Tennessee - Days 28-30

Pickwick Landing State Park
Thursday, 28 through Saturday, 30 November 2019

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a nice Thanksgiving this year - quiet despite the increased number of people who came camping for the holiday.  I have a stuffed mushroom recipe that's supposed to be baked in an oven, but the "stuffing" part gets cooked before it goes in the mushroom caps, which I cooked over low heat in a dutch oven and it all worked out really well. 

I ate those while I watched Schindler's List, as I always do on Thanksgiving, and felt extremely grateful to be warm and dry and not living in a war zone. 

Then I fixed salmon and rice and green beans for me, and I gave Lily half a can of fancy cat food and mixed the other half into the dog's chow, so everybody was very happy.

I talked to Anna and David, who gave me an early surprise Christmas present - they're coming to see me in Alabama for Christmas!  All I have to do is reserve a campsite for me and they'll stay somewhere nearby.  It'll be nice to have family at Christmas.

In the campground
We stayed in the campground for these 3 days, mostly with me working on my blog and walking the dogs every few hours.

The weather varied from sunny to serious storm, from nighttime 30s to 60s (until about 4 AM).  We never knew what we were going to get when we went outside.

The couple in the tent near me stayed through most of this weather until Friday morning.  Maybe they'd had enough Nature for the time being.

Also on Friday morning I saw another couple packing up their tent.  They'd only stayed the one night and I wondered how much was due to their equipment.  What I saw were 2 large men and a Malamute packing up a tent so small that I would have thought it would hold only 1 small person and a Beagle.  But mostly I focused on getting my dogs away from the Malamute before they all saw each other.

I cooked that Tripp Country Ham and it's really good.  It's smoked and very tasty - has a flavor I'm not used to in store-bought pre-cooked hams.  I'm glad I stopped for it.





Wildlife

female Bluebird

sitting on the side of the hole

You can see the females aren't as brightly colored as the males.  The bird book says they nest in holes in trees, among other places, but this is about as far from nesting season as we get, so I don't know why she was hanging out there.

The haziness of the photo is my fault - I haven't cleaned the back window of the RV in about a week.  She was in a tree about 15' from the window.

Dark-eyed Junco

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Speaking of birds, I've seen flocks of Juncos, one of my favorite birds.  The eastern version mostly looks like a little gray bird, but when they fly you can easily see the white stripes outlining both edges of their tails.

I've also seen several Nuthatches, one of my other favorites.  One spent quite a bit of time rooting around in the dead leaves very near the RV looking for food.  The bird book says the redbreasted type, which is what I saw, only come down here during the winter.  This is the type I saw in Alaska and Washington, so it's nice to see one again.

These last 2 photos are obviously not mine, but I didn't have my camera handy when I saw them.

The only mammal life we've seen is an armadillo - or maybe more than one - we've seen it twice.  And it's been a nightmare both times.  I don't think Dexter's ever seen one before, but he didn't need an introduction.  Both times he went absolutely bonkers and it was all I could do to hold onto him and not fall over.  Actually, the second time I did fall over on the muddy road but thank goodness the 'dillo had moved out of sight, so Dext didn't drag me.  Surprisingly, Gracie didn't respond at all, either time.

Now that we're back in the South, I expect we'll have more of these encounters, though online information says forests aren't common habitat for armadillos.

Weather
In addition to serious variations in temperature, we had a storm come through on Saturday.  In the middle of the afternoon it started pouring rain - pouring hard - with lots of thunder and lightning.  Scared Gracie to death - she abandoned her usual safe spot in the shower stall and instead burrowed under the dog bed at the back of the space under the table. 

One bolt of lightning was so close I don't think there was a full second between it and the thunder.  That scared Dexter and me as well, though I tried to keep my voice calm and normal to reassure them. 

I grabbed a couple of calm periods in the afternoon and before bed to take the dogs out - the afternoon was when Dext saw the armadillo and the rain is why there was mud for me to fall in.  Both times we were barely back inside before another deluge hit so we were lucky.  Fortunately, the only campers here now are in RVs instead of tents.

Upcoming travel
It took me the best part of 6 hours one morning to find a place to stay during my first days in Alabama.  For some reason, most northern AL campgrounds close after November.  Odd because most southern TN campgrounds don't close - and they're certainly farther north.  Anyway, in AL they do, and several that are open are completely booked for the whole month.  They told me it was folks who were working nearby and living in their campers.

But there're places I want to see in northern Alabama, and I figured it wouldn't be any better if I waited until later in the month, so I finally found a place near downtown Decatur, between Florence and Huntsville.  They charge $25/night, so I can afford to stay there a while. 

I'd like to find a place to board the dogs while I'm there, to give them a chance to run around and be rowdy for a change.  Surprisingly, since Decatur seems like a big enough town, I had trouble finding any - and the ones I found want to communicate only by Facebook, which I refuse to use.  I'll figure it out later.