2.18.2011
We Will Return After These Short Messages. . .
Ladies and Gentlemen, friends and family, please don't be alarmed if we don't write for a little while. We are headed into New Orleans.
Through the fishing villages to Grand Isles State Park
When Kyle called and we told him we were 30 miles South of New Orleans, he said, "You're in the ocean?" No, we are in Grand Isle State Park. We took an absolutely lovely drive through the lowlands, passed simple, peaceful fishing villages with shrimp and fishing boats parallel parked in the estuaries. We stopped at a Cajun Pecan Sweet Shop, and picked up about one of everything on display. All fresh, real ingredients, like Grandma would make. As we waited in line, we watched local after local pick up a King Cake and keep moving on their way. The King Cake is a is a type of cake associated with the festival of Epiphany in the Christmas season in a number of countries, and in other places with Mardi Gras and Carnival. The cake has a small trinket (often a small plastic baby, sometimes said to represent Baby Jesus) inside, and the person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket has various privileges and obligations (such as buying the cake for the next celebration). We're picking ours up on the way back North.
Grand Isles is listed as one of the top ten best fishing places in the entire country. Just before we entered the the park, we stopped and picked up a few pounds (4) of fresh caught gulf shrimp from a wholesaler. We parked up at a great spot behind the levee, plugged in, and walked over the levee to see the beach. It was a strange beach. The sand looked freshly laid, packed very flat, with lots of tire tracks running up and down the beach. We didn't quite know what to make of it, until we talked to the locals on the pier. The beach was badly hit by the oil spill. You can see dozens of oil rigs highlighted in the setting sun on the ocean's horizon. But, the locals said, "Those boys are really doing a fine job of cleaning it up." Every few days they dredge the entire beach, turning over the sand, and filtering any tar balls that are still washing up. But what this does, also, is churn up all the shells and bones and fossils that were washed up and buried during the storm. We found two skulls, tons of fossilized creatures, and a full giant fish skeleton, that was intact, still lying in the position it had died.
The weather was so beautiful, for the first time, we got to open up all our doors, air out our blankets in the sunshine, and eat our meals on the picnic table. Our neighbor, Dennis, down on a fishing trip from Wisconsin built us a bonfire to sit outside and drink our martinis and enjoy the full moon. In the morning, our other neighbors, Jackie and Dean, lounging in their swimsuits, invited us over for a chat. They are organizers for the Joshua Tree Music Festival, which is high on our list of places to visit when we get out West. Good weather makes everyone friendly!
Click here for photos!
Grand Isles is listed as one of the top ten best fishing places in the entire country. Just before we entered the the park, we stopped and picked up a few pounds (4) of fresh caught gulf shrimp from a wholesaler. We parked up at a great spot behind the levee, plugged in, and walked over the levee to see the beach. It was a strange beach. The sand looked freshly laid, packed very flat, with lots of tire tracks running up and down the beach. We didn't quite know what to make of it, until we talked to the locals on the pier. The beach was badly hit by the oil spill. You can see dozens of oil rigs highlighted in the setting sun on the ocean's horizon. But, the locals said, "Those boys are really doing a fine job of cleaning it up." Every few days they dredge the entire beach, turning over the sand, and filtering any tar balls that are still washing up. But what this does, also, is churn up all the shells and bones and fossils that were washed up and buried during the storm. We found two skulls, tons of fossilized creatures, and a full giant fish skeleton, that was intact, still lying in the position it had died.
The weather was so beautiful, for the first time, we got to open up all our doors, air out our blankets in the sunshine, and eat our meals on the picnic table. Our neighbor, Dennis, down on a fishing trip from Wisconsin built us a bonfire to sit outside and drink our martinis and enjoy the full moon. In the morning, our other neighbors, Jackie and Dean, lounging in their swimsuits, invited us over for a chat. They are organizers for the Joshua Tree Music Festival, which is high on our list of places to visit when we get out West. Good weather makes everyone friendly!
Click here for photos!
