Still Headed North on the Tombigbee River

Locks and More Locks

In the next couple of days we are scheduled to pass through about ten locks.  The first one we came to was the Howell-Heflin Lock at mile marker 266.  This was Eric's first locking through experience and Mitchell got a chance to show off his skills to his dad.  The two of 'em went out on deck to hold the ropes and Mitchell did it all, including telling the "Old Man" what was what and what not to do.  Boy, they can be bossy at that age.  Eric took it in stride and Mitchell was grinning from ear to ear.  

Eric learns how to lock from Mitchell

The name "Tombigbee" came from two Indian words.  The Choctaw Indians called the river "Itomba Igaby", roughly translated as box or coffin maker.  The initial "I" on each word was not emphasized in the Choctaw dialect, hence the French settlers called it "Tombeckbee".

The lock system, built and maintained by the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers, is amazing.  It is their largest ever building project.  It is over five times longer than the Panama Canal.  The total lift on the Tenn-Tom is 341 feet from one end to the other and that is three and a half times more than the Panama Canal.  It stretches 234 miles from Demopolis to Yellow Creek.

Some of these locks are pretty big

Our next night's stop was at Pirates Marina Cove at Pickensville, AL.  It seems that I have seen or heard of a Pirates Cove Marina, might have even stayed in it.  At any rate, it was another blistering hot day and we decided to stay in a marina so we could run our air conditioners on their power.  They had a nice little front porch.  Just my kind of place, not so fancy, but didn't look like it was quite ready to fall down on you.  I met a few of the locals, told a few lies and had a bunch more told to me.  So you can see that I was right in my element.  And let me tell you how much of this country is heavy ''Bible Thumping" territory... where a man can't buy a drink, but you could get smacked long-side-the-head with a Bible, if you weren't careful.

Didn't find one single alligator to show Eric. We must finally be too far north for those critters.  However, the farther north we come, the cooler and clearer the water. That is, if you consider eighty degree water cool.  Which causes one of my random thoughts to come to mind.  All my life, growing up, I heard stories about "Skinny Dippin'".  Now, I was no shrinking violet and would have gladly taken part in those kinds of festivities.  But I never was invited.  In fact, I didn't even know anyone that had partaken.  Butcha' have to remember that I grew up in California, in an area where just a few minutes before, the water in those streams and lakes had been snow,  even in the summer. And earlier on, I lived beside Monterey Bay where one can get hypothermic in a matter of seconds. So skinny dippin' wouldn't have been very enjoyable.  Now having moved to the south,  I know where all that skinny dippin' was takin' place.  It was right here, boys and girls, and I missed it!  Oh, sorry, I just have these thoughts from time to time, can't help myself.

Back to our day...  Just before we got to Pirates Marina Cove, we stopped at the Tom Bevill Visitor Center.  Here, the Army Corp. of Engineers has built a visitors center that is done up right.  They built an antebellum style mansion (Greek Architecture) that became popular in the south just before the War of Northern Aggression.  They use the mansion to house their displays about the Tenn-Tom, its building, maintenance and general information up to and including wildlife displays.

Army Corp. "Snag Boat"

Also, moored at this facility is the U.S. Snagboat Montgomery.  Built in about 1926  (the year my Mom was born) and used until 1982. (I'm still enjoying my Mom).  It now serves as a museum honoring the efforts of man and machine clearing the trees and snags from the water way.  It was originally coal fired and later was converted to run its boilers on oil.  It is a paddle wheel design just as the many boats that commercially plied the water-way  in that era.  We learned that the average 8 barge tow can move as much freight as 120 rail cars or 480 tractor trailer trucks.  A barge can move a ton of freight twice as far as a train and 6 times as far as a tractor-trailer truck on the same amount of fuel. This was some pretty great home school stuff for the boys and interesting to the dads, too.        

TVA built this Antebellum replica for their museum