My Corner Online
Lower Current River & Southern Comfort Cabins
Southern Comfort Cabins are located in Doniphan, Ripley County, Missouri. They have one cabin out of four that is dog friendly, right on the river front, and I had wanted to book it for several years now. We visited on June 2 and 3, 2023, and really enjoyed our time. The cabins are small, but that is all we need. Everything was clean with the exception of the sand I quickly discovered on the floor when I took my shoes off. As I began sweeping it up myself over the weekend, as we went in and out, I quickly realized it was next to impossible to keep the sand out and swept up, so there is lots of grace when it comes to the clean floor. The sheets and pillow cases were in bags on the beds and we had to put together our own beds, but I was okay with that if it helps to keep the cost down. You can see that the mattress is clean that way too. The sheets were a bit worn with some holes that might cause friction with the picky folks, but that did not bother me. I know it must be hard to keep the renters tame at times, but the weekend we were there the other renters were rather respectful and we had little problem with noise or feeling unsafe. The RV'ers are really close by, but they also seemed to be a nice crowd of folks. The owner was available by texting and always answered quickly with any questions that I had, so there is an A+ for communication.
There is a very nice beach right in front of the cabins to sit and wallow or play. We really enjoyed our water time. I have always heard that the lower Current River had a lot of boats and, sure enough, I was able to have my first experience with this wider part of the river. There were a lot of floaters on the river too and I have never floated this part of the river because I have always thought it unsafe around the boats. There was a nice couple who gave me a ride in their boat which I really enjoyed and I got a good sense of the river from a boaters perspective too. As a boater, it did not feel as if it was too hard to navigate around the floaters or that we got too close to any of them, but I think if I were a floater, I might have felt differently. This part of the river seemed safer than the upper Current River in that there were few obstacles to have to navigate around or rapids to negotiate which means less chance of tipping, although the wave ripples created by the boats could send one tumbling over I suppose. The Highway Patrol was very active trolling the waterway and I was happy to see their presence.
In the morning we enjoyed the antics of the egret. He played with some fishermen coming down river by flying just enough out of the way and waiting for them to get close again and again.
I did not get a close photo of him because he was across the river and I was at the cabin, so it was a great distance, but you can see him in the above video nonetheless.
The cabins are on concrete stilts and there is a picnic table and barbecue pit under the shade of the cabin. There was a portable table tucked behind the bed in the cabin, but not much room to set it up.
We spent a lot of time on that deck during the morning hours waiting for the sun to reach it. I wanted to enjoy my time there while it was in the shade and then my time in the river when the deck was in the sun.
There are several beaches. Here is a little one to the right of the boat dock and there was another one to the left of the boat dock where the RV'ers seemed to hang out.
There is a refrigerator and microwave and coffee maker, but no stove. There was an electric skillet which we found ourselves using a lot. There is also air conditioning which was nice. The outlet situation was a little difficult and we were glad we had brought an extension cord for the fan we brought as we needed it. The electric skillet cord did not reach the outlet. We had two places to plug things in at the sink, so had to pull out the microwave when using two other electrical devices. There was another outlet at the air conditioner and another in the bathroom, but we did struggle with having enough outlets and there were only two of us. I think that was our biggest complaint and if that is our biggest, then we we didn't have much to complain about. We managed. The showers had hot water and were very clean and nice.
I brought my own pillows as I do like my pillows! We were going to go down to the river that first evening, but it started to rain, so I watched the raindrops on the deck for a while.
Sunset is to the left in the above photo and the below photo is morning sun.
We listened to the birds with my Merlin App and although we did not see many of them, we could hear them.
This shows a good amount of the beach. There is a log in the water just out from the shallow area which I appreciated. First, it gave us that water trickling sound I love and second, the boaters had to go around it making me feel safer in the water.
The Highway Patrol actually pulled someone over first thing in the morning right in front of our cabin. He gave him a warning about his registration sticker.
This is called Beer Beach as the boaters apparently hang out there to drink and meet and greet each other. There is a whole community of boaters that know each other on these waters. I found that interesting.
The cabins are to the left just past that red roof.
