Foscue Creek Park, Demopolis, AL

Foscue Creek Park, Demopolis AL

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The trip from Bankhead to Foscue was around 150 miles of nice rolling hills of clay, green grass and tall trees – nice back roads. It was surprisingly cool (maybe I should say pleasant and breezy) when we arrived at Demopolis. Foscue Creek is a Corp of Engineer Park. It is land that has been purchased by the government for water control purposes. When there is surplus land they either sell it back to the land owners or make parks and wildlife management areas. So COE parks have some type of water facility that is managed. There is a Lock & Dam here on Demopolis Lake, on the Tombigbee/ Black Warrior River. They offered a tour of the Lock on Saturday and we decided to go. I was surprised to see how many people were there. Ranger Brandon Smith was guide. He told us the water level was raised or lower about 40 feet to allow the barges and other vessels to pass down the river. There is a fixed crest dam (weir) on the river to hold back the waters to a certain level. They open two valves about 10 – 12 feet in diameter to let the water into the lock. It creates big whirlpools when their open (See Pic). A big barge was just arriving when we got there so we were able to watch the whole process in action. The lock is 110 feet wide by 610 feet long (the barge was 105’ by 600’). The weir is about 1100 feet in length. Thumbs up to the Captain, he didn’t even bump the side. They opened the gates and let in 21 million gallons of water in about 12 minutes. It raised the barge to the level of the other end of the lake to enable the barge to pass thru.

We are camped close to the water and have a nice breeze most of the day. It is cool in the mornings and we have walked on a few of the park’s trails. We ate at the “Farm House Restaurant” the first night here – it was a seafood buffet, every thing we ate was delicious! But we passed on the frog legs. They had peach cobbler for dessert – they could give Paula Deen a run for her money! It was some of the best southern cooking we’ve had so far.

Today we went to the “Foscue House”. It’s an old homestead turned into a local restaurant. (See pics) The house was built in 1840 and with the exception of the front porch added in 1900 and electricity the house has remained the same. Mr. Foscue had the date put in the design of the bricks on one of the exterior fireplace walls. Upon entering the first things we noticed was the creaking wood floors, ten foot ceilings and wide baseboards. They left the interior walls and even the original house front windows inside. The upstairs was closed to the public, per our waitress and restaurant manager, because the owner only leased them the first floor. She told us to make sure we went out back and looked at the original barn. She said it had square nails. It was a very friendly casual place, there were children playing out back as their parents ate and visited inside and we also saw several fellow campers from the campground.

Oh, we found a new meaning for “fork in the road”. See what we discovered embedded in the asphalt road at the park (See pic)! **** John, if you ever revert back to your vagabond ways, maybe you can try to find the fork in the road! Be sure to take a picture to validate the authenticity of your picture! Ha Ha