2.17.2011
Jumped for V-Day in Natchez
From Vicksburg, we hoped onto the Natchez Trace. The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444-mile drive through exceptional scenery and 10,000 years of North American history. Used by American Indians, "Kaintucks", settlers, and future presidents, the Old Trace played an important role in American history. It was the only thing listed to do in Mississippi in '1,000 Places to See Before You Die'. It wasn't as scenic as we thought it would be, after driving through the forests and landscapes of Upstate New York. There were little stops along they way, historic markers and places on the National Register. We were excited to see the remnants of a once thriving 1,600 population cotton town, now a ghost town, but all it consisted of was a path through the woods with one little well and a random rusted out safe. We did stop to see the country's second largest Native American sacrificial mound. It was large.
At the end of the Trace was Natchez, which, before the civil war, was second only to New York City for the number of millionaires living there. The town is filled with huge antebellum houses hidden behind Live Oak lined drives. The most impressive of them all was Longwood. Longwood is the largest octagonal house in the United States. The mansion is known for its octagonal plan, byzantine onion-shaped dome, and the contrast between its ornately finished first floor and the unfinished upper floors.
Samuel Sloan, a Philadelphia architect, designed the home in 1859 for cotton planter Dr. Haller Nutt. Work was halted in 1861 at the start of the American Civil War. Dr. Nutt died of pneumonia in 1864, leaving the work incomplete. Of the thirty-two rooms planned for the house, only nine rooms on the basement floor were completed.
The house was spectacular in that you could really see and feel the contrast between the finished basement level, where the family ended up living, and the unfinished framework of the upper floors. Your imagination could run free with the potential of what the house could have been, if not for the devastating economical impacts of the Civil War.
Also, Longwood was used in the HBO series True Blood for the external shots of the Jackson, Mississippi mansion of Russell Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi and Louisiana.
Chatting with the locals, we were told that Natchez is once again staging a comeback, due to the relocation of people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and the fact that you can purchase huge estate homes for ridiculously cheap.
Mary Lou's keen eye spotted some Tiffany windows in the Trinity Episcopal Church. The three dimensional effects of the angels' garments in the windows, were achieved by the glass having been folded by Louis Tiffany when molten.
In the morning, after a quick relocation drive, Mary Lou left the lights on in the RV and drained the battery. So, she got jumped on Valentine's Day. Nicole didn't.
Click here for photos of the Natchez Trace.
At the end of the Trace was Natchez, which, before the civil war, was second only to New York City for the number of millionaires living there. The town is filled with huge antebellum houses hidden behind Live Oak lined drives. The most impressive of them all was Longwood. Longwood is the largest octagonal house in the United States. The mansion is known for its octagonal plan, byzantine onion-shaped dome, and the contrast between its ornately finished first floor and the unfinished upper floors.
Samuel Sloan, a Philadelphia architect, designed the home in 1859 for cotton planter Dr. Haller Nutt. Work was halted in 1861 at the start of the American Civil War. Dr. Nutt died of pneumonia in 1864, leaving the work incomplete. Of the thirty-two rooms planned for the house, only nine rooms on the basement floor were completed.
The house was spectacular in that you could really see and feel the contrast between the finished basement level, where the family ended up living, and the unfinished framework of the upper floors. Your imagination could run free with the potential of what the house could have been, if not for the devastating economical impacts of the Civil War.
Also, Longwood was used in the HBO series True Blood for the external shots of the Jackson, Mississippi mansion of Russell Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi and Louisiana.
Chatting with the locals, we were told that Natchez is once again staging a comeback, due to the relocation of people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and the fact that you can purchase huge estate homes for ridiculously cheap.
Mary Lou's keen eye spotted some Tiffany windows in the Trinity Episcopal Church. The three dimensional effects of the angels' garments in the windows, were achieved by the glass having been folded by Louis Tiffany when molten.
In the morning, after a quick relocation drive, Mary Lou left the lights on in the RV and drained the battery. So, she got jumped on Valentine's Day. Nicole didn't.
Click here for photos of the Natchez Trace.
2.15.2011
Hey, Vicksburg. . .
. . . We Won.
