Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - Foscue Creek Park, Demopolis AL
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US Coast Guard boat house, Demopolis Lock and Dam, Demopolis AL, December 13, 2007
Watching the water in the cove suddenly start flowing out - then reverse in a few minutes. It took me a while to realize what that water flow is about. The campground is a half mile or so upstream of a lock & dam and the lock was being filled from upstream, in this case lifting a barge & tug which appeared out of the fog a half hour or so later, headed up river from Mobile AL I presume.
Later today I went online to the Recreation.gov web site and reserved this great spot for another 5 nights, arriving Thursday, leaving Tuesday. It's interesting how this reservation system works. The local people are not connected to the online reservation system so there is a time delay before they get notification of online reservations. Thus one can reserve a site locally for only two nights and one can not reserve a site online (or by phone) for those two nights. That way there is no overlap. That left me with a one night gap in my reservation so I went out to the gate and filled in that gap. Now I'm good for this site through 3:00 pm Tuesday.
Night camp
Site 42 - Foscue Creek Campground, Demopolis AL
- This is a well maintained US Army Corps of Engineers campground with level paved sites, most with full hookups
- Many sites overlook the water of the inlets off Demopolis Lake on the Tombigbee River
- There is good biking on the park roads
- The campground is pretty full Thanksgiving week and is generally booked solid the weekend of the Demopolis Christmas on the River festival in early December.
- Poor Verizon cell phone service - access is via Extended Network, roaming
- No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and service varies is slow but reliable
- Only 3 miles to Wal-Mart and other services in Demopolis AL
- Find other references to Foscue Creek
- List the nights I've camped here
- Check the weather
- Reserve a site
- Get a map
Writing From the Inside Out
A young writer, if he is unknown, can be at a party and watch what everyone is doing. If he has a marveluos ear for dialog, he can wake up the next morning and remember all that was said and how it was said. He is a bird on a branch. Sees like a bird and writes books that are extraordinarily well observed. But once he is successful, especially if that happens quickly, it's as if the bird were now an emu. It cannot fly. It grows haunches and foreshoulders and a mane: lo and behold, it is a lion. And everyone is looking at the lion, including the birds. But it is a lion with the heart of a bird and the mind of a bird. So there is a terrible period when the transmogrified emu is trying to live like a lion and has little talent for it. Then the beast begins to experiment. When it runs, it now sees other animals scamper. It takes a while - often years - for the writer to get to appreaciate his effect on others, and even longer to begin to understand human beings again. In the old days, he could write about friends, enemies, and strangers by intuition, by induction; now he puts it together by deduction. Of course, he does have more material on which to work his deductions.