Our next three stops were at a series of Corps of Engineer (COE) campgrounds across Mississippi, which was new to TBG, and Alabama, which was not new to either of us. In the Olden Days of the 1980s, I spent several months in Biloxi, MS for USAF tech school, and traveled through Alabama several times as well as attending my Brotherman’s wedding there (Sissy is a ‘bama native, Roll Tide!) TBG had some Army training in Dothan, AL. It was expeditiousness, though, and not nostalgia, that dictated our trajectory with our route being a relatively direct line toward Savannah.
Sardis, MS
Sardis Lake Recreation Area offers several large campgrounds along both the upper and lower lakes. We stayed at Oak Grove COE, on the lower lake.
We didn’t get a good pic of Essie in site #65, but please enjoy this lovely sunset photo taken from out window on our first evening. We were fortunate to have reserved an end site with unobstructed views out two sides, and most of our evenings included a pretty sunset. Both of us felt we should have liked this place better than we did, though, but we came away feeling very meh about it.
One of the problems was that it was awfully humid. It wasn’t too hot, but we ran the a/c intermittently anyhow just to help keep things dried out. Because all the spacious campgrounds roughly connect, we were able to take long daily walks all around the loops of strangely juxtaposed dilapidated and functional sites. In the neighboring state park, we came across a small building in the middle of a run-down deserted loop with its lights on. Upon closer inspection, we saw the sign over the door read “Laundry.” Surely, it wasn’t really open. It was, and two very new very modern machines sat incongruously at the ready. Also at the ready was a huge hunting spider on the floor in front of them, just waiting for a dropped sock or the brush of a pant leg. Laundry could wait.
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| Trailhead hypeman. |
There were two formal trails at the eastern end of lakes, a Nature Loop and a Fitness Trail. We traversed the campgrounds to check out the Nature Loop first. Spoiler Alert: We never did make it back to the Fitness Trail.
Some of it was nice, smooth, and open. Some of it was more overgrown and cobwebby. It won’t make the Hiking Hall of Fame, but it did make for a nice leg-stretcher with the bonus of having the whole place to ourselves.
All that humidity finally turned to rain — our first real rain in many months — but before it did, I managed to get my wounded little kayak on the lake for a breezy short paddle. It will be the last time I take the little puffer out because from here on, we’ll be in gator territory. While it’s unlikely that a gator would bother with me and my inflatable, I won’t feel comfortable going out alone, so we’ll rent when we want some water time.
That night brought a brief deluge which created mini lakes on both sides of the RV and cooled things off considerably. Five days here in the off-season was probably four days too many, although I can’t imagine bigger crowds make for more fun. I did enjoy watching the increasing numbers of wintering birds including herons, egrets, pelicans, and cormorants.
Tuscaloosa, AL
Deerlick Creek COE was one we were looking forward to because of the marvelous sites. I knew when I booked ours that the approach included a steep park road, but if the helpful gatekeeper hadn’t encouraged us to unhook and take a drive around to see if we might want an alternate site, we would have been royally screwed. The little warnings they post online for that site are not sufficient, and when we checked it out, prominent gouges in the pavement were a testament to others who had bottomed out there. We were so lucky that there were more sites to choose from, and soon we were settled in.
Almost every site here comes with its own deck area, each built nicely into the hillsides overlooking the lake or wide forest gullies. The sites are well-spaced, so that when you’re on your deck, it feels pretty private. We even took advantage of that to use the grill table as a salon chair so TBG could give me a haircut without having to stoop and get hair all over the inside of the rig.
There were not many trail options, but we gave it our best shot and walked everything we could.
We tried a formal trail in the park. It began with blue tree blazes, then about midway through switched to peachy blazes over the blue ones, and then no blazes at all. At that point, TBG used his orienteering skills to get us back out of the woods completing a loop rather than my idea of re-tracing our steps.
Our favorite trail was the paved Tree Trail and Nature Loop that we walked at least once a day and included on a long bike ride we took.
The trees on one half were marked with hand-painted identification signs, my favorites being mockernut and hophornbeam. I looked them up. They’re legit.
About midway through our stay, it became clear that we were in the path of Tropical Storm Zeta. My native Alabamian Sissy Roll Tide! was in touch with family and friends in our area, and offers of shelter were very kindly extended. She also alerted us to the preeminent meteorologist in Tuscaloosa, ABC’s James Spann, and fortunately for us that TV station was coming in over the air. She explained that locals could determine the seriousness of a storm by how much clothing Spann was wearing, the shedding of it coinciding with a storm’s severity. Spann began the evening in a full three-piece suit and tie.
