Educated teeth and armored catfish

The red grapefruit lady also had some other stuff for sale in her barn. Nita browsed around and found a bunch of stranded pearls all tied together. Nita says she can bite the pearl and tell if they are real or fake, so with her educated teeth she bit and pronounced them real. She took them up to the grapefruit lady to buy a strand, lady said one dollar, Nita said she wanted one strand but couldn't get them apart, lady said one dollar for the whole bunch. Now Nita is the proud owner of 20 strands of pearls. Nita recently had her front teeth capped, I suspect the ceramic in the new teeth gave a false pearl bite reading, they look real but doubt they ever saw an oyster.

We walked across the damn and the lock gates to the other side of the river, on the banks of the river we saw many strange looking dead fish. Later the Corps ranger explained they were armored catfish, an invasive species, and that the river otters catch them and bring them up on the bank.

This morning I walked my bike across the locks then explored a small community north of the river. Found a biker bar called Shady Gator Saloon, very calm this morning, expect it comes alive at night. Enlarge the picture and read the sign on the pole by the bicycle.


Proud pearl dealer


Armored catfish, lots of large empty snail shells, suspect the otters eat them


Shady Gator Saloon


View of our View from across the river, fishing dock in foreground


River otter crawling around the rocks of the bank

Location:Ortona Locks