Friday, October 30, 2009

We had a long day ahead so we were up and on our way at 6:30 am. At 8:30 am we were approaching the railroad lift bridge at mile 173.5. According to our guidebook, the railroad bridge is up unless a train is coming. We could tell that the bridge was not up so we concluded that a train must be on its way. We had no luck hailing the bridge tender, so we waited a few minutes – there was no train and no answer on the radio from the bridge. Finally, Gale called the Demopolis Lock to see if they had a contact telephone number we could try. The lockmaster said it was unusual to have the bridge down. We tried the cell phone number that was provided and, evidently, woke the bridge tender. He wanted to know what we wanted!?! Hmmm – the bridge lifted?? Anyway, he said he would bring it up for us and we soon saw an individual walking across the bridge to the lookout house. We figure he had been sleeping in his truck.


The day gave us intermittent showers and occasional sunshine. There was a tornado watch most of the day so we kept an eye on the skies. At 3:30 pm we were approaching Bobby’s Fish Camp, mile 118.9, and thought it prudent to stop and tie up to their dock for the night. As soon as we were secure, the sky began to look very much like a tornado could drop out of it at any moment. It began to rain, and we were happy to be where we were. We escaped any really bad storms, but the showers continued off and on.

We did try out the catfish at Bobby’s Fish Camp and found it to be quite good. “Bobby” had been an avid fisherman and many of his trophies were mounted on the walls of the diner. One of those, a 100-pound alligator gar, looked like something prehistoric with the body of a large fish and the head of an alligator. Maureen thought it was actually somebody’s joke, like the Jackalope in Wyoming, but Gale assured her that these fish really are out there.