Thursday, December 20, 2007 - Foscue Creek Park, Demopolis AL
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A new day dawns
The birds come to life and begin to sing and flit about looking for breakfast. Deer get up from their overnight bed, stretch, pee, have a look about, and lazily move off grazing as they go. Great blue herons take up position in the weeds watching for breakfast. Fish jump. Insects buzz. Horns honk. Trains whistle.
Barges quietly slip by
I'm still here at site 42 in Foscue Creek Park just outside Demopolis AL. Barge traffic on the Tombigbee River is a constant fascination to me here. This morning Heloise nearly snuck by me un-noticed. Sitting in the green chair concentrating on photographing an acorn at my feet I happened to glance up just as Heloise was passing by, pushing her charges up river. Quietly. Most unusually quietly (at least I think so - maybe the quiet ones are getting by me). River tugs (towboats they are called) tend to throb like a huge, low speed, locomotive. You can feel throb at some visceral level. Heloise doesn't throb; she must be sporting some great throb attenuation technology.
The links to Heloise point to Dick's Towboat Gallery, a fun site to explore.
Why do we push coal up and down the river?
Why are barges of coal being pushed both up and down the river? How does this make sense? Am I seeing the same product going both ways or are these barges carrying different grades of coal? I suppose it makes some kind of business sense but shouldn't there be a way to eliminate some of these miles? At least in the interest of efficiency and fuel consumption if not the environment?
An all day soaker
Today is turning into a day of quiet soaking rain - much needed in these parts. I'm spending it editing some of the better photos I've taken the last few days. Later I hope to catch up on some web page editing I need to do here.
Night camp
Site 42 - Foscue Creek Campground, Demopolis AL
- This is a well maintained US Army Corps of Engineers campground with level paved sites, most with full hookups
- Many sites overlook the water of the inlets off Demopolis Lake on the Tombigbee River
- There is good biking on the park roads
- The campground is pretty full Thanksgiving week and is generally booked solid the weekend of the Demopolis Christmas on the River festival in early December.
- Poor Verizon cell phone service - access is via Extended Network, roaming
- No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and service varies is slow but reliable
- Only 3 miles to Wal-Mart and other services in Demopolis AL
- Find other references to Foscue Creek
- List the nights I've camped here
- Check the weather
- Reserve a site
- Get a map
Listening
As the poet Gary Snyder said so well, "Beyond all this studying and managing and calculating, there's another level to nature. You can go about learning the names of things and doing inventories of trees, bushes, and flowers. But nature often just flits by and is not easily seen in a hard, clear light. Our actual experience of many birds and wildlife is chancy and quick. Wildlife is known as a call, a cough in the dark, a shadow in the shrubs. You can watch a cougar on a wildlife video for hours, but the real cougar shows herself only once or twice in a lifetime. One must be tuned to hints and nuances." After more than thirty years of living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and spending a great deal of that time out-of-doors, Snyder has seen the mountain lion on just a few occasions. One of these sightings was most unusual. Gary had been visiting a neighbor and was walking down from the nearby ridge to his home when he observed a cougar sitting near one of the windows of the house. The animal appeared to be listening intently as one of Snyder's stepdaughters practiced the piano.