The next morning we set out with bright skies and headed to the Fulton Lock a few miles down river from the Midway Marina. A number of other boats came along with us, but since it was not a tremendously long trip today (57 miles), we decided not to leave at daybreak.

Midland Marina receding behind us; Fulton Lock

Salty followed the winding path of the Tenn-Tom for about 15 miles until we came up on three locks in rapid succession - the Wilkins Lock (down 25 feet), the Amory Lock (down 30 feet) and the Aberdeen Lock (down 27 feet). The banks of the waterway are beautiful this time of year.

As we approached the Columbus Marina, the skies opened and it rained in torrents as we entered the marina and tied up.

The Columbus Marina is a nice place to tie up and we were using this stop as a base for us to make a side trip to Birmingham AL where Evan's sister lives with her family.

Because we were going to Alabama, the next day after our arrival, we got a rental car and then a much needed haircut - at a place I found on Google maps. The cavernous salon turned out to be a vintage clothing - consignment shop with a beauty parlor plunked down in the middle of assorted used faux-Victorian furniture and racks of old clothes. The proprietress gave me a haircut that upon later examination appeared too much like a mullet for my likes - hopefully no one notices.

Columbus was an unexpected delight - as it has a large number of ante-bellum mansions dating to cotton boom in Mississippi in the 1850s and 1860s.

Whitehall Mansion, Rosedale Mansion and Waverley Plantation

Although the cotton boom in the South is usually associated with the Mississippi Delta, these plantation houses, among dozens of others, were built with the largesse of the cotton trade because of Colombus' proximity to the Tombigbee River which allowed the transport of cotton down to Mobile. A number of these houses have been lovingly restored to their original pre-Civil War glory.

The town is in flux and its downtown appears to be in the process of extensive renovation and the former elegance shows through. One of stops was the Tennessee Williams birth house that doubles as the tourism office - the house has an exhibit of his early life and career and the influence the Columbus area had on his later Southern gothic stories and plays.

Colombus MS has reinforced our experience to date that if you think you know all you need to about the South - you really need to visit it and see its history, its beauty and the surprises at every turn in places you never expected to be.