Day 2-332-333 in Columbus MS

         After a half day here yesterday, we plan on 3 more days of "relaxation" (and movies) here in Columbus... Boy, the Admiral sure knows how to pamper the crew. The Columbus Marina appears to be on Federal land, and at the very least, it is virtually adjacent to the US Corps of Engineers John C. Stennis Lock and Dam. The marina office (picture at the right) is on stilts as if it floods high here, which seems unlikely since we appear to be standing at about dam level (or perhaps not?). The facilities were quite good, but we really did not use them. The water in the entrance channel was over 8 feet deep, and there were boats as big as 90 feet in the marina, which always makes for interesting viewing.
Day 2-332 in Columbus, MS

      The marina is located at the end of about a mile long road that takes us to the main highway into Columbus. This main highway also seems to be where all of the businesses, including the restaurants seem to be located so everything is relatively convenient. We left at about 10:30 am to go into town to the Tennessee Williams Welcome Center.

     It is Tennessee's grandfather's house where he and his mother spent most of the first three years of his life. The house was moved from the grounds of the Episcopal church about a block away where his grandfather had been the priest.  The docent was very informative, and the exhibits on the second floor were very interesting. The kind of bluish piece of paper on the right in the picture at the right is a copy of the original script for the Street Car Named Desire where we could see that the original name was crossed out with the new name ("Street Car...") written in pencil.

      When he was about 3 years old, his grandfather was transferred to St. Louis, Missouri where Tennessee spent most of his early years and was educated through college (Washington Univ.). The house was pretty original including the paint colors.

     After the Welcome Center, we toured around the old downtown, which is on an old flood plain perhaps 50 feet above the river, and therefore it was unlikely to flood. The people who built the town no doubt leaned the hard way that the low ground would flood regularly. On the bluff above the river there were many beautiful 19th century homes, such as the one in the picture at the right.

     ...and one more classic house from our little tour.












Day 2-333 in Columbus, MS                                           

      The morning was bright and fairly sunny, and the picture at the left shows yet another view of the marina, and its isolated location. There were at least 6 other Loopers at the marina while we were there.



      The movie theater in Columbus only had shows starting at 4:00 pm so we decided to go to Tupelo, MS, which is over an hour away. There we were able to do some early Christmas shopping at Best Buy for one of the Grandkids.

      Then we had lunch at the Thai Garden before going to see the new movie "The Judge". We both love Thai food (picture of our lunches at right), but unfortunately the service was slow. It was so slow that we had to gulp down the food. It was a good thing that we hurried to eat lunch since this particular theater did not show any previews of coming movies. Most theaters say that the movie starts at "X" time, but that usually includes 15 to 20 minutes of previews. Thus, we walked in 2 minutes late and actually missed the first 2 minutes of the movie and not the first 2 minutes of the previews. Robert Downey, Jr. and Robert Duvall both gave what I thought were excellent performances in spite of a so-so ending in my modest opinion... After the movie, we took a break to go to Home Depot, Hancock's Fabrics, etc. before going back to the theater... The second movie of the day was "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". It starred Steve Varney and Jennifer Garner and was a very fun movie. It was also short at 75 minutes, which made for a good second movie. After the movie, we drove back to Columbus (and Lucky Us).
      At this point, I should point out that even when we are in port, we keep track of the weather. After the last weather check of the day, we decided to leave Columbus a day early. The weather three days out looks pretty bad, and if anything it should be a little better further south. The catch to this new plan is that tomorrow there is also an Aggies football game at 8:00 pm. Thus, we will head out tomorrow, but we will not go very far...