But we do like the ironclad you pulled out of your Ol' Yazoo.
Click here for photos of National Military Park.
But we do like the ironclad you pulled out of your Ol' Yazoo.
Click here for photos of National Military Park.
2.14.2011
Jackson
We started our day in Jackson at the Mississippi Museum of Art. They were still setting up for "Orient Expressed" exhibition, that we had been hoping to see, but we were able to tour the permanent collection of Pre-Columbian ceramics. The ceramics, most of them ritual vessels, were incredibly well preserved, and we were amazed with the characters and the animals and the details of the pieces created between 500 B.C. - 1500 A.D. We also toured the museum's permanent collection of "The Mississippi Story", that included some outstanding pieces like photographs by Eudora Welty, a self portrait of Artist Randy Hayes with Eudora Welty, and a George Innes landscape. But, nothing out-shined Sulton Roger's wooden, elongated, huge toothed, fire etched moustached 'Two Blues Singers'.
We stopped downtown to see the old capital building, modeled after the Capital building in Washington D.C., and a few highlights of the Mississippi Blues Heritage Trail. The massive stone Capital, and the surrounding City Offices and pillared Court House, were impressive in their authority. But traveling down Historic Farish Street told a very different story.
Once the hub of educational, political, religious, economic, cultural and entertainment activities, the area takes its name from Walter Farish, a former slave who settled the street and whose children and great grandchildren continued to live there for decades. Now, empty brick shells line the entire street, wires and pipes hanging from the ceilings. Windows replaced with plywood, and most of those broken. A Birdland shop sign lying against a brick wall. Gutted and charred small houses were now filled with stray cats. The entire neighborhood looked like it had been ravaged by tornados, bombed, burnt and then flooded. Even in it's disrepair and decay, however, there was something very beautiful about it. A kind of excited, hopeful energy that still hangs about.
Soundtrack:
MISSISSIPPI MUD - James Cavanaugh / Harry Barris
"When the sun goes down, the tide goes out,
The people gather 'round and they all begin to shout,
"Hey! Hey! Uncle Dud,
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud.
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud".
Click here for photos!
We stopped downtown to see the old capital building, modeled after the Capital building in Washington D.C., and a few highlights of the Mississippi Blues Heritage Trail. The massive stone Capital, and the surrounding City Offices and pillared Court House, were impressive in their authority. But traveling down Historic Farish Street told a very different story.
Once the hub of educational, political, religious, economic, cultural and entertainment activities, the area takes its name from Walter Farish, a former slave who settled the street and whose children and great grandchildren continued to live there for decades. Now, empty brick shells line the entire street, wires and pipes hanging from the ceilings. Windows replaced with plywood, and most of those broken. A Birdland shop sign lying against a brick wall. Gutted and charred small houses were now filled with stray cats. The entire neighborhood looked like it had been ravaged by tornados, bombed, burnt and then flooded. Even in it's disrepair and decay, however, there was something very beautiful about it. A kind of excited, hopeful energy that still hangs about.
Soundtrack:
MISSISSIPPI MUD - James Cavanaugh / Harry Barris
"When the sun goes down, the tide goes out,
The people gather 'round and they all begin to shout,
"Hey! Hey! Uncle Dud,
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud.
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud".
Click here for photos!
After the Storm. . .
Although the bright shiny lights of the Biloxi casinos keep you distracted, it's impossible not to notice the lingering damage from Hurricane Katrina. Driving along the coast, we passed one bare foundation after another, the only remnants of Gulf view mansions. Huge structures, half collapsed into a mess of twisting metal and concrete, surrounded by ancient, faded yellow caution tape. The old downtown was quaint, with old wooden cafes and antique shops. The shop owners, and the women at the fresh vegetable stand, and the local handyman working on the windows all had the same response when we told them that Biloxi was a pleasant place to be. . . "Sure, it's taken a while, but things are really starting to shape up here again." Six years after the storm, it still weighs heavy over everything. The town, and the people, seemed somewhat tired from the efforts of resilience.
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!
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!
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