End of the Tombigee and the Beautiful Black Warrior River - Very nice side trip

 At the end of the Tombigbee there is a section with the most beautiful high white cliffs.  It is called Epes and is at the 248 mile marker.  Here are some of the pictures from the area.  As you can see these are very high and breathtaking.

As you can see from the size of this railroad bridge, these cliffs are huge.

The water was very calm, but the wake of our boat made a lovely pattern on the water.

This was a bonus to our day.  After we had known by our charts and information that the Epes was on our way.  These cliffs were a total surprise, but just as gorgeous as the first ones.

Check out the size of the boulder, it is as big as a car!

We decided to take a side trip up the Black Warrior River.  It was a pleasant and scenic side trip.  There was not much written as a resource for us and not as many spots to anchor as we would like, but it was definitely worth the extra week we took to go up and back.  As you can see from the picture of our chart plotter.  It was a snake of a river.  It had a lot of bends and twists to it.  It was especially exciting if you met a tow with barges on the bends of the river.

Here are some of the high banks along the Black Warrior.

This was another interesting railroad bridge.  It was up and easy to clear on the way up the Black Warrior, but as you can see, we had to call the bridge tender when we returned.  That was quite a surprise when we headed around the bend.  The boat in the picture is our friends, Woody and Judy from Maine. 

Another new experience was this lock on the Black Warrior.  We shared the lock with the tow and barge.  This is rarely done as they separate the pleasure boaters from the commercial traffic.  We think they did this in part because they have had not had hardly any rain so there may be a shortage of water.  It takes millions of gallons to fill and/or empty a lock chamber.

This next picture is the steamer on the river.  Note the name is the BAMA Belle.  We are definitely in Alabama Country.  This is on the river at the campus of the University of Alabama.  There is a big game this weekend between Alabama and Ole Miss.  Wow, that is all a lot of folks talk about.  Needless to say this is football country and there are many, many, BAMA fans.

 Well one more side note.  Here are a couple of pictures of the water hyacinth.  it is a fascinating water plant.  We saw many of these on the Black Warrior.  It has lilac bloom that only last a day.  There are 6" spikes that have glossy green leaves that are bulbous.  Air pockets in the bulbous areas keep the plant afloat.  Black roots have feathery fingers on them.  Amazing.