Tabbies favorite float

Float on the river, part of Christmas on the River celebration.

The "private" bar and the courtesy car.

Draw Bridge

Day 42

Well today is the Big BBQ cook off. It is part of Demopolis’ Christmas on the River celebration, which is a weeklong choke full of festivities. Chefs from all over the state and supposedly the country gather in Demopolis Alabama to compete for the title of Grand Champion. It was a pretty big deal to this town. Everywhere we went people were talking about it. We spent part of the day biking in town and at the library. (Internet access, since we have absolutely none) Then the rest of the day we cleaned and Grant started to refinish his bench with his handy sander. We had a couple of drinks because we didn’t want to spend too much money at the BBQ on beer. So after a few cocktails we walked to the park, which about 3 blocks away. There was an admission fee of 5 dollars apiece, and then you were supposed to walk around to the various booths. The only problem was that we didn’t know anyone and each booth was like it’s own private party. Some even had signs stating “Private party” or “Invitation Only”. So we decided to find a booth selling Miller Lite, since all we saw was Bud Light and low and behold we see our Hillbilly friend from the other night at the Marina Bar. It was Randall! Grant previously had called him Randolph, but it was really Randall. Randall showed us a great deal of Southern Hospitality. Not only did he feed us the different foods from each booth, ranging from Chili, to pulled pork and wonderful bacon wrapped dove meat, but he also fed us a continuous stream of FREE beer all night. And man can he drink. Each time he went to get himself a beer, he also got each one of us a beer. Grant was able to keep up with him for the most part, however Tabbie had to stuff some of the beers in her coat pockets and then even give away some. At one point Tabbie even had to walk home and take an hour and a half nap. Randall was also getting us into all of the private parties. One tent had a band, which consisted of the local town radio announcer and some other gentleman of grand stature. SO you could say we were in the “in” crowd. The local folk were getting a kick out of our accents and taking plenty of our pictures. There was even one lady there who had her little lap dog, not sure what kind it was, but no bigger than 3 pounds. The female she had was going to have babies, so she gave Tabbie her number. Grant may let Tabbie get a dog when we settle since we can’t have cats due to allergies. The puppies won’t be ready until 7-8 weeks after they are born, which may be perfect timing. If not, that is ok too.

Earlier in the day, we had been talking about the possibility of staying in Demopolis for an extended period of time. We have come to enjoy the sleepy little town and the Marina was a nice place to stay. So we came upon the topic with a few of the locals about our need for a job. Tabbie was offered a job as a cement salesperson and Grant was offered a job roofing houses for cash. Albeit everyone at this BBQ was pretty much drunk, including us, we were excited about employment opportunities. After the party began to wind down, which was around 2am, we were invited with another gentleman by the name of Wayne to this bar called Hoots. This is a private bar, which requires membership to gain access. Therefore, it can stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It can sell liquor basically whenever it wants. And membership costs a whole 2 dollars. This is Alabama’s way of getting around bar close and the horrible “no sale” on Sunday rule. We didn’t even have to pay for our membership when we got there because Wayne was allowed through the line before anyone else without even so much as an ID check. And because we were with him, so were we. What is this? Redneck New York? Anyway, the moment we walked in he got us some beers and immediately looked for a pool table. This bar was packed. There were people everywhere, mostly young adults in their 20’s. We also say a bartender we knew from the Marina bar there. We knew that we didn’t want to stick around for long so Grant asked him for a ride home, and he of course said sure, but he wasn’t leaving until bar close. Come to find out later, that the bar decided to close that night at 5am. We almost couldn’t handle it anymore and decided to walk the 3 miles home, but Tabbie decided to ask a nice looking young fellow if he could give us a ride. He was very nice and said yes, but that his friend was driving. After everyone was gathered, they dropped us off at the Marina at about 3:30, and were very excited to meet someone who owned a yacht. We couldn’t wait to get to bed. People in Alabama party like rock stars.

Grant with Randolph (Randall) local hillbilly

Grant hard at work with his handy sander.

Ugly float boat

The floats

Day 41

Today was another lazy day. It looks like we are going to be here through the weekend. Grant heard Jim (Boat=Trust Me) say that he was looking to leave on Monday and I think that we are going to try and follow his lead. We might even try and travel with him. Tabbie went into town again today and spent some time at the library. Grant hung around the boat until the afternoon. Then we both went into town to do some grocery shopping and the usual Wal-mart run. We are going to be looking at getting to Pensacola within the next week or two. Christmas is drawing near and we are not sure about when and if we are going to be home. It was a nice day today, partly cloudy with a very cold wind, but no rain. Tomorrow should be the same.

