December 4 Gulfport, Biloxi and area

Carved Katrina Tree

The party is really almost over! We had a great day today in Gulfport and surrounding areas. We slept in, well I did until 8:30 and boy was it nice. I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast and we finally left about 10:30. We drove to Biloxi so we could see what casinos were left and where we had my parents’ 50th anniversary celebration. Not many casinos left but looked like they were doing some building. Then we went to the 6th Annual Biloxi Christmas in the City event downtown. It’s basically an arts and crafts event with Christmas carolers and of course a food court. We browsed the booths but only bought some pusharate, which is a Slavic dessert thing that looks like a donut hole but is very yummy.

An abandoned house along the gulf

Then we drove west along the gulf coast and could see where some house were rebuilt or repaired and many empty foundations stood, mostly with for sale signs. It is very sad knowing what old majestic homes once stood there for a 100 years and now most are gone and the new ones are primarily being built on 12 – 16 foot poles. We saw some of the wood carvings in the median that were carved in the trees left standing but destroyed by Katrina. We stopped for lunch in Long Beach at Lil Rays. It’s a seafood place and I thoroughly enjoyed my grouper po boy. They indicated on the menu that some of the prices had to be increased due to the oil spill. Which reminds me, we looked for miles but saw no remaining evidence in this area of oil, at least as far out as our eyes could see. We stopped a couple of times and walked on the beach and took some photos too.

No oil spills here

We returned to the RV for an hour or so to put more laundry in and to take Xena out. We went to the matinee of “Unstoppable” at 3:45. We both really like Denzel Washington and he was as good in this as his other movies. It was a rather tense one to watch and I hid my eyes several times. Back at the RV I made fish for dinner with the left over mac and cheese and the last of our zucchini. We talked to Carole, who told us about their visit today with Kerry. I knew she had been invited to Tucson by friends she met in Alaska, but didn’t know she was definitely going so that was a surprise for everyone. Later I called Jean to see about meeting her and Paul for dinner tomorrow night in Tallahassee. We’re to confirm around 1 tomorrow.

I had my shower tonight to speed up the get away tomorrow. I have mixed feelings about going home. I’m excited to see everyone and sleep in my own bed and cook in my big kitchen but not at all excited about having to get ready for Christmas in a few weeks and going back to work and going to appointments. Oh well, you have to take the good with the bad.

Time to post this and read for a while.