Road Trip 2018 - Day Eleven, Mississippi Coast 1

We are spending our second night in Gulfport, Mississippi. The 'planned' part of our trip is over and we are truly into Captain Spouse's dream of doing a trip that is predominately impromptu. It has taken a little bit of adjustment on both our parts but we seem to have found a pretty good rhythm already. This was enforced upon us by the arrival of Hurricane Michael.

Our original plan was to move across the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama and even into the Florida Panhandle before we headed north into Alabama. However, Michael's arrival and growth into a Category Three Storm has caused us to change our itinerary. In fact it has been a blessing that we hadn't made any reservations or plans as it was totally easy to just look at what the weather was, look at options and change directions. So tomorrow we will finish some things up here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and head inland, northwest to Hattiesburg, Mississippi for a day until the storm goes through the coast and inland before heading back into Alabama.

We've compromised in making our decisions on where we will go next the night before. Making reservations for the next night is enough advance planning that I am not freaking out over where we will be staying and yet gives Captain Spouse plenty of freedom to decide where she wants to go next and how much time she wants to stay in an area.

Now on to our day today for it was exactly the kind of experience we had been looking for when we developed our concept of doing an impromptu road trip. That included:

• Seeing places in the country that are not high on the 'A-List' destinations
• Seeking out the interesting in the out-of-way place
• Finding interesting photo opportunities wherever they might be
• Having interesting people interactions

Today we backtracked to places we passed on our drive to Gulfport that looked interesting. These were the towns of Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian. This is an area that has a history tightly intertwined with that of New Orleans and Louisiana. It is a vacation land that attracts beach lovers from the Southeast. And it is a thriving maritime area with both cargo and fishing.

Bay St. Louis

We went directly here to the historical old part of town

The local tourist office is located in the old train depot

 In the late 19th century the train that ran from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama made this a realistic commuter location. It was a prosperous community as a result

I thought it very appropriate as we started to look around in the museum that a train went by.

 Some may have Butterfly Bushes

But here we have a Butterfly Bench

Just outside of this center was a cemetery for the priests of a local Catholic College dominated by the kind of old oak tree with Spanish Moss that you find all throughout this area

Then we headed into town for a walking tour of the old buildings. Many of these have been restored since Hurricane Katrina. People focus on New Orleans, but the devastation here on the Mississippi coast was worse for here was where the center of the storm hit. The pictures of the complete destruction and what has been done to rebuild are both sobering and amazing at the same time. 

I have developed a technique for getting pictures of people

It especially works good here in the US where there are no language problems

I just say,

"Hi, I travel all over the world and I write a blog. Would you mind if I take your picture?"

I tell them it is not a business and nine times out of ten they are happy to let me shoot

Coffee Place Girl

One thing that is phenomenal about this area is its beaches

They are pure white sand

And at this time of year and in the middle of the week are pretty much deserted

Sand, water, wildlife, no people

A great combination

The it was on to Pass Christian

There were all kinds of interesting old mansions here 

But what really interested us was the working shrimp fishing fleet

As luck would have it, there were a number of people working on their boats

We found out that the usual time to go out is during the night which is why you see the boats in the harbor during the day

A number of the fishermen were more than happy to talk to us. We learned a lot about how they function and work

We learned that the word BOAT is actually and acronym for 

Break Out Another Thousand!

In reference to the constant need for maintenance

Shrimpers

Out and around the Pass Christian Harbor

We started with rain threatening

It came down

We waited it out

And then headed back out for a glorious day of shooting

Only one gastronomic experience today

Pop Brothers 

A restaurant guy who decided to make artisanal ice pops

Crazy good!