Push Across Georgia

January 10, 2007

Well, we may have seen it all, now. The lady in the Monaco next door to
us here in Magnolia RV Park, Vicksburg, MS, seems to have a black maid.
We allow as how there could be some other explanation, but a lesbian
relationship is pretty low on the list of possibilities in this
country….

We remember Jackson, MS as the worst road in all our travels when we
came through. Going west, last year, our satellite system broke, dishes
broke, it was awful. Not so bad this time, less traffic and maybe not
so many potholes going east.

Miississippi looks like a lot of Oregon-Washington valleys. Itâ™s a
little dirty, though, and obviously poor. The roads are substandard and
every now and then we see a slum area that is almost shocking. Still a
lot of truck traffic. Diesel is about $2.29/gallon. We’re back in
-hatchee country; my favorite river/creek so far is the Sugarnoochee.

We pulled in to a truck stop, some guy pulled in front of us, so we
went to lunch at a nearby diner. What else to do?! The big experience
was chicken on a stick. They kabob chicken, onions and dill pickle
slices, bread the whole thing and drop it in the deep fryer. It was
very tasty. Dave had a shrimp po’boy. Lots of Tyson trucks in the
parking lot. I really want to know what the average Tyson hourly wage
is now. Bumper stickers in the same lot say “Horn broke. Watch for
finger.” Might not be the place to ask….

As we near Alabama, we start to see Magnolia trees planted along the
highway. At the Alabama border we leave I-20 for Hwy 80 which will take
us straight across the state to Columbus, GA.

We stop early today, after 185 miles. It’s too far to make Montgomery
and there are very few RV parks in between. We tried to stay in Selma
last year and ended up tired and cranky, looking for the Screaming Pig
Ferry Park, which was nice when we found it, but …. So we’re stopping
early in Demopolis, at Foscue Creek Park on Demopolis Lake, a Corp of
Engineers park. We luck out and get the one pull thru. These COE parks
are usually very nice; this one has 37 sites and is really pretty.

January 11, 2007

Woke up this morning to look out and see egrets sailing over the lake.
Nice. I’d like to stay a week. But we push on. Hwy 80 from Demopolis
east is four lane, a good road through rolling green hills. Very
sparsely populated. There are some farms and they have a rebel flag
flying and the lane to the house is marked by the must-have gate posts
and a clump of pampas grass. Houses in the south seem to require those
gate posts; the gate and fence don’t matter so much.

We are in catfish country, so serious they are farming them. I’ve tried
catfish and thought it was awful, but it could have been that it was
frozen, old, etc. I tell Dave I’m going to buy some fresh catfish and
cook it myself. His response: “Get a hamburger pattie while you’re at
it, will you?”

MeMe’s Diner is Selma, specializes in waffles. We’re running on an
empty pantry so stop for brunch. A young man with Down’s Syndrome works
in the kitchen, greets everyone – a symbol of small-town America we
find very endearing.

Montgomery is a big city, hard to get through. We try to stay on 80
East, and we do, but soon it turns to a country lane … very rough and
narrow. We’re seeing daffodils now, here and there, and our old friend
kudzu, although the prolific vine is still dormant, gray and stringy.

The country lane got too narrow, too lurchy. We hopped on US 85 and
went to Opelike, Alabama, then jogged south to Phenix City and crossed
into Georgia at Columbus and now we’re back on 80 again. An hour east
of Columbus and we’ll have this big Blue Bird bus back at its
birthplace. We are pooped after five days of travel, well, I’m pooped.
My lower back and legs are so sore I’m sure I’m going to wake up
paralyzed. Dave says I’ve done the Hwy 80 “clench” for too long.

January 12, 2007

Dave swears he felt Cygnus speed up and turn into the Blue Bird factory
on its own last night. The 24-hour guard just lifts the gate and waves
us through. The Bird’s Nest RV Park isn’t advertised anywhere, I don’t
think, so probably other makes of RVs don’t come in here, but if they
did, they couldn’t stay. As a Blue Bird owner, we stay free and the
facilities are free. There isn’t much in the way of facilities, except
the laundry and it’s nice to be able to use it. Also, the clubhouse has
a huge table/counter, which I use to cut our fabric. We plan on staying
over 2 to 3 days and will travel to our job at Skidaway Island State
Park in Savannah on Monday. It’s really great being in this area on
Martin Luther King Day; the south looks at it as a day of service,
rather than a day off, so there are all sorts of things going on.

Our love to all of you.

Sam