These cooler mornings sure do make pretty pictures.  This morning,  we left Columbus Marina at dawn with a few other boats,  all of us hoping to cruise right to the Stennis Lock. Owen called the lock at 6:00 am, and the lockmaster said he thought we would be just fine arriving at sunrise. Sure enough,  when we arrived the gate was open and the light was green. Our fellow boaters cruised in and tied up.

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Then we saw another boat coming.  We could see that it was big,  but it didn’t look like a commercial vessel.  Nope, it was a 125′ yacht! It was fun to see a different kind of boat.

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After the lock,  the faster boats cruised together,  and the slower boats cruised together.  We were in the lead,  and we accidentally went at river speed past some workers loading a barge. That’s a no-no, and we messed that up.  Oops. We felt really bad about it.

After a few cloudy and rainy days,  it was nice to see the sun again.  We will always appreciate the calm,  sunny days that allow a perfect reflection of the trees in the water.  We also saw a small deer swimming across the river.

The second lock, Bevill, was the same as the first:  gate open and ready for our arrival.  We tied up and went down.

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After hopscotching between Mississippi and Alabama for a while,  we finally said goodbye to Mississippi once and for all. We were greeted by the infamous telephone booth at the border,  and as we took pictures,  we both agreed this was another Looper rite of passage. We still can’t believe we get to be on this great adventure!

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We decided that tonight we were going to try anchoring instead of staying at a marina.  We peeled off from the group and pulled into the Windham Landing Cutoff. We knew from reading Skipper Bob’s Chicago to Mobile guide and from attending the Tenn-Tom route session at the Rendezvous that this was a great place to stop. We pulled in, picked our spot, did our investigatory figure eight, calculated the rode we needed,  and dropped our anchor. 

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As soon as we cut the engines…quiet. Pure peace and quiet. We had a Cobb salad for lunch, then we sat on the front of the boat in the sun and read.  Owen got antsy and went for a dinghy ride.  There was a little breeze when we arrived,  but the wind calmed as the sun went down behind the trees.  It’s nice to be in a marina with all the amenities,  but there is something to be said about the loveliness of just being still.

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When it got dark, we stepped outside to check out the stars. Oh, the stars! There’s very little light around this area, so we were treated to a sky full of wonder. Owen used an app that named the constellations as he pointed his phone at the sky. The Milky Way was a beautifully visible streak across the darkness. Shooting stars cut their way across the heavens. What an extraordinary spot we have in this grand universe!

While we were admiring the magnitude of the cosmos, we heard what sounded like a chewing sound. Owen got out his spotlight and took a peek at the riverside. After a little bit of searching, we saw a beaver munching on a reed like it was corn on the cob. When he was finished, he swam over to some buddies and disappeared. The beaver, not Owen.

This cloudless night was definitely a highlight of our trip so far.

Also, we had no trick-or-treaters, unless the beaver was really a deer dressed up as a beaver.