Pickensville Campground, Alabama

Confluence of

Aliceville Lake and Tombighbee River, Alabama

The first thought I had as I pulled into this Army Corp of Engineer’s campground was, “Where is everybody?”  Of the 162 available sites, eleven, counting me, are occupied.

Of course, there is the fact of the “severe weather” raging all around us: flooding, tornadoes, giant hailstorms, heavy rain. But I’d called the ranger station before heading toward this confluence of the Black Warrior and Tombighbee Rivers feeding into Aliceville Lake. Wren, the young ranger I’d spoken to told me the river level was a couple feet below flooding and the weather was looking to clear. She suggested I’d be fine.

So, I towed my way through the rolling countryside of Alabama, past pockets of such poverty it hurt my heart, past plantations which still boast the word plantation in their titles: great rolling spreads of thousands of acres of fertile soil boasting cattle, oak savannahs, private lakes and big white house’s sporting colonial pillars out front, straight out of a film set.

Somewhere outside of Aliceville, I came across this display in an expanse of field. It was sudden, unexpected, and delightful.  That woodman must be forty feet tall. The dragon a good thirty feet long, and those buggy creatures are giant bales of hay. 

I’d love to meet the owner and creator of this whimsical roadside attraction. The house was set far, far off in the trees, hidden from view

so I snapped a quickie of this rooster and said, “adieu.”

Coming into Aliceville was interesting. I spied an actual café and it was open. Creole Cooking, the sign said. I wasn’t hungry so didn’t stop, but I spied a man walking purposefully toward the front door.

Aliceville, I read, was the site of the largest WWII German prisoner of war camp in the United States. 6000 captives were brought here and kept until the end of the war.

I imagine they were barged in, the waterway is a constant source, even today, of barge traffic heading on up into Mississippi or down to the Gulf for loading onto ships.

Coal is a big export. As are petroleum products. Grain. Construction materials (ie, the lumber being constantly cut out of the forests). Sand and gravel also make their way here and there.

Apparently, this year the river is unusually low (at least before this flooding series of storms), which slowed barge traffic down to one third of its usual frequency. Massive towboats push barge “trains” of twenty to forty barges through the 29 locks and dams of the Mississippi and her major tributaries, such as the Tombighbee. The average wage of a Towboat Captain down here is around $87,000 per year. The deck hands average $20 per hour.

Back at Pickensville Campground, I found my way to my spot overlooking the fork between the two rivers.

By the way, while highlighting camping sites, I want to give a shout out to this collapsible  bucket with its phases of the moon handle.

It has been useful beyond my imagination (I get no rewards for this mention; just read;;your like the bucket).

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I’m in a very quiet part of this already quiet campground

as what few campers are here are clustered close to the bathhouse. I’m about a quarter mile away down this empty lane.

Here’s city center

The bathhouse has four toilets and two shower stalls. Most important, it has hot water!  And, I am happy to see they have a designated site

right next to it.

I enjoy a shower each evening before retiring. I walk in the morning when the temperatures hover in the high 70’s, hang close to Pearl in the afternoon when the temps reach for 90.  Walk again as it cools down to low 80s’. So, I’m pretty rank by the time I head for bed. The humidity here is 96% so every walk results in a soaking. A shower has become a necessity.

One of the trails here that I’ve grown fond of leads through a Cypress Grove.

It’s called Black Water Pond.

Black water is common down here. It turns black due to the tannic acid from leaf fall and Cyprus roots.

Those little nubs are new Cyprus Trees splitting off of the main trunk.

Frankly, the main river itself smells strongly of human feces.  I imagine the flooding has had something to do with that, though I fear they just dump the waste right into the river.

I watched a boat bearing three fishermen load up a bucket of waste from their site, dump it straight into the river before they hit the throttle and headed off for a day of sport fishing.

Alan, a Southerner from around here, is on his fifth month as Camp Host. He’s a stolid man, late forties to early fifties, thinning hair.  Fair complected. He tells me he’s been to Oregon. Once.

“I tried to order me some sweet tea out there but you Yankees don’t seem to know what that is.” Sweet Tea,

a basic of Southern living. Trust me, it’s sweet.

“Now, Alan,” I responded, “I’m not sure we’re actually Yankees out in Oregon. The Pacific Northwest is a different thing. In fact, Southern Oregon was settled by southerners who fled after the Civil War. You can still see many Confederate flags flying in the back country there. I bet you could get some sweet tea out there.”

“Mebbe,” he said. “I only saw Salem, where my sister retired. Purty little town. Y’know, she kind of reminds me of you. Wears her hair the same way.”

I’m wearing braids, which I do here most days. It’s so hot, I braid up my thick mane to get it off my neck.

I laugh, tell him I lived in Salem for three years before retiring.

“You know, around Salem they had the last active known chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon,” I mention.

Alan looks taken aback.

“Wall, I don’t know about that. My sister han’t mentioned that to me.”

He chats awhile longer as he makes his morning rounds. Lets me know I should check the road conditions tomorrow because those roads in Tennessee where I’m headed might have some problems.

It seems to be my good fortune to be right on the edge of this devasting storm system terrorizing the Southeastern part of the United State.

I mean, I did get two days of  heavy storm down in the Conucho before heading north, but so far here in Pickensville, it’s partly cloudy, humid, and breezy.

The campground does have a lot of blow down from the storm which hit right before my arrival. Branches and broken limbs everywhere.

This morning, the Conservation Corps sent out a crew to do some clean up.

They also took down a huge Long Leaf Pine, which looked healthy to me. I checked out the stump after they were gone. No rot or decay.  Just a big, towering Pine maybe two and a half feet across.

They kept that chain saw running while they made quick work of the tree, until it was all loaded up into a wagon, hauled away separately from the windfall and blow down.

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I had hoped for a rich birding experience here.

But actually, Larry’s property down in the Conecuh was much better. I don’t know how much this storm has set birds off course or if this waterway just has so much traffic that the birds have chosen a quieter route.

I do see from the many bird houses they’ve set up they’re used to some nesting.

 

This barge train went by last evening. It took me three photos to capture the length of it.

I’ve counted six or seven per day, most of them half that size.

It’s fun to watch them if you don’t think about the dredging and environmental toll it takes to keep that many barges on the water.

Oh, here’s a non-sequitur: It’s hard for me to get to sleep at night. At mid to high 70’s, Pearl stays warm, even with her fan blowing. My body thermostat was damaged during my traumatic head injury at twelve so I don’t cool down like “normal” people. As a result, I sleep fitfully and have active dreams.

The mornings are nice and sunset is when the most bird song breaks out.  But by and large, I’ll be fine with pulling out of here tomorrow morning. I just hope I don’t find myself heading into the heart of the storm.