Wednesday, December 5, 2007 - Demopolis AL
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And the park has a winter rate of $4.00 per night. This sounds like a good alternative to Wal-Mart parking lots for a few days. So I stock up on food and head out.
No cell phone reception at Payne Lake Campground
Darn; it's a nice quiet campground, nice lake, but I get no cell phone reception. Without cell reception I felt I didn't want to stay and headed on westward on AL 25. So here I am at one of dear old Wally's parking lots again.
This Wal-Mart Supercenter is green
Now here's a first for me. Of all the Wal-Marts I've visited to date, this is the first one done up in green and beige instead of the usual blue and beige. Is this a reflection of the "green" image Wal-Mart has been promoting lately?
Night camp
Wal-Mart Parking Lot in Demopolis AL
Wal-Mart Supercenter in Demopolis AL
Wal-Mart Supercenter Store #731, 969 Us Hwy 80 West, Demopolis, AL 36732 - (334) 289-2385
- Good level parking, reasonably quiet
- 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
- Find other Wal-Marts in the area
- Check the weather here
The Heliograph in the Apache Wars
"The mountains and the sun...were made his allies, the eyes of his command, and the carriers of swift messages. By a system of heliograph signals, communications were sent with almost incredible swiftness; in one instance a message traveled seven hundred miles in four hours. The messages, flashed by mirrors from peak to peak of the mountains, disheartened the Indians as they crept stealthily or rode swiftly through the valleys, assuring them that all their arts and craft had not availed to conceal their trails, that troops were pursuing them and others awaiting them. The telescopes of the Signal Corps, who garrisoned the rudely built but impregnable works on the mountains, permitted no movement by day, no cloud of dust even in the valleys below to escape attention. Little wonder that the Indians thought that the powers of the unseen world were confederated against them."