I have to get rid of my “farmer's tan.”
It's fantastic to have the beach right across the street. We headed over about 8:30 a.m. We took Bella (our cat) for her first experience with the beach and the ocean. She loved the sand and hiding in the sea grass but wanted nothing to do with the water.
We had a new friend that stay by us most of the day.
We noticed a group way down the beach, all dressed alike, picking up litter. They were stretched out in a line across the entire beach. They picked up EVERYTHING. Every stick and twig. They even scrapped the line of dirt formed by the waves and picked it up. We expected they were some type of chain gang doing community service. Eventually, they reached us about noon. One of the supervisors explained the Bay St. Louis Action Group is organizing a preventive beach cleanup before any oil gets here. There has not been a pre-oil arrival cleanup in Bay St Louis as there has been in other areas. He expects that to happen, and they will then return to clean-up the oil mess. BP is is must pay for this cleanup. They spent the entire day here. We asked about wearing life vests. We were told it is a law that if a worker is within 10 ft. of water, they are required to wear one…interesting.
A photographer from the World Magazine was here taking pictures. He asked if it would be okay to include us in his photographs. Two stupid full-timers enjoying the beach as crews prepare for the eventual mess......LOL. We will let you know if we make the magazine cover.
We called it a day at 2:30 and headed home to shower.
We took a ride down the Gulf Coast highway through Waveland, Pass Christian, Long Beach, and Gulfport. WOW! It was a beautiful drive.
They are spending money rebuilding these towns after Katrina completely destroyed them. And the houses along the beach road are humongous.
This is an historical house called Dixie “White House”. It was built by John Backe of New Orleans in 1851. Here in 1913 President Woodrow Wilson and family spent winter vacation as guests of the owner, Miss Alice Herndon.
There are still hundreds and hundreds of empty lots and buildings partially destroyed. Don't know if they'll ever get back to where they were before the hurricane. Has to be a great opportunity for anyone looking for work in the construction industry.
We stopped by to see why these boats were all at their docks.
We met a man who explained that the boats were not docked due to the oil scare. He said oyster seasoned had just ended, and everyone was waiting for shrimp season to begin. This should happen in about three weeks.
We were hungry so we asked this same guy where he would suggest we eat. He said he always eats at a place called Cajun Crawfish Hut. So we stopped.
We were a bit skeptical when we arrived, and then when we went in…still not sure.
But, we went ahead and ordered. Paul got the spicy, fried alligator po’ boy, and Marsha got the fried crawfish po’ boy. A po’ boy is a traditional submarine sandwich from Louisiana. It almost always consists of meat or seafood, usually fried, served on baguette-like Louisiana French bread. They both were pretty good, but now that we have tasted a po’ boy, we think we probably won’t order one again. We will try just about anything once.
We stopped at a brand new Super WalMart in Long Beach. This is the nicest WalMart we've ever visited. It was like a Sam's Club and Super WalMart combined. We've been looking for a new Sony camera and they had one similar to what we wanted. So Marsha got to help pick out her birthday gift.
We went to the casino again tonight. I actually won a little last night, which is unusual for me. Well, it was Marsha's night to win. She got back on the plus side by winning $25.00
This casino was totaled by Katrina.
This is what it looks like today.
What a great day! The beach, a nice ride, sightseeing, the casino, and awesome weather.
Tuesday, May 18 – We decided to drive to New Orleans today to checkout a campground for our next stop. It was a cloudy day and I got a little burned yesterday so I made good since to go for the drive. It's the Bayou Segnette State Park. We drove through and picked out a half dozen nice sites. Then we planned a route in and around the city. We may need to check the maps again, but I believe we have a route figured out.
We returned the camera we purchased yesterday and upgraded to a better one at Best Buy. We have 14 days to try it out and return it if we decide it isn't right. It's the Sony DSC-TX7. The newest Sony Cyber-shot model.
It felt like we road in the car a couple hundred miles. We were gone all day....jeesh! Relaxation Time!
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again.
