Elaine's Doings: Mississippi Gulf Coast

One of Biloxi's numerous beaches

Absolutely beautiful. This area was almost completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Most of the devastation in New Orleans was caused by the dikes breaking. Here, the devastation was from the winds and water surge of Katarina.


Still devastated.

Still rebuilding.

Almost 10 years later, they are still trying to recover and rebuild; but what a spectacular coast they have here. Miles and miles of pure white sand beaches and the, for the most part, calm beautiful Caribbean Ocean. We have lucked out and spent almost a month at an RV park that is right across the road from the beach. Our RV spot is ideal and even has a little sliver of an ocean view from the kitchen window and a nice view from the outside area. It’s a wonderful place to spend a month. What more could you ask for: all the amenities of a decent sized city, casinos with gambling/shows/food, spectacular beaches, great bars and restaurants, and yummy seafood!

Many of the buildings that survived Katrina have signs marking the high water spot in their establishments. It’s humbling to see how far inland the water surge went and how incredibly high it was.

Camille and Katrina

Katrina high water mark

There are still numerous empty lots/blocks that you can see that used to have some type of business and/or houses that are just gone. All that’s left is the driveways and, in some cases, the foundations. The beach road here used to be lined with gorgeous historic mansions many of which are totally gone.

In their place are historical marker signs that give the name of the house/plantation, a description of the building, and a brief history. All of the signs end with, “Destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005”. Really gives us a dramatic perspective on the power of these hurricanes.

One really impressive thing they’ve done is to create a sort of artistic memorial in the median of the beach road. Beach Boulevard is a four lane road that runs right along the beach. Most of it has a nice median strip. There are some really nice, large trees (oak?) in many areas of the median. But some areas are almost totally bare where the trees snapped off due to the winds of Katrina. Instead of just getting rid of the remaining tree stumps (which in some cases were quite tall), they commissioned a couple of artists to create animal wood carvings out of the stumps. These are not those big clunky chainsaw wood carvings that you sometimes see. They are very fine and delicate and have been preserved like a finely carved wooden bowl. There are owls, eagles, dolphins, seahorses, all kinds of things. It is so impressive and such a great idea.

Beach Boulevard tree carving.

While we were in Biloxi, we took a long planned trip to Phoenix to spend some time with our family. Our son-in-law, Drew, is the tournament director of the annual LPGA tournament in Scottsdale and Sara and Jonah were going to be there for the week of the actual tournament (Drew had been there for over a month).

Jonah really missed his Dad!

Of course, Emily lives there and we got the chance to meet her new boyfriend (who seems like a very nice guy). And to top it all off, there were baseball spring training games for Pat!

Jonah's 1st spring training game.

Lots of stuff to pack into a few short days. We had great weather and got to see all of Jonah’s new accomplishments since we last saw him in mid-December (rolling over, sitting up, army crawling, eating “real” food, etc.). He’s just as perfect as ever! A few days before we left Biloxi for Phoenix, we got word that Pat’s mom, Beth, who was in an elder-care facility was failing rapidly. So we scrambled around and got Pat on a flight from Phoenix to Portland while I returned to Biloxi, Big Bertha, and “the 5^th”. For those of you who don’t know, I’m afraid of flying! I know, I know…..it’s safer than traveling by car, I’ve flown all over the U.S., to Mexico three times, Europe twice………but I really don’t believe those big things should be able to take off, stay in the air, and land! So here I am (scared), flying solo (without Pat), and here’s my itinerary from Phoenix to Biloxi, MS: Leave Phoenix at 6:00 a.m. (meant getting up in Northeast Phoenix at 3:45 a.m.), fly to Seattle (yes, I flew to the NW corner of the US from Phoenix to get to the gulf coast of Mississippi), change planes (and terminals) to catch a flight to Houston, spent 5 hours in the Houston airport, catch a flight to Gulfport/Biloxi, arrive at “the 5^th” at 10:30 p.m. Obviously, I survived; but I deserve a chance to whine once in a while! Pat spent five days in Oregon and got to see his Mom and say goodbye before she passed away late Friday afternoon while he was flying back to Biloxi.

We had a couple of weeks to sit back, veg out, and enjoy Biloxi and the Beach. We discovered a great beach bar.