Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - Tuscaloosa AL
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The Bobby Joe James on the Tombigbee River, Dec 14, 2007
There's not much to report today except that, having had enough of the interstates for a while, I worked my way south from Shelbyvile TN by taking US 231 south through Huntsville AL and then AL 69 south through rolling southern yellow pine forest into Tuscaloosa.
Hanging out in bookstores
I miss my favorite Barnes & Noble in Pittfield MA and this may be my last chance to hang out in bookstores for a while. Unless I can find one in Demopolis I'll be out of range of a bookstore. So tomorrow I'll spend some time at the Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million bookstores here in Tuscaloosa before I head on to Demopolis.
Night Camp
Wal-Mart Parking Lot in Tuscaloosa AL
Wal-Mart Supercenter in Tuscaloosa AL
Wal-Mart Supercenter Store #715, 1501 Skyland Blvd E, Tuscaloosa, AL 35405 - (205) 750-0823
This Wal-Mart is one of my favorite parking lots for overnight dry camping. There is good, level parking and access to lots of shopping and services useful to the traveler.
- Good level parking, reasonably quiet
- Books-a-Million & Michaels Craft store across the road
- U-Haul propane nearby, Lowe's and Home Depot 1 mile
- Major shopping centers nearby
- Verizon cell phone service is excellent
- Verizon EVDO Broadband service is excellent
- Find other Wal-Marts in the area
- Check the weather here
Five Trillion Spiders
Spiders begin their hunting with a few handicaps. They're often smaller and weaker than their prey, and they have no wings to give chase in the air. Some species extend their legs by hydraulic pressure, using the same liquid that carries oxygen from their lungs, so they have a hard time running and breathing at the same time. Even their poison may be no match for their victim's: a crab spider's bite is to a honeybee's sting as "an air-gun compared with an elephant rifle," John Crompton wrote. Yet spiders kill at an astonishing pace. One Dutch researcher estimates that there are some five trillion spiders in the Netherlands alone, each of which consumes about a tenth of a gram of meat a day. Were their victims people instead of insects, they would need only three days to eat all sixteen and a half million Dutchmen.
From Spider Woman by Burkhard Bilger, The New Yorker magazine, March 5, 2007, page 69