Lake Lowndes State Park, Mississippi

LeeAnn and Barnie relax by Lake Lowndes.

We spent the last three nights at Lake Lowndes State Park near Columbus, Miss. We really like this park; I’ll get into why in a bit. This was supposed to be a two-night stopover on our way to our first real destination: Clarksdale for the Juke Joint Fest. The last time we were at JJF, they allowed dogs during the day events. Sunday, we learned they no longer allow dogs. We thought about all our options, then decided to change our plans. We didn’t want to keep Barnie in the camper all day. The forecast said we’d need to run our air conditioner, and that would mean running our generator the whole time, not something we really want to do. We also didn’t want to misrepresent him as a service animal or board him somewhere nearby. So, we extended our stay here by one night and made reservations for another park in Arkansas to fill in the gap.

It's a bummer to miss the Juke Joint Festival. We were looking forward to seeing the regular acts and discovering new ones, but I certainly don’t mind staying another night here at Lake Lowndes. The sites are nice. The premium sites are large, have good grass, and back up to the main feature of the campground, the eponymous lake. The lake’s not huge, but its big enough that people take their bass boats out on it to fish. There are always some Canada geese and mallards on the lake doing their thing. The day we left, we saw several snow geese, too. There are lots of little songbirds flitting around the turtles sunning themselves on a fallen tree. It’s a relaxing scene. I could easily spend a week or two here and be quite content.