April 4-6, Open Pond campground , Alabama

It was a cool rainy day, so we drove to Alabama. The AAA book says about Alabama-“The Deep South doesn’t get any deeper than Alabama. This is where cotton was king, where the Confederacy was born and where Jefferson Davis’s birthday is still a holiday.” With antebellum homes, moss-draped oaks and Civil War monuments, charming covered bridges, sugar-sand beaches , civil rights movements and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

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Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama, the beautiful. We drove through Dothan, which is the Peanut Capital of the World, with many peanut statues around town. Then to Enterprise which has the Boll Weevil monument. Boll Weevil Inn, Boll Weevil Donuts. The monument is in the middle of main street with a fountain around it. It is a woman holding a boll weevil above her head. In the early 1900’s the boll weevil decimated the cotton crops in the south which was the  cash crop at the time. In Enterprise they planted peanuts.The transition to diversified farming was so successful that the town is credited with playing a significant role in the agricultural revolution of the south.The inscription of the statue reads,”In profound appreciation of the Boll Weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity”

We are now camped at Open Pond campground  in Conecuh national forest. Here is out campsite with flowers in the front yard. We are right on the pond-really a lake. The cypress trees in the lake have their needles. We are so used to seeing them in the winter with no needles. 

We went into the closest town Andalusia. It was a textile town with the Alatex shirt company as the main business into the 70’s. This is the worlds largest shirt statue in front of the old company headquarters.  Welcome to Andalusia, the heart of southern Alabama. Two murals in town, one of the shirt factory and one of the World championship Domino tournament.  Historic downtown has a restored Clark Theater and a grand court house. This are is right in the heart of long leaf pine country. I use the long leaves in my baskets. I got two pamphlets about them and this is a book about the Longleaf. There were pure long leaf forests in the south and east before it was all logged. This area is the largest area of old growth long leafs left. These publications are about the efforts to restore the forests. 

This afternoon we hiked a 5 mile loop, which ended up being 7 to  Blue Spring. We passed Buck Pond with a beaver lodge. Blue spring is a small spring and it was blue where the white sand showed in the middle. 

Golden banner and wild azaleas. This is also a large  area of pitcher plants and carnivorous plants. We saw these white topped pitcher plants today. To restore the long leaf habitat they burn the undergrowth periodically so as it was when there were big forests here. It keeps the undergrowth down and the seedlings get the needed sunlight to grow. The reason the long leaf has such long needles is to make it fire resistant. The long needles  on  the seedlings burn, protecting the trunk and it re grows  needles on the top.

The lake was mirror smooth when we returned. The trees reflected at the end of the lake and sunset.

Today we went to Crawford Bog to see the carnivorous plants. Carnivorous plants are more conspicuous and diverse in the pitcher plant bogs of the Southeast than anywhere else in the world. Conecuh National Forest (where we are) is known to harbor 23 species. Including 4 sundews,4 butterworts, 10 bladderworts and 5 pitcher plants. These are white topped pitcher plants.  Later in the year they will be taller- up to 30 inches high.

We went to see them because  this time of year  they are blooming.  The blooms are not on the pitcher, but on a separate stem next to them. These red blooms, about 2-3 inches across are from the white topped pitchers. The yellow ones are from the yellow pitcher. The yellows are the biggest pitchers, up to 34 inches tall. It was amazing because we didn’t know there were this many kinds of carnivorous pitchers, and did not know they bloom. 

I don’t know the pink ones, but they could be  carnivorous, the white flower is on a bush. The middle one is a green dew thread. They grow in clumps like grass and  have  sticky hairs that trap insects and they digest them. They can be up to 15 inches tall.  purple violet and a yellow flower. Afterwards we went to Blue pond which is a spring fed lake.  John on the steps into the lake’s swimming area. The water is turquoise blue. It was cloudy by late afternoon. I am sure it is more blue when it is sunny. 

When we got back the lake was so smooth I paddled around in it for awhile.  This is a view of the campground, we are in the far left end spot. It was still cloudy, so no sunset colors tonight.