Day 38: The Alabama Yellow Hammer Campers

Richard woke up on Monday morning around 5:50 AM - it was cold and foggy. He realized that he had stopped and camped on a golf course the previous evening, so he was in a hurry to pack up and leave.

He wanted to get out of there before anyone from the golf course noticed that he was camping on their property. He packed up his tent and the rest of his equipment and headed out - not even stopping to eat or drink a quick breakfast.

His plan was to stop later in the day to eat and spread out his tent and sleeping bag to dry. About a mile down river from the golf course where he’d camped the night before, he found the park he was looking for the previous evening. The park was called Bridgeport Beach and he decided to stop there to look around for a few minutes. The park was closed and there was not much to see, so he only stayed briefly before getting back into his kayak to continue his journey down the Alabama River. The sun was out and the weather was beginning to warm up.

After leaving Bridgeport Beach, he soon found the site of an old Scott paper mill - there was an old loading ramp that was closed that was situated along the riverbank. Richard stopped at the loading ramp, got out of his boat and climbed up on top of the ramp. He set his tent and sleeping bag out in the sun to dry and went for a quick run to get some additional exercise while his belongings were drying. During his stop at the old paper mill, he also had a chance to brush his teeth, shave and eat a quick breakfast - a pecan roll and a bottle of apple juice.

After his tent and sleeping bag were completely dry, he packed up his things in his kayak and continued down stream. He saw a ferry boat along the riverbank and later he met and a couple fishing on the river using a fishing box. Their names were JW and Kathleen Henson and they were from Franklinville, AL. Richard was intrigued because they were using fishing boxes to catch fish - the box is a contraption where you put cheese or some other type of bait in the box and the fish will swim in to retrieve the bait, but they cannot swim out of the box. Richard stopped and talked to JW and Kathleen for a while before continuing his paddle down river.

The river in this area is only about 100 yards wide - as he paddled down stream, he watched a yellow butterfly fly from one side of the riverbank to the other. There were a few clouds in the sky during the day. He paddled around another “horseshoe” in the river - in the morning, the wind started out blowing at his back, then moved to his side and the wind was blowing against him when he finished paddling for the day.

At the end of the day, Richard was looking for another Army Corps of Engineers park in the area - Miller’s Ferry. He stopped to ask a gentleman raking leaves in his yard if he knew where the campground was located. The gentleman, George Gordon immediately recognized Richard and commented, “You’re the guy paddling the river!” Gordon once worked as the news editor for the Thomasville, AL news. George said that he watches the news and that’s where he saw Richard’s story. He was glad to tell Richard where to find the Army Corps of Engineers campground and soon after, Richard paddled on to Miller’s Ferry campground.

The park is located on the river right near a marina. Richard was running low in chewing tobacco, so he stopped in at the marina to see if they had any chewing tobacco for sale in the store. He bought all 4 packs that the marina had in stock and a bottle of Coca Cola before continuing on to the campground. The marina was closed when he arrived, but the lady working that day opened up just to let Richard come in and buy the supplies he needed. When Richard pulled up to the marina, another person recognized him from the news - Larry Kimmel lives near Miller’s Ferry and also told Richard that he’d seen the story on the news about his trip. After visiting with Larry for a few minutes, Richard continued paddling to the park nearby and noticed that there was a pontoon boat nearby and someone was fishing for bait with a casting net. He called out to the fisherman - “Having any luck?” and he was surprised when a woman’s voice responded. Richard paddled over to the pontoon boat and met Patsy Wallace - the woman fishing with the casting net.

After saying goodbye to Patsy, he pulled into the boat ramp at Miller’s Ferry campground. He walked up to the campground office to check in. The campground hosts - Grover and Ruth Howard already knew that he would be stopping by and they told him that everything was taken care of - he just needed to pick a site and set up camp. He chose a campsite near a dock along the river and decided to paddle his kayak over to the dock so that he didn’t have to haul his gear to his site on foot. While paddling to his site, he met a fisherman who was trying to untangle one of his lures that had been caught up in a tree. The fisherman, Dwayne Newton, was staying at the campground with a group of his friends. Dwayne invited Richard to join them for dinner at his site that evening. After helping Dwayne retrieve his fishing lure, Richard continued paddling to his site, set up camp and went for a quick run around the campground to burn off some energy. After returning from his run, he met up with Dwayne and his group of friends. They wanted to know all about his trip, so he stayed for a while to visit with all of them. After talking for 2 or 3 hours, he told them that they needed to come up with a name that he could use when referring to them - they decided on the name the “Alabama Yellow Hammer Campers”. The Yellow Hammer is the state bird of Alabama. Some of the Alabama Yellow Hammer campers are from the Mobile area and hope to meet up with Richard at the end of his trip when he finally finishes his 843-mile journey in a few days.

At the end of the day, Richard had chalked off another 19 miles on his journey along the Alabama River.