Friday, 6 December 2019
While I was walking the dogs this morning, I saw 10 Great Blue Herons flying overhead in a big V formation. One of them was squawking and almost sounded like a goose. But geese aren't as thin as these birds and don't have their long legs trailing behind. I'm sure these were herons.
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| today's route |
It's a 2-hour round trip from this area to that, and it gets dark fairly early these days, and I had to get the dogs by 2:00 so I didn't have time to go over there first and then swing by the boarding place.
Anyway, I rearranged my mind (not an easy task), came up with a modified driving route from the one I'd intended, and off Lily and I went.
Liquor store
I stopped at a liquor store to buy scotch and learned a lesson about the bizarre laws that Alabama has about liquor sales. Beer and wine are sold in grocery stores, and liquor (I learned) is sold at state-owned stores. Except the place I stopped was independently owned. Apparently Alabama allows a few of them to operate, but they pay a price for it.
The regular fifth of Johnny Walker Red that I picked out cost $59.99 and I nearly dropped it when I saw the price - about double what I've paid everywhere else. What I actually wanted was hard-to-find Teacher's scotch, so I've not liked paying much for any other brand anywhere, but this was beyond all reason. That's what I'd expect to pay for single-malt scotch.
So I asked the owner if Alabama has huge liquor taxes and he explained: yes, AL does have very high taxes but that bottle would cost a bit less at a state-owned store; he as an independent owner is required to buy his liquor from the state, and then the state adds an extra tax on his products that's not on those bought at the state stores. So customers of an independent store get taxed several times more than those of a state store.
He said he'd be glad to tell me where there were state stores, but I got mad at a system that reminded me of union-busting techniques and decided to buy it anyway. And resolved to drink mostly wine during the month of December.
I stopped to pick up the puppies, who said they were very glad to see me. I was sorry to hear they hadn't been able to play with the other dogs as I'd hoped. The owner told me they'd tried one day but Dexter went into overload, so they couldn't let him stay in the group. I'd warned her about it but should have taken more time to explain that he can do it if he's introduced to the group a bit at a time, and given several tries at it. Apparently they just gave him the one try. But at least my kids got to run around sometimes in a yard together and sniff new things, so it was a change from being mostly cooped up in a small RV all the time.
On the road
I heard on the radio that Alabama is celebrating its bicentennial in Montgomery on December 14th with lots of festivities. Two hundred years of statehood is something worth celebrating, though it sounds like they're celebrating their first entry to the Union. Which I suppose makes sense if you take the position that they didn't have any legal right to secede in the first place so never technically left. Anyway, I'm sure a great time will be had by all.
I passed Moulton - The Friendliest Little Town in Alabama. Funny because I saw online comments that said their police force is corrupt. But I suppose the townsfolk can still be friendly.
Radio stations are almost entirely country and religious in this part of the state.
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| Purple Martin |
And the bird book says they don't winter here but fly south to South America instead. It says their numbers are declining on the Pacific Coast, so I'm glad they're encouraging them on the Gulf Coast. Since the birds eat flying insects (which to me means mosquitoes), I don't know why everyone doesn't encourage them. I thought several times about putting up houses for them in our yard in Austin - we certainly had plenty of mosquitoes for them to eat.
Muscle Shoals/Sheffield
In Muscle Shoals - "Home of Fame Records - Source of the Muscle Shoals Sound" per their sign - I saw a state historical marker for Percy Sledge, who recorded his most famous song here. Here's the link to the marker with its recording studio information. https://www.hmdb.org
In Sheffield I picked up my mail. The same guy had it ready for me - said he'd seen me park outside and asked the other staff if a general delivery envelope had come in today and they'd said yes. That's not the same story those other staff told me on the phone, but I guess they didn't want to rub his nose in his mistake so I didn't say anything about it. And I got my mail, which was the point.
By this time the dogs had been waiting awhile to go for a walk, so I parked by a vacant lot downtown (Sheffield doesn't seem to be a particularly thriving town) where it looked like we could walk without bothering people. And the first thing I saw were recycling bins in that vacant lot.
I'd spent ages online this morning trying to find recycling bins anywhere in northern Alabama. I had an especially tough time because my search engine kept telling me it was giving me information on Florence, AL, when it was actually giving me Florence, SC. But the "South Carolina" was in such small print, and only on the city flag in the logo, that I didn't see it for ages and spent a really frustrating time trying to locate the roads on my Florence, AL, map that they insisted were there.
And after all that, here were perfectly good recycle bins just out in front of God and everybody. So I used them. I've got a bag of glass bottles stored in my below-decks storage bin because I'm not driving all the way to Atlanta just to dump bottles, and I'm not going to throw them away, so I'll just add to my collection until I can find some forward-thinking community.
I've been seeing several signs in the area about "The Shoals" and figured that was just a local nickname. But today I noticed a state historical marker for Elk River Shoals just outside of Florence, and I learned that there are actually 3 shoals in this area that wreaked havoc with early travel. Elk River Shoals (the Elk River flows into the Tennessee River near here), Big Muscle Shoals and Little Muscle Shoals together made passage down the Tennessee system nearly impossible. In the 1800s several canals were dug that eventually solved the problem. Then in the 1900s the TVA built dams, including the Wilson Dam where I saw the waterfall, and the backed-up water from the dam covered the shoals entirely.
The drive back
There's a town named Elgin in Alabama, just like in Texas.
I saw a church with a sign in front that said, "Give the Devil a inch and he will be your ruler." (A inch? Are Alabama schools really not any better than that?)
I saw a marmot sitting by the roadside, eating from a pile of trash someone had thrown out. It was nice to see him, because it's been quite a while since I've seen a marmot.
I passed a field of cows and one young calf was nursing as I drove by. Very sweet.
At a street corner in a tiny community I saw a tall gizmo that I'm sure is a weather warning siren. I vaguely remember hearing about tornadoes through the South last year so looked up northern Alabama and, yes, this area is at high risk for tornadoes. The state has had 64 of them so far this year, with one just last month. The normal season isn't until spring so I'm going to hope it won't be a problem this month, but in some places anyway the alarms are around to let us know.
Today I've passed some schools labeled as "middle schools" and others labeled as "intermediate schools." They appear to be the same thing, but I've never seen a state use both these words on their schools.
And back we came to the campground with our little family intact again.
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