Day 27: Visiting Montgomery

Richard described Wednesday night as the worst night for sleeping that he’s had so far on this trip.

He was awake all night long, listening to the fish jumping an owls hooting in the distance. He stepped in another fire ant hill when setting up camp - they ate up his left foot this time around. He stepped in a fire ant hill on Day 8 of the trip as well – I suppose he should watch out for ant hill from now on – what’s the saying? The third time’s a charm?!

He woke up Thursday morning at 5:55 AM and found the sky a bit cloudy, but the lake was like glass. The temperature was warmer than it had been on previous days. This was the first day on his trip that he actually worked up a sweat while paddling. During the night, the water level dropped about 8-10 inches and he was surprised to find that his kayak was now on dry land. He was on the water by 7:40 AM - he had a cup of coffee for breakfast. Soon after getting on the water, the reporter from the Channel 8 in Montgomery called him to confirm their interview.

Richard continued paddling south toward Montgomery. He paddled past a creek on the river. Unlike most creeks on the river, this one had a sign stating the name of the creek - Coosada Creek. He was delighted to see that someone had taken the initiative to document the creek’s location. River navigation would be so much more pleasurable if things were marked a bit clearly (as a paddler, I can sympathize with that!) He is still griping about the fact that there was no sign when along the Coosa River when he crossed over into Alabama from Georgia - he is threatening to call Alabama Governor Bob Riley to complain. Who knows? It may Richard’s first job for the state of Alabama.

Once in Montgomery, Richard planned to meet David, the reporter from Channel 8 at an old riverboat landing. Richard maintained a steady pace on his paddle into Montgomery. He calculated that when he is going 4.3 miles per hour, there are 767 paddle strokes per mile. I suppose he comes up with these “games” to keep himself entertained on these long trips. Before he knew it, he had arrived in Montgomery. He met up with David at their scheduled meeting place and time. David surprised Richard by asking him a question that no one had ever asked him before about these long paddling trips. David asked him “Do you ever get lonely?” Richard was surprised at the question. He does not get lonely – between the constant entertainment of the nature that he sees along the river and the interesting people he meets on these trips, he manages to stay entertained and he gets plenty of human interaction as well as plenty of time to himself. Once they were done with the interview, Richard continued paddling down river. He passed an area along the river where the city is building a river walk. Richard was impressed with the development - he thinks the city is doing a wonderful job developing the riverfront. He was surprised not to find any marinas or other businesses located along the river in the Montgomery area.

On the outskirts of Montgomery, Richard passed by a golf course along the river. He called David to inquire if the course was a private or a public course. David replied that it was a public course and that there should be a clubhouse nearby where he could replenish his water and Gatorade supply. Richard paddled past the golf course and thought of taking out near a boat ramp, but when he spotted the distance from the ramp to a building (he suspected the building was the clubhouse), he decided to paddle along the bank a bit further to get closer to the building. He pulled up his kayak along the bank and put his clean shirt on, got some money out to buy water and Gatorade and located his cell phone chargers and cell phones so he could charge them up while he was in the clubhouse. He began walking up to the building and he spotted a few men standing near the building. At first, he thought they were maintenance men, but then he soon found out that he was at Maxwell Federal Prison - a minimum-security facility located next to an Air Force Base in the area. These inmates work on the Air Force Base and the golf course he had passed was the course on the Air Force Base located next door to the prison camp. After meeting a number of the men, he found out that most were in prison for drug charges and most were in a drug rehabilitation program at the prison. A few minutes later, an employee of the facility came out and advised Richard to leave. After walking with him down to his kayak, the prison employee advised him that if the inmates would have seen his cell phones, they would have gone crazy. They have limited access to phones and all of the lines out of the facility are monitored. Richard stayed for a few minutes, talking with the prison employee and then continued paddling down river. He did take a moment to call David and tell him about the mix-up in locations. David thought he was further down river and didn’t realize that the golf course that he had passed was the one located on the Air Force base.

As he paddled toward Mobile, Richard met up with 2 fishermen - Chris and John who were fishing out of a Ranger Bass Boat. He asked them if there were any marinas on the river and they replied that there weren’t any available facilities for a long time. They did tell him that there is a boat ramp down river a few miles where he could get water. Chris and John caught up with Richard a few miles downstream as they were coming in from a day of fishing. They stopped to let him know that a storm was coming in and to give him their last bottle of water.

A few minutes after saying goodbye to Chris and John, Richard found a campsite along the bank. There he found a previous tent still set up from someone’s camping trip. He described it as a red “Ozark Trails” tent. He called out to make sure that no one was in the tent and then after setting up camp, he peeked inside to see what was in the tent. He found a candle and an outdoor/patio umbrella stashed inside the tent. He set up his tent nearby and hunkered down to ride out the storm. He had deviled ham and crackers for dinner and plans on topping his dinner off with a can of peas. His paddling day came to an end around 5:00 PM after 20 miles on the river.