Road Trip 2018 - Day Twelve, Biloxi, A Tale Of Three Museums

We are cutting short our time on the Gulf Coast. My namesake hurricane has picked up force and it doesn't seem prudent to be moving toward it as it hits. So we decided to finish our visit on the Mississippi coast in Biloxi. After our visit we made our way inland and to the northwest away from the hurricane action to the town of Hattiesburg, MS.

We ended up going to three museums today two very good and one a real disappointment. We started out at the Biloxi Visitors Center which is also a museum of the background of the area. It was small, but concise with a lot of easily accessible information. We learned about the connection of this area to the culture of New Orleans, about how like that city, it too is a melange of different cultures like Croatians from the Balkans and Cajuns from Louisiana who came in the late 19th century to work in the burgeoning fishing industry and began to intermarry as fellow Catholics. There was also a very poignant exhibit on the devastation from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While much of the attention was given to the levee failure and flooding of New Orleans, the hurricane center itself was right at Pass Christian where we were yesterday, with Gulfport and Biloxi also being almost totally destroyed.

The Iconic Biloxi Lighthouse

Then we went to a Museum that we had no idea about

George Ohr it turns out was a rather eccentric potter at the turn of the last century

Not particularly recognized at the time, he like so many artists, was recognized well after his death 

The campus itself is rather a work of art as it was designed by another of the Coast's favorite son's, Frank Gehry

Rather than give you a dissertation on the man and his work, I will let his words, images and work do that for us

There was an exhibit from a modern African-American sculpture from NOLA

There was also an open workshop where local people were doing their own work

A lovely volunteer who gave us a wealth of information and encouraged us to visit Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi

Our own muse, Captain Spouse channeling here inner creativity

The guide had sent us to this local restaurant, destroyed by Katrina and rebuilt on pillars!

The oysters were excellent but we as an extra got a viewing station to take pictures of pelicans

They are some of the most spectacular flying birds and I can watch them for hours

Lastly we went to the National Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum

Despite the lovely building, it was a bust

Too much stuff with very little pattern or story bringing it all together

Then it was on to Hattiesburg to escape the path of Hurricane Michael