Day 40

Today was another lazy day. It looks like we are going to be here through the weekend. Grant heard Jim (Boat=Trust Me) say that he was looking to leave on Monday and I think that we are going to try and follow his lead. We might even try and travel with him. Tabbie went into town again today and spent some time at the library. Grant hung around the boat until the afternoon. Then we both went into town to do some grocery shopping and the usual Wal-mart run. We are going to be looking at getting to Pensacola within the next week or two. Christmas is drawing near and we are not sure about when and if we are going to be home. It was a nice day today, partly cloudy with a very cold wind, but no rain. Tomorrow should be the same.

The quilt is done.

Day 39

Well, we are 40 days on the river so far. Today was supposed to be a beautiful day, and it was sunny skies and about 60 degrees. Tabbie got us invited to a dinner party at the marina restaurant with some of the other transient boaters (both of the ones we anchored out with a few nights ago, and one other). Something to look forward to!

The marina we are staying at also has services to fuel Tow boats (Barges). While Tabbie was out yesterday on her bike ride, Grant struck a conversation up with the dock master, and was able to persuade them to allow us to take a tour of a Tow boat once a good one came in for fuel. Today, one just happened to be there, and we got the invite! One of the crew took us around to see the engine room, the kitchen, the sleeping quarters, and the bridge. Tabbie was very impressed with the kitchen, and we found out that there is usually between 6 and 8 people on board at any given time, and they rotate the cooking duties… The crew is 20 days on, 10 days off, and this particular boat hauls coal between Mobile and Birmingham. During the pit stop the Tow took on 25,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and 650 gallons of lubricating oil alone! The propellers on this boat are 8 feet 6 inches in diameter!

The boat needed a pump out so we had to go over to the gas dock to get this done, and on the way back to the slip, Grant decided he was ready to try and back the boat in! Oh, boy, here we go! Fortunately a few others saw what we were trying to do, and came over to help out. All in all, it wasn’t a bad attempt, and we had it backed in. With a little more practice, Grant should have it down no problem!! (We hope!)

Grant then decided it would be good to start sanding… He bought a new toy (Black & Decker hand sander) a couple weeks ago, and went to work on fixing the damaged trim that the TV caused when it fell. After that, he wasn’t done with the sander, so he started striping the bench to get it ready to varnish.

We went to dinner with the three other transient boats at 6:30, and had a great meal and conversation with some folks that have done the great loop, and others that have ventured along both the West and East coasts. Well, I guess we are the rookies!! Grant learned a few more pointers about anchoring out, and some more hints about the gulf coast. Tabbie had a nice chat with the ladies who gave her some good pointers on how to keep things tied down in the boat, the locations of some nice quaint shopping areas, and restaurants that we want to make sure we don’t miss. These ladies also passed out their “cards” with a picture of their boat, website and email addresses. Everyone seems to have their own website. Shelly, who is on the boat Trust Me with Jim, has endless amounts of great information. She and her husband make this trip every year and actually go all the way to the Bahamas. They have a beautiful boat complete with wood floors, wicker furniture and a washer and dryer. I hope to get a complete tour of the boat, but from what I saw, it was the most beautiful boat I have seen so far! Maybe one day……

Fire Station

The Robertson Bank-cornerstone of Demopolis

Yet another... Demoplis is full of them.

My favorite one. And one of the oldest.

Demopolis City Hall built in 1820

Another beautiful church, I think that this one was a Methodist.

Another Baptist church (one block away from the other)

Beautiful Baptist Church

The fountain

Confederate Dead memorial in the middle of the street.

See the sign? It says Expect a Miracle.

Yet another church for sale....

However, it must not light many fires, because it is for sale.....

Day 38

We woke up late and decided to make it a lazy day… We found out the river was dropping about 1 inch per hour, but the forecast was calling for more rain… Grant went for a run around 11:00, and Tabbie decided to take a bike into town to do a little exploring… While Tabbie was gone, Grant did the laundry and cleaned up. The rain started just after Tabbie got back and Grant finished with the laundry. Rain, Rain, Rain…

This week is “Christmas Week” in Demopolis, and there is something going on in town every night. Tonight the Alabama Symphony Orchestra is having a Christmas concert at one of the local churches. We arranged to get the courtesy car for and drove into town to watch the concert. It was a great show, and now both Grant and Tabbie are in the Christmas spirit!

Church "Aflame"

Gold fish in the fountain

I got a tour on this tow boat thanks to Grant!

Posing on the Tow boat!

