increases.

p.s. - an outdoor shower (buck naked next to a road) in a raging thunder storm gives new meaning to life.