A travelling day so the alarm was set for six, and as I sat and looked at my cell phone display I realised that it was still on Eastern time rather than Central and I was an hour later than planned, albeit that I'd woken up well before the alarm had sounded. Oh dear I thought. Well, not Oh Dear, but this is family reading so Oh Dear it is. I woke Mrs T, as usual, and made off for a shower. As I made my way down to the bathhouse in the semi dark, I did keep an eye out for alligators, there being a “beach” area on the edge of the drainage canal down at that end of the campground, perfect for the beasts to leave the water. I felt faintly ridiculous even thinking it but the “Don't Feed The Gators” sign was there for all to see. As I glanced at my watch I thought “Oh Dear” again. Apparently my cell phone was on Central Time after all and I was up about 45 minutes earlier than I should have been. It wasn't even six when I returned to the trailer to find that Mrs T had discovered my confusion. Oh dear!
Anyway, at least I had time to enjoy the marginally cooler time of the day and catch up with the blogs. As it happened, we did a bit more washing before leaving (you don't turn down a bank of washing machines lightly when you're two weeks into your trip) and were hitched and ready to go by nine. The Tadpoles were dopey and sat in the back of the Toadmobile in a stupor whilst we hit the I10, this time north, and set our course for Birmingham, Alabama.
The drive took us up a good road through Mississippi, then into Alabama. We stopped for lunch at a Waffle House in Meridian, Mississippi, and again enjoyed the ambiance of a small town diner. We'd managed to get Towed Haul neatly parked in the lot, and I even tried to run Mrs T over when she was directing and whilst tucked away at the back, I wondered if anyone would block us in. The food in these places isn't great but waffles, omelets, grits and hash browns were all consumed whilst the diner buzzed with life. There was drama when a group walked in and then walked out again and our young server seemed to get told off by the supervisor because she showed “attitude” to the turn arounds. I'm not sure why but she turned to Mrs T to explain that it wasn't fair that she should get the blame, looking most aggrieved. Then someone chose to park in front of the Toadmoble, this despite there being more than enough room to park elsewhere in the lot. I had visions of asking a toothless Mississippian, in my lovely English accent, kindly move his big white pickup truck but was saved from that ordeal when I realised that I could scoot out around him. Phew!
Back on the road, we seemed to be driving though an endless corridor of trees, set a way back from the edge of the road but offering no view of the surrounding land at all. Through Tuscaloosa, we branched off just before getting to Birmingham and went along the by-pass until we turned East towards Childersburg, up through a big mountain and down the other side, getting tied up in the Friday traffic escaping from Birmingham. We went through the town of Chelsea, which was nice, and travelled the pleasant, if hilly, road out to our destination.
We were staying at a place called Desoto Caverns, about 5 miles outside Childersburg, mostly because it was just a short hop to the covered bridge and grist mill at Kymulga. Desoto Caverns is a series of caves named for Hernadez DeSoto, a Spanish explorer who was influential in opening up the South well before Daniel Boone and his buddies were around. The trouble is that the Caverns have been somewhat commercialised and we were parked on the edge of a kid's playground; train rides, gold panning and goats, that sort of thing.
The actual site we were allocated was billed as a “pull thru”, which means we should be able to drive in then out again. Unfortunately that isn't possible because there's a motor home two pitches down, blocking the road and, after we'd set up, it looked very like the campground owners wanted a 35 foot 'Fifth Wheel' trailer to go into the small gap between us and the motor home. Very politely I explained to the people behind the desk that it wouldn't work and fortunately they relented, even though the guy in the fifth wheeler didn't have a 50 amp power supply where they eventually put him. “I guess I can get by on one air conditioner” he said.
We decided against a Cavern tour on account of it being vaguely religious, based of the Book of Genesis apparently, and headed off to see the covered bridge. Sadly that was all closed up but we did manage to get a few pictures, albeit that it wasn't in the Bridges Of Madison County league. We may go back tomorrow if we can scare up the required $6, but we might not! We gassed up in Childersburg at the world's cheapest, and busiest, gas station. It was significant that in a town that had hardly any functioning businesses, everyone was paying cash for their petrol; the financial problems of this country have hit very hard in the rural areas and credit, of any form, is so hard to come by (I read that somewhere and it looks to be correct).
We ate at home, going through the fridge and using up all the spare stuff, then went out into the dark to see the humungous frogs on the little pond next to us that were making the most awful din.
Tomorrow we travel again, this time to Tennessee and the Misty River Campground on the edge of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It's Dolly Parton country and is as touristy as it is beautiful. It's also less than 300 miles so we get a lie in! More tomorrow folks.
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