Day 17, July 20-Linden, AL to Coffeeville, AL (Park Service Campground)

59.76 miles. N31.45 X W88.09.

Breakfast at Church’s Chicken and on the road by 7:45. We biked 20 miles to our only service stop of the day until our destination town of Coffeeville. We had a BBQ sandwich and a Gatorade and were on our way. We had 36 miles to go and they were a rough 36. We haven’t seen hills like this since Tennessee. Granny was used consistently today after she had been asleep for some time. With about 6 miles to go, we were both pretty well beaten. We stopped under some shade trees with houses on both sides of the road. We sipped at the hot water in our bottles trying to get the motivation to continue…enter Roy Pervus. Roy lived in the house to left. He came out and asked if he could get us some water. We told him we had water but it was pretty hot. He practically ran back into his house and came out with 3 ice-cold bottles of water. Nothing, and I mean nothing, ever tasted so good to me! It gave us the motivation to continue on to Sally’s Dairy Bar for supper. From there we biked another 4 miles to the Park Service Campground. We secured a site, but noticed dark clouds on the horizon. We set up the tent quickly and got the camp ready for a possible storm. We were located on a point right above the Tombigbee River. I did a load of laundry and both of us were still in the small laundry room when the storm hit. It was quite a storm. As we stood and watched, a tree blew down shattering the sunroof of a car in one site across the street from the laundry. In another, a limb broke the side window of car. We finished up the laundry and hurried back to our campsite to see if our tent was still standing. It was fine and had not even taken on any water. It rained until after midnight as we sweltered inside the tent, but when the rain stopped, the air was cooler and we were able to sleep fairly comfortably for the remainder of the night.

Question of the day: For the first time since we have started the trip, we are now seeing a parasite on some of the trees around here. I have taken a couple of pictures of this parasite. What is its name?