Biloxi, Mississippi

When Jamie asked what I'd most like to see -I said "Water!"  I've really missed the ocean, rivers, lakes, rain--Water.  So we did a day-trip to Biloxi--just a two hour drive from Gramercy, La.

I had not seen the Gulf Coast since Katrina and the oil  spill and I wanted to know how it fared.

Well, the beaches were beautiful.  Clean and white but very few people anywhere.

We stopped for lunch in Gulfport.  This is a weird name for a restaurant but the fried catfish was superb.

This was the view from our table at the Blow Fly Inn.

Further down the coast I began to notice great empty areas with nothing left but paved parking lots and concrete slabs where once beautiful houses had been.  Many had dated back into the 19th Century and had withstood many a hurricane before Katrina.

We came upon this garden of figures carved from the bases of battered trees.

 Some homes have been rebuilt but very few.  It seems the insurance is so high now that it is almost impossible to build on the coast unless it is a casino.  However, Biloxi is more beautiful than I remembered--maybe because it is not so populated or busy with tourists, traffic and motels.  But what a sad epitaph.