2.12.2011

Casino Hopping in Biloxi, Mississippi

After a lengthy drive, we spent a peaceful night parked up at an RV park in Biloxi. While Mary Lou was inside paying for the night, Nicole saw something moving in the trash can on the back of the park attendant's golf cart. The attendant was leaf blowing under the permanently parked RVs. Nicole got out, crept up to the can and was met with a tiny puppy nose and ears popping . The owner came out and said that she was a little, friendly dachshund that he had rescued from a couple that was abusing him, and "don't we want to take her"? For the remainder of the stay, the owner drove back and forth in front of the RV with the puppy flapping her ears in the wind on his lap, looking very cute.

Anyhoo. . . We spent the day at the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art. It was designed by Frank Gehry, still half finished, after suffering some major setbacks from Katrina. During the storm, a casino barge had blown up onto shore and knocked out half of their campus. So, the major collections, amazing pottery by the "The Mad Potter of Biloxi," George Ohr was sharing space with sculptor Richmond Barthe. His sculpted African figures were beautiful, but Ohr's pottery was really amazing. Many of the pieces figured a unique twist that we spent a lot of time pondering over how it was created. And the glazings, a formula that had long ago been lost, were very rich. The pieces were stunning, and were fantastically displayed in the sunlit Gehry gallery.

The whole campus was really amazing, with each building like a little pod holding a different type of collection, leaving the mind to recenter and refocus before viewing the next works. In the next building, we perused some of Andy Warhol's pieces from the Myths, Westerns and Icons series. Also, there were some impressive Jun Kaneko giant heads.

In the evening, we went casino hopping! It was freaking cold and pouring rain, but we drove from one terrible, smoke filled casino, to the second one, to have the all you can eat seafood buffet. We had a coupon, buy one get one free. It was terrible. Terrible food, terrible lighting, terrible ambience. People watching was fun, but also a little sad. Some pretty sad people in there. And probably all dying of lung cancer.

It was too blustery cold and wet to run across the street to the Hard Rock casino, so we just made our final stop the Beau Rivage. After parking the RV behind a wall to protect it from the wind, we ran down the length of the parking garage to make it inside the casino, and immediately felt, like, ah, yes. . .this was more like it. The whole energy in the casino was instantly better. Smiling, well dressed people listening to live blues music in the bar, ordering martinis and throwing the big chips on the craps table. We played some deuces wild slot poker long enough to have our share of free drinks. Mary Lou is the lucky one in the duo. She always came out on top. Nicole seems to be lucky for other people, but not really for herself.

After the poker, moved on to Ladies' Night at the casino club, The Coast. The band, led by its mohawked male lead singer, was pretty talented, and entertained us with a gambit of songs ranging from Pour Some Sugar on Me, to Fat Bottom Girl, to Poker Face . We took a big round to check out the scene and then walked to the bar to order "the best scotch that they could serve us for free." Bartender One looks at Bartender Two and asks, "Can we serve scotch?" Bartender Two looks at us two smiling girls and says, "Give 'em Dewars." We left them a good tip, because the drinks were free, and they continued to serve us extra large Dewar's in pink plastic hurricane glasses mandatory for the ladies. Met some fun people, gave out a few fake phone numbers and stumbled through the storm back to the RV.

Click here for photos!

No comments: