A Peaceful COE CG & one Random Thought

 Lock A Corps of Engineers Campground; about an hour west of Nashville, Tennessee

This post will be more of a campground review with lots of pictures than exploring the area. My stay was for three days and I only left the campground to get a few prescriptions filled at Walmart. They did a great job again and had them filled within an hour. Walmart is great for travelers, they are my pharmacy, bank, rest stop, fast food, groceries, auto parts, etc. I may have pushed my luck though by asking the pretty red-head if she worked there, but when she turned around, Yikes, I quickly said never-mind and quickly walked away. While they were filling the scripts, I had time to do my laundry and eat lunch at Taco Bell although I didn't have a reservation. I was lucky, I guess, although I did have to take my own order on one of those kiosk things.

Typical middle Tennessee 

A nice view about 10 miles from the campground showing the hills and the Cumberland River.

The campground is straight ahead. You can tell it is going to be a good one by the nice approach. Good vibe campground.

Nice campsite. I didn't try to hook up Starlink since Verizon was giving me a decent signal. That's one of the other R-pods in the background.

I've lost count of the number of COE campgrounds I've been to, but a nice estimate and round number would be about 100. This campground is ranked in the top15. It gets high numbers for peacefullness, great camp hosts and nice fellow campers. It would be nice if there were some nearby exploration items, but it is a nice and relaxing campground. The dump station doesn't look too good, so I'll wait and use the one at the next campground. I'm glad I stopped here even though my backing into the campsite was a little hinky. But there wasn't any damage to Freedom, Liberty or government property so it was a lesson learned. I will GOAL (Get Out And Look) quicker next time.

Comfortable thinking bench with shade and a view.

The Cumberland is a nice looking river. The lock and dam is about 3 miles that a way.

This is the trail I was told about on the last day. It was a nice walk.

I found these "peace rocks" on the rail of the fence as you come back to the road from the trail. They look familiar but I'm real sure she isn't traveling any more. 

There were also two other R-Pods in the campground. That is unusual. I met both sets of owners and both were nice people. One was local and the others were travelers, like me. Safe travels and have fun.

Hydro-electric powerhouse on the left, gates in the middle and lock on the right. I was surprised how short the guide wall was to the lock. 

Picnic with a view anyone?

Random Thought: The other day, my thinking ring was silver and instead of one word, I had two. They were like yin and yang words. The two were "Loyalty" and "Betrayal". One of the things I thought about was, "Can a person truly appreciate loyalty if they've never been betrayed"?

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed to another COE campground just a little bit east of Nashville.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.   

Family Visit & Eerily Empty Campground

 Natchez Trace - Wrangler Campground: about half way between Memphis and Nashville

It's finally stopped raining for a while. Things are still a little wet but drying out nicely. This campground is a State of Tennessee Campground in association with the Natchez Trace. The Trace is an old path dating back a few hundred years. The two ends of the trace are Nashville, Tennessee and Natchez, Mississippi. It has an interesting history and well worth exploring if you're passing through any part of it.

This is either north-east Mississippi or southern Tennessee. It was a pretty day until the rain started. It was a nice leisurely drive on pretty decent roads. On a day like this, someone I once knew, (may she RIP) would have repeated some of my old words back at me and say,,, "that sweet smell of freedom hanging heavy in the air". 

 

There were about 3 or 4 of those crosses at different spots along this leg of this trip. They were all about the same size so none were trying to outdo the others. I liked seeing them, I liked it a lot. 

I got lucky and found a Sam's Club along my route. It worked out well since I was getting low on coffee and protein shakes. These flowers were in Sam's but since I didn't know anyone around, I didn't get any. I thought about buying some just to give to the next single looking woman, but I didn't. That can be a dangerous thing. 

The campground is definitely an older campground with smaller campsites and narrow roads. I didn't need to worry about tight roads or curves since I was the only one in the campground. The campground is heavily wooded and while setting up camp the rain was starting and stopping but always with a steady drizzle. Combined, it gave an eerie feel to the place. It was not ideal conditions to be setting up camp. I tried to remember the name of the scary movie dealing with a campground, but now I'm glad I didn't remember it. Probably due to the rain, there were no birds chirping or any small animals making noise while playing in the trees. Then came a very loud thud off in the woods. At first, I thought it was a tree falling but changed my mind since there weren't any secondary sounds. When a tree falls in woods like this, you hear the tree breaking off branches of adjacent trees and such. This sound was just one loud thud, no echoes, no secondary sounds, no flushing of birds, etc. Just as if you stomped your foot on compacted ground but a thousand times louder. It kept my head on a swivel until I completed setting up camp.

This picture is from today as the ground and such was trying to dry up.

The look out the back window of Liberty. This is my view when I'm working on my laptop. There is a benefit of having the campground to myself, I don't have to lower my blinds.  

This was the campsite after getting the outside set up. Another camper showed up later in the evening and as I'm typing this post, there are four of us here now. 

My purpose for stopping here was to pay a visit to my Aunt (my Dad's brothers wife) and her daughter, my cousin. I hadn't seen either one for probably 20 years or so. I promised them I wouldn't take up too much of their time but had a few questions for my Aunt from some times before I was born. I won't go into what we talked about in this blog, but I will give some strongly worded advice. If you have questions of family members, you better ask them before it's too late. I would love to be able to sit down and visit with my parents to discuss their choices in life. To know the reasons why did something someway instead of another. What were their hopes, dreams and plans for their life? So many questions, but I was too dumb to ask them in the living years. My aunt provided some of those answers to me yesterday and I'll be forever grateful. 

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be heading to a COE campground just east of Nashville. I'll be traveling on Interstate highway for the first time in a long time. I have a feeling it will be a good thinking drive.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road. 

Just Watching it Rain

 Location: Blue Bluff Corps of Engineers Campground; Aberdeen, Mississippi (about 30 minutes south of Tupelo)

It's another great COE campground. This time on the banks of Aberdeen Lake which is part of the Tombigbee Waterway. The lock and dam are just a short distance away but there isn't any good vantage point for viewing them. This happens a lot more than it should. Large infrastructure projects like locks/dams and bridges should be shown off by the Federal or State governments. I don't want to hear about 9/11 being the reason because I've been to dozens and dozens of structures built before 9/11 and you can't get a good look at them. I know 9/11 made some changes but they weren't "open for business" before that. I know I've had to be careful in some places that I've visited where I would be taking pictures of a nice-looking, interesting bridge and get sideways looks from people in the area. If I hung around, I'm pretty sure the police would have shown up asking questions. I'll quit griping about that now. 

Anyway, this is a nice campground that I've just used to kicked back and relax. It's been raining on and off so exploration, even if there was some to explore around here, wouldn't have happened. The camp host told me they were full over the Easter weekend but are only about 10% this week. I didn't hook up Starlink because I would have had to use my tripod to get to a point where it could find the satellites and since my Verizon signal is strong, my hotspot is doing all the work. I have gotten lucky and had two average sunsets even with all the clouds. I don't really consider them actual sunsets, but they will do the job when you're starving for one.

This isn't a highway picture and definitely doesn't represent northeast Mississippi, but I liked it and hope she likes it for her travel picture. It is the road leading into the campground.

 

I got an excellent campsite right on the banks of the lake. I have a great view out my back window. This has definitely been a good vibe campground.

My view out the door of Liberty as sunset nears.

It's not the best sunset but it's the best I've had in a long time. I needed.

I have also used this down time to complete my campground reservations to get back to Louisiana on July 1st. That's a big relief and a big monkey removed from my back. Now I just have to check email often enough for any campground closures due to flooding, staff shortage, etc. I've already had to do that once on this trip when I campground in Kentucky had to close due to flooding. I was lucky to find a replacement on the same lake. 

This blog post has been a little boring but tomorrow is moving day and I'll be entering another state. Tennessee is next up on the list.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.

Happy Easter and My First Ever Thinking Bench

 Location: Jenning's Ferry Corps of Engineers Campground; about 40 minutes southwest of Tuscaloosa, Alabama on the banks of the Black Warrior River

First and foremost. Happy Easter. He's risen and the napkin was folded, meaning he'll be back. 

If you're unfamiliar about the napkin, here is the short version. In the bible, as John first sees the empty tomb of Jesus, he describes the linen cloth (napkin) that had been placed on the face of Jesus as he was laid in the tomb as being folded neatly and separate from the other burial items. The people of that time, especially the Jews, recognized the meaning. During meals, servants who set the table and served the food stood by as needed. If the master of the house crumpled his napkin and left it on the table, that meant he was finished with the meal and would not be back. This was the sign for the servants to begin cleaning up. BUT, if he folded the napkin neatly and placed it on the table, as it was in the tomb, it meant he was leaving the area for a little while but would return. Happy Easter Ya'll.

This campground was my first Corps of Engineers campground back in 2014 when I began full-timing. It was my third campground on my first trip. It was also the location of the first picture of a "thinking bench", ever. Geez,,,,I don't know how many thinking benches I've taken pictures of but it's got to be 200 to 300. Today is the third and final day here and I've yet to find that bench again. I'll take another walk this evening, but my hopes are not high about finding it. I guess it was removed and never replaced. This is one of the reasons why I don't like back-tracking to some places I've been in the past. You always run the chance of damaging a "silent echo" from the previous visit.

This is the picture of my very first "thinking bench" from April of 2014. I couldn't find it this time and that is sad. Anyway, this is the one that started all of them. 

This is my campsite. Too many trees for Starlink to work while attached to Liberty. I think I could have found an opening in the trees and mounted it on a tripod but since Verizon was giving me a reliable signal, it wasn't worth the effort. There isn't much around this area to explore but it is a very relaxing, good-vibe campground. 

Still fulfilling a promise. This is a stretch of road in west-central Alabama. She should have enough road pictures now to make an atlas but, I'll keep posting them.

The exploration for this visit was the Indian Mounds in Moundville, Alabama about 20 miles from here. They, and the Indian settlement that was part of it, is the second largest Mound Complex in North America. Second, only to Cahokia which is on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River by St. Louis. I visited that site back in July of 2021 and you can read about it here >>>>> https://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2021/07/valve-stems-and-cahokia.html

This is the best overall view of most of the complex. There are 29 mounds of all different sizes. They even had a thinking bench on this mound. I'm pretty sure it wasn't put there by the Native people from the 1600's.

This was a representation of someone's GUESS about the Natives at this site. They used a lot of weasel words in describing their suppositions (not to be confused with Preparation H). But, as usual, they never explain how they arrived at them. Hey, I'm only slightly jaded, but it seems I become more jaded as the years go by. 

I've been to several such mound complexes around the country and each one is a little different but with many similar things which means they were connected in some way. This place, like Cahokia, had a palisade wall surrounding the area. Building a palisade around the perimeter of an area this size is impressive by itself.

I don't feel up to getting deep into my thoughts on the Native Americans and the mound builders from 500 to 1,000 years ago. Maybe that deserves a post on its own. 

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed about 100 miles northwest of here to another COE campground, but this time in Mississippi.   

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe, I'll Cya down the road  

Contrasting Campgrounds & "To Kill A Mockingbird"

 Isacc Creek Campground (COE); near Monroeville, Alabama

One of the great things about traveling around is seeing the change in landscape. The travel distance to this campground was only about 120 miles, but what a change. In the morning, I pulled out of my campsite and drove along the sandy beach of the Gulf of America. By early afternoon, I was camped in the southern hill country along the banks of the Alabama River. 

Leaving Fort Pickens Campground. The Gulf of America is on the other side of the sand on the right.

My campsite at Isaac Creek Campground. That's the Alabama River in the background.

