Back on the Water Again!!

After 2 months in the Chicago snow and cold, we returned to Nonchalance at Columbus, MS and we're heading south to Florida. It only reached 55 here today, but that's so much better than 5 like it has been in Chicago. We left Columbus this morning after taking a day to re-provision the boat and another to move our car to Mobile, AL, where we'll first get to salt water in about 5 days. The trip on the Ten-Tom Canal and then the Tombigbee River was nice, but all the trees are bare in their winter drab.

This evening we're anchored in a beautiful little Alabama state park called Sumter Landing. It has a great natural bay for anchoring, a boat ramp and little dock where we can land the dinghy and lots of walking trails.





We walked up the park road and Daisy flushed and treed a squirrel (her favorite prey) and smelled lots of other very interesting (to her) smells. As she poked her head into the grasses and bushes, Kathy and I said "That's where she gets the ticks". But you can't keep her from smelling all the smells.

We walked down this nice little park path and the only caution was the sign "Archery deer hunting only". At least Kathy was carrying Daisy's big blaze orange life jacket, so we couldn't be mistaken for deer. I don't know f it's even deer hunting season here.




When we came back to the boat, we did check Daisy and found 3 live ticks still just crawling around on her looking for a nov=ce place to bite. I hope we got them all. When we take her back late this evening, we'll keep her on the short grass.

Tomorrow we're going to Demopolis, AL.