Georgia on my…Magnus? Day 3

Friday, February 13

Leaving Askew Landing:

We had a lovely boring drive. Jackson sucked—it was very rough going through there—but it didn't last long.  Then I made a note, “Getting awful hilly here at Meridian,  Mississippi.” I’m not sure why but I suspect I thought that Mississippi was universally flat.

We arrived at Forkland Campground (see review below.) I jogged for 45 minutes but stopped in the middle to walk a trail.  It was supposed to be .7 mile but there were at least 11 benches along the route. So does that mean there was a bench every 1/20 of a mile?  I don’t know, but it was nice. There were lots of offshoots, too, that I may get to take.

Birds seen: Kingfisher. Hermit thrush, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Pileated Woodpecker; butterbutts, chickadees. Some species of cormorant. Blue birds, titmice--do titmice sound different all over the place?!?  It sure seems like they do. Yellow-bellied sapsucker.
Barred owl on the ground--so cool. I apologized much for disturbing its hunting.
Pelicans, at least 45 or 50. Heading vaguely north.

I finished the day with an awesome star and planet display. I say a shooting star!

Review: Forkland Campground

One of the nicest little COE campgrounds I’ve ever seen

The place was smallish but very nice. The gate wasn’t manned (it was February) but a quick call to  the host on duty got me my paperwork and I was all set. There were no issues with checking in early at 2pm; the official check-in was 4pm but the website indicated you were allowed to check in early if your site was empty. Which is not true of all COE parks.

But on a Friday in February, Forkland was nearly empty. The row of sites we were in ran alongside the river (lake?), but there was another loop of sites away from the lake. There were a few campers grouped up near the front, where there were more pull-thru sites, and about six in the back-in sites near us. Some of the back-in sites were extremely long—room for an RV, a vehicle, and even a boat or two. Ours was plenty long for the 35’ motorhome and toad. We only unhooked because it was back-in and we were planning to go out to eat.

The pad was concrete; the living area fine pea gravel. Large  picnic table.  All very nice and surprisingly tidy.  Which is unusual for a COE park; even the boat ramp area was clean. Our utilities—water and 50-amp electricity---worked fine. The dump station on the way out was easy to use.  And the bathroom was immaculate—cleaner than mine at home.

Our site 177 backed up to the lake and had a decent view of it through the trees. That might not be true in the summer, though. Some of the others sites had more clear space on the lake side. In particular sites 11 and 20 were great. We had an easy walk down the steep bank to the lake; a few of the other sites had staircases in varying states of repair. A person could tie up their boat down there and camp on the hill overlooking it.

There was even a small group of walking trails by the entrance gate.  My dog and I walked about a mile on various trails. Since the park is small, that may be all there is, so don’t go there for major hiking adventures.  But it was enough for us.

 We ate at River City Soul in Demopolis. The steak and fried catfish were as good as everybody says; the bread was nice; but the side dishes were atrocious. The wait time for our food to come was really long--25 minutes, maybe. I was thinking there might have been some side dishes that weren’t on the online menu, like black-eye peas or greens or such, but no. I wished we’d chosen The Red Barn instead; there were a whole lot of cars there when we went by. Oh, well.