A stroll In the Countryside

Wednesday, May 14

Demopolis to Eutaw, AL

59 Miles ~ Total Miles 295

The TennTom Waterway

The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway was opened on December 12, 1984, after 12 years of consruction. It is a navigation link between the eastern Gulf of Mexico and mid-America - running from Florence, AL to Demopolis, AL. To learn more you may go to www.tenntom.org.

Additional Flora and Fauna:

Pigs in a pen with ...

Donkeys

Purple straw flowers

Honeysuckle

Short day today - only 59 miles. It was as if we were given the option of riding to lunch and no further,  except that at that point we were actually done fo

r the day rather than eating lunch along the road. Eutaw, Alabama! The town was cute. A step back in time as so many of the small towns we have visited during many of our rides. A large group of women stopped at a restaurant for bar-b-que. Holly, Mary (Mary Callesen was one of the 19 who rode the Southern Tier with us in 1998) and I went to a less glamorous place - Piggly Wiggly - and bought ice cream for a snack. We stopped at one of the many old buildings in Eutaw thinking it was the visitor's center. Here is a photo of the inside - original books from when it was the Property Assessor's Office. Fun to touch the past - always fun. 

Our hotel, America's Best, was not. Mary and Sandra changed rooms four times before they finally stayed put. These changes were not because they were asking for anything special - hot water, air conditioning that blew cool, etc. Laurie had told us at the map meeting to lower our expectations in order to not be disappointed. It worked. We were happy with fresh paint - even if it was only on one or two of the walls in our room, and new carpeting. Our a/c blew warm - but was soon replaced with one that blew cold, along with the faint scent of cigarette smoke. 

By the time dinner was ready it was pouring down rain - which continued into the morning (see my earlier post on the next day's ride). We sidled along the edge of the motel to avoid the rain as we went for our food. Some of us ate outside, others (including Holly and myself) ate in our rooms. This is one of the wonders of these rides. We just go with the flow and do what we need to do in order to get done what needs to be accomplished. After dinner, we set Willie for 4:45, put our gear out for the next day's ride (the one that never happened) and headed to bed.