Thursday was a rainy day with some reasonably heavy rain in the afternoon. Lenore was not feeling well so I went with Pete and Carolyn (Humbug) to see the Waverly Mansion. This Greek Revival home was built during the Civil War, from 1852 to 1857. It was occupied by a George Hampton Young and his 10 children from 1857 to about 1913 when it was left abandon. It was purchased in 1963 by Mr. Robert Snow and his wife, an antique dealer and he has occupied the house ever since. When they bought it they renovated a kitchen and a bedroom and moved in. They painstakingly renovated each room themselves over the next 25 years. The house is on the National Historic Register and is still occupied on a daily basis by the family. The magnolia tree in the front yard is over 150 years old.
We did get an early start this morning because about 5 boats pulled out at 7:00 and I called the lock and asked him when he would have the lock ready for the 2nd lock thru. He asked how long it would take us to get to the lock and I told him about 1/2 hour. He said it would be more efficient to lock everyone thru at once and they would wait for us. I am sure that did not make the 5 boats happy but it was not my call.
We did get to the lock in about 1/2 hour or less and he locked the 8 boats thru. The weather was clear and about 55 with hardly a breeze. It took a little while for the sun to burn off a little bit of river fog.
2 of the boats took off when the lock doors were opened because they wanted to make Demopolis for the evening. I sure they had no problem because it is only about 120 miles.
The day warmed nicely to the low 70’s and the sun was out all day. We saw a few birds along the way. Lenore thought she saw an eagle and there was an osprey and a couple of cranes.
The 2nd lock did not go as quick as the first lock. We had to wait for over an hour while they locked down one tow and brought another tow up. After we were locked down we caught up with the tow that had locked down. He was at a narrow part of the river with 2 sharp bends in the river. We crawled behind him waiting to get to the next straight portion of the river. In the 2nd turn he slowed down and determined that the loaded barges were dragging on the river bottom so as he inched forward he let us pass. Nice tow captain to let us go around like that.
Not much color down in this part of Mississippi. Later in the day we did pass back into Alabama where tonight’s anchorage is. We stayed here last year and it is a nice protected anchorage off the Tenn-Tom that has a boat ramp, picnic tables, restroom and a pretty good sized parking lot. Last year Candy stirred up a hornets nest during her morning walk and we are not going to let that happen again.
There are 5 boats in the anchorage tonight and it could hold probably another 3 or so. We thought that there would be a lot of boats here but some went all the way and others stopped at anchorages closer to Columbus. That was fine with us.
Tomorrow will be another early day, 7:30 or 8:00 so we can get into Demopolis at a reasonable time. Good weather is forecast.