Looking out my door in the morning at the Alabama River with "smoke on the waters". 

I found two thinking benches just downstream of the dam. 

I don't know the exact number, but I would estimate that I've camped in a little over 100 different Corps of Engineers (COE) campgrounds since I started traveling 11 years ago. (By the way, that 11 year anniversary was 3 days ago.) This campground is the only one where the campground host texted me on the morning of my arrival telling me my campsite was ready. With the new fad of later and later check-in times, it was good knowing I could show up anytime that day. I found her supervisor and praised her actions to him. He smiled and said, "Yep, that's Kathy". Another thing happened that was uncommon. The people in the adjacent campsite had some of their family visiting and were cooking burgers and such on the grill. The mother of the bunch came over and offered me some burgers and tator salad. That is only the second time in my travels and with stays in over 400 campgrounds (all types) that I've been offered food by a neighbor. The first and only other time was when I was camped at Foscue Campground (COE) at Demopolis, Alabama (couple hours north of here). Southern hospitality at its finest. 

Thinking of Southern Hospitality reminds me of one of the very first full-time RV'ers blogs that I used to follow before I started traveling. It was the Wandering Wishnies. They were an older couple from Wisconsin who, on a whim, sold everything and bought their first RV and hit the road. They hadn't been down south before so they weren't familiar with the southern way of life, only the stereotypical versions of rednecks. She was the writer of their blog and through her words, she showed us how she and he became enlightened and realized they had been deceived over the years. I can remember some of her words as being "The people here in the south are truly friendly and polite and not just putting on." After many years of traveling, they sold the RV and settled down, in Arizona I believe. Oh well, I hadn't thought of them in a long time. I may go back and re-read some of her old blog posts. That is the wonder of blogs, being able to see things/places/people through the eyes of other people. Cue the melancholy music :)

This is the unusual dam I wanted to see. There wasn't a good place to get a good view. You can see the six gates but to the right of them is a "fixed crest spillway". Except in flooding situations, you can't raise the upstream water level any higher than the elevation of that spillway. You can lower it by using the gates, but not raise it. Of all the dams I've seen, I haven't seen this combination.  

I got this picture off of Google Earth,,,,yeah, yeah, copywrite infringement, I know. It gives a bird's eye view of the dam structure. They must have been in a flooding situation since all gate are open. 

Besides coming here to see this unique lock and dam near the campground, I came here to visit the Monroeville Courthouse Museum. Monroeville is the hometown of Harper Lee and Truman Capote. They grew up together as neighbors and childhood friends. For those younger readers, Harper Lee wrote the book "To Kill A Mockingbird" which was also made into a movie starring Gregory Peck. In recent years, some misguided people have tried to have the book banned from schools and libraries because they think it is a racist novel. I don't think it is and just by showing how life was in the 30's in the deep south doesn't make it racist. Miss Lee addressed the subject herself in an interview from 1961. She said "My book had a universal theme. It's not a 'racial' novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization----not necessarily Southern civilization. I tried to show the conflict of the human soul----reduced to its simplest terms". 

If you've seen the movie you probably recognize this courtroom. Many people think the movie was shot here, but it wasn't. Hollywood took lots of measurement and pictures to make an exact replica in Hollywood. It was still kind of neat seeing the real thing.

It's also kind of neat that Miss Lee and Truman Capote grew up together in such a small town. Truman himself was an author of several books. The best known, for me, was "Breakfast at Tiffany's". The other connection between the two authors was the character, Dill Harris, in Mockingbird. It was inspired by Truman Capote as a child. Oh well, the things we see and learn along the way.

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed another 100 miles or so north to another COE campground. 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road. 