Day 37

Well, we were the first up at the crack of dawn to get an early start, however there was significant fog, and the temperature was in the 30’s so we decided it best to wait until the sun was able to warm things up. Apparently however the other two boats in the anchorage with us were a little more sophisticated and were able to leave under GPS through the fog (although I’m not sure how they were able to spot the debris in the river!)… We left at 8:30, and all in all it was smooth sailing as long as we watched carefully for the debris. We encountered more barges today than any other day on the Ten-Tom. Grant is getting pretty good at the radio, so we had no problems passing them… We had one mishap today on the river. We were passed by another pleasure craft around 11:00 who was very inconsiderate. The idiot flew buy us going about 20 mph (a lot for a crusier) and was only 20 feet away! Grant had slowed down for him, but he did not return the favor, and there was no time to react to his wake, which we took sideways. During the entire 1,200 miles we have traveled, we have not come close to rocking the boat so drastically. Everything fell off the table, and the TV crashed 6 feet to the basement floor causing it to damage the wood trim on the boat, and crack the casing on the TV. (Somehow the TV still works!). Grant is hoping the boat is at the marina we are going to so he can have a few words with them…

We arrived in Demopolis about 1:00, and were lucky, because we got the last slip… Both of the other boats we anchored with were already there, including another boat we had seen a couple of days ago. In speaking with the dock master, we found out that the river south of the Demopolis Dam was 40 feet above normal stage level!! They predicted we would be here for a week waiting for the water to go down enough to travel… What is there to do in Demopolis you ask?? Well, good question, we’ll get to that later on….

We ended up slipped right next to “Trust Me” (one of the boats we anchored with). They are a retired couple from Oklahoma that has done extensive traveling on the boat, usually ending up in the Bahamas for winter. Grant hit it off right away with Jim to help him fix the outboard motor on his dingy, and Tabbie made friends with Shelly and the cats! There plan was not to stay all that long in Demopolis, but due to the water are going to play it safe and stick around a few days… I think we will listen to experience, and hold out until it is safer to move…

We biked into town to stop at the Library to check emails and such, and then poked around town for a bit, wanting to get back to the marina to watch the Monday night Packer game! We got back to the marina and found the bar/restaurant with a big screen… This is were we met Randolph and Jerry… Talk about true southerners. Jerry moved to Demopolis 30 years ago from New York, apparently as part of the witness protection program. Randolph has lived here all his life and used to be a professional cockfight gambler! They spoke with the strongest southern brawl we have ever heard… They had some “unique” stories to tell, and so we tried to avoid them by sitting at a table to watch the game… Unfortunately we were the only others in the bar and so they kept trying to talk to us. Jerry “proudly” displayed his swastika tattoo on his arm, and Randolph kept talking about how you shouldn’t mess with a southerner who has a belt buckle as big as his… OK, time to leave…

Fortunately the game was also on in the marina lounge and it ended up another Packer fan was staying at the marina. He was from Shanno, WI, and Grant immediately struck up a conversation with him… We got some good information on navigation through the gulf from him, and the “do’s and don’ts” of gulf travels…

More debris

This was the debris in front of the lock

Day 36

Well today is the day. We finally get to leave. The river is still running pretty quick, but the forecast calls for rain again on Monday night and into next week so it is now or never. We woke up early today at 5:30 just so that we could try and make it into Demopolis but after a call into the next lock, it sounds like the lock is full of debris. So we are going to wait until about 12noon to leave. At 10:00 we make another call to the lockmaster and find out that he has locked down a few other pleasure craft this morning, so we decide to leave. He says that the chamber is clear, however there is about 125 feet of debris in front of the lock that we have to plow through. This could be interesting. It ended up being mostly hycianith and grass from the swampland that accompanies the river, but there were a few logs and stumps scattered throughout it. We pushed our way thru, taking half of it with us into the lock and tired up against the wall.

The rest of the day was spent dodging large patches of grass and weed, logs and stumps. Sometimes there were patches so large that it looked like a putting green floating down the river! Because of our late start, we had to anchor out and decided to look for an anchorage suggested in one of the guidebooks. It was near an access ramp built by the army corps of engineers and promised to be a quiet secluded spot. We did end up finding it, but two other boats were already occupying it. One was named Yum Yum, a catamaran and the other Trust Me, a large 49 foot DeFever boat. Because there were two bay areas, each occupied by one of the boats, Grant decided to pull in close to the shore by the catamaran. However, after dropping anchor, this lovely boat owner decides to bellar out to us that we were in his “swing”. So we decide to pull into the other bay area, in front of the other boat. Grant was a little nervous about how close to shore we were, but there was absolutely no wind at this point and Grant put out all three anchors just to be sure…

Today is our 2-month anniversary, so Tabbie made a dinner of steak and rice and we hunkered down early to get an early start in the morning. Grant would like to beat these other boats out of here because it looks like there is only limited transient docking at the Demopolis marina and that is our last marina until Mobile. We don’t want to have to turn around and go back to a marina or anchorage spot!