Seeing wildlife on a golf course is nothing new. Deer, alligators and good ol’ Mister No Shoulders (snakes to non-golfers) are liable to show up at any time. But Friday brought about one I haven’t seen before.

We all knew that Day 2 of the annual Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail trip was going to be long. We just didn’t know just how long.

This was one of the 36-hole days of the trip. Those have become less frequent as the years go by, but we get asked by friends what would compel us to play two rounds of golf in a day (and do it multiple times). The answer is simple: We have nothing else to do. It’s a golf trip, for goodness sakes, so why stray from the mission statement?

We teed it up at Oxmoor Valley Friday at 7:50 a.m. There are two courses here, so we played them both. Played 18 in the morning, had lunch, then when we were about to go bite off 18 more holes, the sirens started going off like it was a 1960s air raid scare. We waited it out the rain and lightning and finally brought it home just before dark.

In the middle of the morning round, while I was waiting to miss yet another putt, I noticed two turkeys strutting out in the field next to the 7^th hole. Two members of our foursome are veteran turkey “observers” (read: hunters) and the only thing the other two of us know about turkeys are when they show up on our table at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.

Our two turkey aficionados immediately started with the turkey calls – what did they think the turkeys were going to do, ask to play through? – but the turkeys didn’t seem too interested. But when we drove to the next tee, these guys did act like they wanted to play through as they high-tailed (high-feathered?) it across the green behind us like they were late for their tee time.

I believe this was my first live encounter with a turkey and I gotta say, these guys were much bigger than I expected. I got the whole explanation about the beard rot and the differences in the males and the females and how Alabama turkeys are different from other turkeys. Come to find out, Alabama leads the nation in turkey population. (Today’s DW fun fact!) That might also explain why we saw turkey tracks in the sand trap on the other side of the course eight hours later.

Saturday we drive to Gadsden for a late morning round, then get back in the truck and head to Muscle Shoals in the evening.

The opening hole at Oxmoor Valley