Fort Pickens Area Wrap-up

 Fort Pickens National Seashore Campground; on barrier island across the bay from Pensacola, Florida

Today is day 5 of 5 and tomorrow is moving day. Five days at a campground is unusual for me when I'm traveling although checking my future reservations it will happen a few more times before I get back to Louisiana in July. Hmmmm, I need to think on that some. This campground and area have been on my "list of places" to explore for several years and I'm glad I was able to make it this time. I'll probably not be back. Those two sentences sure sound contradictory, don't they? The reason being, I've seen what I needed to see on this barrier island and although there are more things to see on the mainland, it is just too far and too much traffic to explore from this campground. As summer gets nearer and the tourist invasion happens it will just get more hectic. I'm glad I have Starlink which was reliable and had blazing speed. My Verizon signal varied in strength from 1 bar to 4 bars and was unpredictable. The location of the campsite was great as the view out my back window was interesting. I'm right at the entry point to the campground and have an excellent view of the tent camping area. This campground has a high number of walkers and bicyclists which are great for people watching. 

Yesterday's exploration was the actual Old Fort Pickens from the 1800's. Right off the bat, no bad ju-ju. A little on the good side of average ju-ju. After so many years in this ocean environment and numerous hurricanes, it is surprising the amount of original fort still remains after nearly 200 years. Fort Pickens and three other smaller forts were located near the entrance to Pensacola Bay around 1834. Their purpose was to defend and guard against invasion. The bay was the deepest port on the Northern Gulf coast and was home to the Navy Shipyards.

This map shows the importance of the Fort in defending Pensacola Bay

The first thing I found interesting about Fort Pickens was that Geronimo was held prisoner there. That's right, the Apache leader from the southwest. In 1886, 400 captured Apache were sent to Fort Marion at St. Augustine, Florida. However, for some reason that I haven't discovered, several citizens of Pensacola asked that Geronimo and 14 Apache men be transferred to Fort Pickens. These men were separated from their families who remained behind at Fort Marion. The families were eventually reunited with each other in 1887 at Fort PIckens. One year after that, all of them were transferred to Fort Sill in Oklahoma where Geronimo died in 1909. As a point of reference, the Trail of Tears which relocated the Five Civilized tribes to Oklahoma happened between 1830 and 1850.

This placard in the fort is what brought my attention to Geronimo. If I had heard about this before, I sure forgot about it. One of the benefits of forgetting things is that you get to "re-learn" them. 

The second thing I found interesting was what happened at the fort just before the War of Northern Aggression War for Southern Independance Civil War began. 

A quick timeline:

November 6, 1860; Lincoln wins election

December 20, 1860; South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the union.

January 10, 1861; Florida becomes the third state to secede from the union. Florida sends a "letter of understanding" to the current President, James Buchanan, saying "if Northern reinforcements stay away from the Pensacola forts then the militia would not attack the forts." This was the same type of message that South Carolina sent to Washington D.C. about Fort Sumter.

March 4, 1861; Lincoln is inaugurated.

Beginning of April of 1861 President Lincoln orders reinforcement to be sent to both Sumter and Pickens.

April 12, 1861; Reinforcements and supplies arrive at the forts, War begins, lasts 4 years with about 620,000 soldiers dead and an unknown number of civilians.

I won't go into matters of the Civil War since I've covered them in other posts when I visited Fort Sumter, Appomattox, Shiloh and many other Civil War sites. It was just interesting both forts were being reinforced on the same day, April 12, 1861 which prompted the beginning of the war.

Entry to Fort Pickens. Those appear to be the original columns. 

Gun emplacements 

Although I had a small flashback to visiting the Catacombs in Rome, there weren't any bad vibes for heebie jeebies

One of the inside cannons. All of the arch-work is because of the need for strength to absorb return fire

 

A larger cannon up top and in the open. That is the Gulf in the background.

This was a nice view from up top by the big gun. The Visitor's center is in one of those building but was closed for renovation. The water in the background is Pensacola Bay.

I walked to the bay to check it out. Again, lots of fisher-people. The lady in lower right was sunbathing while her husband was doing his job of trying to catch supper for her. 