We weighed all the info and decided that we were going to stay put, albeit with our windward slides tucked in for the night, all devices charged, flashlights at the ready, and go-bags packed. Around 2 a.m. there was some wind and some rain, and I was briefly alarmed to turn on the news to see Spann was down to his shirt-sleeves, but, happily, we were over-prepared. Then we woke up later to this:
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In all seriousness, big weather events are no joke, especially for nomads, and we were lucky to be barely touched by Zeta’s outermost trailing band. Much love and thanks to my Sissy, and to all the area locals for their generosity on standby. Roll Tide!
Eufaula, AL
We had one more layover, as I’d come to think of them, this one at White Oak COE. Again, we had a pretty decent site.
These suckers are extremely bright, they were everywhere in the campground, and, apparently, they need to be left on all night.
This park was like the others in that it had what was marked as a Nature Trail, but was mostly short stretches between camp loops and/or overgrown.
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| Too nature-y. |
Did you know that you can tap on or click any photo to enlarge it? Try it now! Which butterfly do you like the best? The turquoise long-tailed skipper? The pumpkin-orange gulf fritillary? The striking zebra longwing? Or, my favorite of this group, the common buckeye with its stunningly colorful dots?
Our stay encompassed Halloween, and I fretted all day about whether or not camping children would be trick-or-treating since we had nothing to offer. I needn’t have worried because all the other campers in our loop were somehow related, and they had a big, noisy, costumed gathering down the way. We took the opportunity for an evening walk to the deserted and decidedly quieter loop to capture shots of the Halloween Blue Moon.
The clouds tried to skunk us out, and it looked for a while like they were going to completely obscure the moon, but then it blazed through an opening like a glowing eye. It was a spooky finale to All Hallows’ Eve.
The next day, we drove across time zones into Georgia to check out Providence Canyon State Park.
It offered the opportunity for a good hike with some interesting terrain that was formed not by the awesomeness of nature alone but from terrible erosion caused by the poor farming practices of early settlers to the area. We took the higher Backcountry Trail, figuring it would be much less popular than the shorter trails down low. We didn’t encounter many other people and zero interesting wildlife, but we’re pretty sure at one point we heard the annoyed squeal of a feral hog. Once we’d completed the loop, we decided to repeat the beginning of the trail to access a couple of the canyons from the bottom, after all.
Because we had only one more day before we were headed back into Georgia and the Eastern time zone again, we chose not to participate in the time change for two days. I wish the whole country would do away with the stupid practice, but until then, we enjoyed our mini revolt.
The campground didn’t clear out on Sunday as is typical, but almost everyone left on Monday, making our last day very peaceful. The local wildlife enjoyed it, as well.
As I finish this post, I am sitting in a state park just outside Savannah, GA, which means we’ve now caught up to the plans we laid so long ago. In a year that saw us cancelling almost as many plans as we’ve been able to keep, that’s good stuff.
We’ll meet you in The Hostess City next time for more of that good stuff, and I don’t mean snack cakes.
COMMENTS
I admit I giggled.
Yikes on the gator-puncture story! That’s what, obviously, I’m trying to avoid. I think the rental of a hard-side or two is in order for us!
I’d like someone to explain to me why people (campers near me) feel the need to have the brightest lights on all night long….are they afraid, are they showing off, what?
Yes!! Why do people leave bright lights on all night? I think if everyone kept their lights OFF it would be harder for the murderers to find them.
I also laughed at your laundry room story. If that spider has made its home there, I wonder if those new looking machines are truly as new as they look? I’ve seen the spiders down there and wouldn’t be surprised if the machines are 10 years old and have just never been used. 🙂
Have a great time in Savannah! it’s a gorgeous city!
I thought of you when I saw that spider!! That little laundry room was the oddest thing, so perfectly creepy near Halloween. I like your theory about the age of the machines. It sounds quite plausible!
Anyway, I vote for the zebra longwing. No, wait—the buckeye. No, the longwing. I can’t decide. I like them all!
I think the same thing when folks light up the night in the campground!! And this stay had the huge Halloween Blue Moon — no one needed artificial light at all. Stay in the city if you want the lights! You’re disrupting the critters’ circadian rhythms. 😦
It IS very hard to choose the prettiest butterfly, isn’t it? Fortunately, we don’t really have to choose, we can see them all!
We had our worst weather nightmare when we were in Gulf Shores AL in 2016, the event that made me wished I was back in California.
I picked all the butterflies they are all delicate and beautiful!
I remember your miserable weather times in your travels over here. We’re watching the second Tropical Storm headed our direction as I type this — it’s looking like we’ll be just fine, and we’re so hoping to get a break after that!!
Say hello to all the SW birdies and critters for me! I miss my prickle frogs.
That’s funny, I was just talking with a friend this morning that almost every state has a town or city named Columbus. I, too, think you made the right decision. After spending five months in southern MS for USAF Tech School, I was unequivocally certain it would never be a permanent home for me! 😀