Turtle Tracks
In the fall of 2005, my sister Peggy bought a 1985 Toyota Dolphin RV from her son in Seaside, CA, and in late October Peggy, our friend Carol C, and I flew out to California to drive the vintage RV the three thousand miles from the west coast to north Alabama. 
Actually, Carol C (later dubbed Sister Caroline) drove the RV, I navigated, and Peggy was “crawl and fetch it.” And that trip, dear readers, is another story--soon to be told (in installments, of course).
For the past two years the Turtle, as my sister christened the little RV, has been sitting in her driveway patiently awaiting another excursion. A trip down to Panama City in a tornado last January so traumatized my sister that she has since been reluctant to travel more than a hundred miles from home.
Therefore, when the opportunity arrived for us to visit friends in nearby Marion County, we (Peg, Carol F--another Carol, and I) cranked up the Turtle and took to the open road. Now Marion County's most distinguishing characteristic is geographical. It is the watershed for the Tombigbee River and has an abundance of creeks and rivers such as the charming Buttahatchee (photo courtesy of Stephen Preuninger) and portions of the Bear Creek reservoir. 
Marion County also has the distinction of being situated right next to the Free State of Winston and is not too far from Tupelo, MS, birthplace of Elvis Presley, stopping off point on the Natchez Trace, and home to some of the best Greek/Italian food (served with turnip greens and cornbread if you wish) in the south.
So off we went with my new GPS device attached to the windshield of the Turtle. However, we soon became aware that Lydia Too (my friend Suzanne named her GPS device Lydia) was not happy with the route we had chosen. After chastising us for failing to follow her directions, she would mutter "recalculating" and present us with another route--which we would also reject. The good news was that we were already familiar with the best route to Florence and Russellville. The bad news was that after Russellville we were out of our league.
It is hard to believe that someone who navigated across the United States from Seaside, California, to Athens, Alabama, could get lost in a county the size of postage stamp, but there is a vast difference between well-marked interstates and blue highways. In no time at all, we were lost in Hackleburg, Alabama. Now Hackleburg only has two main roads, but somehow we missed our turn and were going in the wrong direction.
Lydia Too, who had become accustomed to being ignored, was pressed into service. Trusting to her judgment we allowed ourselves to be led through woods resembling those in Deliverance along roads too narrow for two cars to pass. Just as we were about to panic, we saw the light of day and the highway we had been seeking. We were less than twenty minutes from our friends' home.
Upon our arrival we were greeted enthusiastically by Carla's and Woodfin’s three large dogs—adorable Bilbo Baggins (ironically as big as a small pony), neurotic Portnoy, and eccentric Zora Neale Hurston—and Woodfin’s young daughter Maggie. We had just enough time to sit down to a scrumptious lunch of Whitt’s BBQ chicken, Carla’s fabulous mashed potatoes, cold cantaloupe, and homegrown tomatoes before driving over to see Alabama's most famous folk potter, Jerry Brown. 
Since it was a dry and sunny Saturday, Jerry was in the field harvesting hay, but his wife showed us around the shop. Jerry Brown is renowned for using the clay that he digs himself from local clay pits and for using his mule Blue to turn the ancient wheel. Blue is not in this picture because he was seeking shade in the adjoining pasture.
Seeing where Jerry threw and fired the pots made our purchases even more special. In addition to practical and useful pieces of pottery he creates, Jerry Brown's signature pieces are "face" vases. 
These are collectors items and are naturally far pricier than his traditional pottery bowls and pitchers.
By mid-afternoon we had succumbed to the heat and were looking forward to a couple of hours in the refreshing Buttachattchee Creek which we reached by driving our hosts’ cars through a grassy pasture for what seemed like a mile. The destination was worth the trip. Cool, clean, shady and pleasantly deep in places, the Buttahatchee Creek was the perfect place to spend a sweltering summer afternoon.
After a picnic supper on our hosts' porch, we sat outside until dark looking out over the bucolic countryside, listening to the bob-whites calling to one another and hearing a rare and unexpected sound: the cry of a peacock. I never hear the cry of a peacock without thinking of Flannery O'Conner, who raised peacocks on her farm in Georgia, and Wallace Steven's poem “Dominion of Black.”
On Sunday morning, following a hearty country breakfast, we headed back home to Elk River---with just a little help from Lydia Too. But we vowed to return to northwest Alabama. There was so much left unseen: Natural Bridge, the Dismals, caverns, and more rivers and creeks in the watershed---not to mention Vanelli’s, that fabulous Greek and Italian restaurant across the Mississippi line that serves turnip greens and cornbread and has a killer wine list.
---Penne J. Laubenthal
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