Day 167 Demopolis

Morning was cold and clear as we drank coffee watching 9 Loopers leave the marina to head south. Then we got a text from El Nido asking if we could get the courtesy car to come pick him up from the ER. We were a little befuddled since he had joined us for dinner last night and we had deposited him at his boat afterwards.  Well, it turns out Bob had a kidney stone and an ambulance took him to the hospital at 2am. It passed and he was fine, but Demopolis does not have a taxi service so he had no way to get back to his boat. The marina owner generously offered his truck to us so we could go pick him up. The first pic is The Red Barn, which is where we ate - a very rustic, popular restaurant. There are a lot of local fish farms so my catfish sandwich was delicious as was John's trout. Later in the afternoon, we walked to and around town. It's a beautiful old village, but 80% of the store fronts are vacant. Demopolis, which means "city of the people", started out in the 1800's as a hub of river traffic and got quite a reputation as a bawdy town - lots of taverns and no churches. During the Civil War, it thrived with encampments, warehouses and hospitals. The second photo is one of the antebellum homes we passed. After the loss of the Confederacy, the retail, theater, and banking business blossomed here. The last pic is one of the city's three historic theaters, Si-Non Theater, where the likes of Harry Houdini performed. But something happened in the mid to late 1900's. Could have been the demise of cotton in this area, the interstate passed them by, Walmart moved the retail trade to the nearby busier highway - whatever, but now it's another casualty of the 21st century. Colder weather is moving in and we need to move on, but we are still deciding when since marinas and anchorages are scarce between here and Mobile and lots of Loopers are competing for limited accommodations.