The tow boat and barge was a reminder that the bay is part of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed almost due north about 120 miles into southern Alabama to a Corps of Engineers campground along the Alabama river. I'm not sure about cell signal since the area is pretty isolated and Google Earth shows it as having lots of trees. Hopefully, if I can't get a cell signal, I'll find an opening in the trees for Starlink. That is one of the main reasons I bought Starlink is for situations just like this. We'll see.  

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.

Florida Beach

 Location: Fort Pickens National Seashore Campground, barrier island off Pensacola, Florida

Well as I said in my last post, I walked to the beach area to see what I could see. I decided to wear my sandals and debated with myself if I should wear socks. I have been advised pleaded with admonished by my daughter, granddaughter and others that I should never do that and that sticks in your head after a while. But, I was feeling rebellious and since I didn't know a living soul around this campground, I made an independent, executive decision as a man, and did NOT wear socks. My decision entirely.

I sent this picture to my family so my daughter and granddaughter knew I was complying with their demands. My X-wife (yeah, we're still friends) said my white feet below my tan lines looks like I'm wearing socks. I just shake my head sometimes. 

After a mild case of shame, I hung my head and started on my walk to the beach. The entire walk would be about 1.5 miles with half being in sand. I was pretty sure without socks that I would end up with some blisters on my feet and I intended to take pictures of them to send to the "no sock with sandals" people. But alas, no blisters occurred. Not sure why.

There is an elevated walkway that goes from the road to almost to the beach. It's in bad shape with loose boards which created tripping hazards. I was fully expecting to see the business cards of some "slip and fall" lawyers pinned to the loose boards. It wasn't quite as bad as I'm making it out to be, but whoever is in charge of maintenance needs to step up and do their job or look for a new one. No excuses.

I'm actually appreciative that they built the walkway. It would be a chore to trudge through the sand and brush to get to the beach. Oh wait, they didn't do this for people, it was so we wouldn't hurt the plants and stuff. Ok, I get it. 

This is some of the more mild disrepair. There were locations that could easily trip a child or adult. I'm still glad it was there, just wish it was maintained better. 

The end of the line for the boardwalk. Nothing but sand now.

The water looked nice and the sand looked clean but not the typical touristy beach. The tide was in and ebbing so it was somewhat peaceful. The sand is pure white and blinding in the sun. Yep, I forgot my sunglasses. I think I prefer the Texas beaches.

You top out over a sand dune and rewarded with this view. At first I thought that couple were arguing since the guy was raising his voice and they were face to face. After a minute, she turned away and I could see he was talking on the phone and she had been listening. It wasn't a good thing in public, but not as bad as I originally thought.

This is not the Florida beach that people are used to seeing. It is more of a place for surf fisher-people (look how PC I am) or people just sitting and watching the waves come in. 

This was two nice-looking, my age women. One was fishing while the other laid out on a towel. I talked to the fisher-woman for a few minutes. It was a nice but short visit.

That is an older couple that I've seen in the campground. They were sitting and enjoying each other's company. A complete contrast to the other couple. 

The campground has a lot of late teen/early twenties campers but I didn't see any of them on the beach. They were mostly tent campers and hung around the campground. I assume they are locals and have better beaches to go to when that is what they want. They were well behaved and respectful. Congratulations to their parents in raising them right. Since it's Sunday, most are packing up and getting ready to leave. 

Today will be an exploration day. I plan to explore old Fort Pickens which is only a couple miles away from this campground. I've visited many old Forts and battlegrounds in my travels. Some give off good vibes or neutral vibes. A couple have given off "bad ju-ju" vibes. The kind that makes you shake as tingles run up and down your spine. You get the sense that someone is there but they're not. The worst of these places was Fort Jackson on the Mississippi River below New Orleans. I felt lucky that I was able to walk away from there. My post about it is here >>> https://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2023/12/where-mississippi-river-ends.html

I am curious how my vibe-meter reacts to Fort Pickens today. I haven't done hardly any research yet, so I don't know its history. Fingers crossed that all goes well.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe, I'll Cya down the road.