Day 2-334 to Pickinsville AL

      With an approaching weather system due on Day 2-335 we decided to leave Columbus, MS a day early. The idea/plan is to get further south and at least get near the southern edge of the storm system. So, we now will be travelling both today and tomorrow. We still had the rental car so the Admiral loaded up her electric bike into the rental car and headed out to return it. She made the trip in "record" time in spite of the long road from the highway to the marina not being very bike friendly. It turns out that she only saw two vehicles that were headed in her direction and safely let them pass her. Our first lock of the day was the John C. Stennis Lock and Dam, which is only 0.8 miles from the marina. Once again, the Admiral called the Lockmaster before we left the dock. His advice was to wait about 15 minutes before we left as he had to fill the lock chamber before he could lock us down. The (professional?) crew on the 70 foot sport fisherman next to us started to scramble to leave the dock in time to be able to lock through with us.
     On the way into the lock I joked with the Lockmaster about us being "brave" (or stupid) to fly an Aggie flag in Mississippi. Especially since, we played Mississippi Sate last week (and lost) and were playing Ole Miss today. He laughed and said that even though he was an Ole Miss fan that it was okay. As it turned out, it was really okay since Ole Miss badly beat the Aggie later in the day.
     We left the dock at 7:15 am, and our trip was 28.9 miles with just the one lock. Our travel time was just over 4 hours including the lock. So far on the Tombigbee Waterway, we have had essentially no current. This seems strange given the number of locks that we have gone through. We are obviously going down hill, but evidently with little rainfall the past two months there is not much flow in the waterway (river). On a short trip the absence of a current does not make much difference, but on a long trip, like tomorrow, a current of even 1 or 2 mph would take hours off of a trip. So, I keep hoping...

     Our destination for today was the Pirate's Cove Marina at Pickensville, Alabama. The marina was not in very good shape, but all we really needed was electricity.
   The biggest, but not the best, news for today was that the Admiral (slowly?) came down sick. She took a nap while we were underway, and then she took a 3 hour nap after we arrived. In fact, as soon as the lines were tied and the electricity was hooked up, she told me that I had to handle everything else as she was going to bed. After her three hour nap, it was obvious that she really was sick, but a couple of hours after she got up, her fever broke. However, she was still weak/tired and took another nap for an hour in the early evening. When she got up from her third nap of the day, she was feeling a little better. As it turned out, the worst was past. Well, not exactly the worst because the Aggie football game came on TV at 8:00 pm.

      The game was another disaster for the second week in a row... So, now we are "0" (or zero) for Mississippi having lost to both SEC schools from the state. For the Admiral it did not matter that the game was not going all that well as she went to bed early. Those of you who know the Admiral know that she rarely takes even one nap and certainly I have not known her to take 3 for a total of 5 hours. If she takes even one short nap, she often has trouble getting to sleep at night. Thus, she really was a trooper throughout the day, especially during the trip...


     We do plan on a long (90.3 mile) trip tomorrow with 2 locks. Right now, that seems unlikely, but we shall see...