Despite having lived in the south for over a decade, NOT had yet to visit the Gulf of Mexico. Now one gulf/ocean/sea is not all that different from another, especially having travelled all over the world and visited many a beach. But in December 2009, Russ and J.J. was off to celebrate the holidays on the coast in Biloxi, Mississippi.
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina roared ashore for the final time (after hitting Florida and outer branches of Louisiana) not far from Gulfport/Biloxi. The storm's fury pushed ashore a storm surge 12 feet high - extremely devastating in an area whose elevation is 20 feet above sea level. In Biloxi is a monument to the storm which is 12 feet high, showing how high the surge was.
NOT was glad to not be swimming in that.
Now four years later, much of the big parts of town are rebuilt. Big as in the casinos are back operational, and major buildings are back running. But the devistation still stands out and reminds you how much was lost. Areas are wiped of most trees for a good distance inland. Across Route 90, Beach Avenue, from the Gulf, a good percentage of the lots are empty, grass overgrowing cement slabs which serve as a reminder that a house or building sat there, yet to be rebuilt, if it ever will.
Biloxi is an example of a community that has tried to reclaim from the sea. The shoreline has continued to be pushed hundreds of feet further out into the Gulf over time. A testiment to this is the Biloxi Lighthouse. Where once the lighthouse sat at the water's edge, it is now in a median on Route 90, several hundred feet from the water line. The lighthouse, reportedly one of the most photographed lighthouses in the country, was heavily damaged by Katrina and is currently closed. NOT visited, but the wind blew him from his perch just as the photo was taken, so he enjoyed the lighthouse from the ground.
It's a sad thing when you have to remind people to not take a dump on the sidewalk. Is this the beginning of a "Curb Your Friend" campaign?
Gulfport, just to the west of Biloxi is home to Beauvoir, which was the home to former Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis towards the end of his life.
Beauvoir was built in 1848 by James Brown, a planter. The estate changed hands several times in the latter part of the 1800's, and it was here that Jefferson Davis moved with his family in 1877, and it is here that he wrote his Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Davis lived in this home until his death in 1889.
The home served for many years as a Confederate Veteran's Home, until 1956. A cemetery of confederate veterans is on the grounds, serving as the last resting place of many of the home's residents, but not Jefferson Davis himself, who is buried, along with his wife, in Richmond, Virginia.
The cemetery includes the Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Soldier, with the remains of an unidentified Southern soldier killed in battle and symbolizes all Southern Dead from the Civil War (or that War of Northern Aggression as it is often know in the South).
Also here is the grave of Jefferson Davis' father, Samuel Davis, who was a veteran of the American Revolution.
The house sits right across the road from the gulf (actually was on the water when it was built). It was flooded and damaged in both Hurricane Camille, in 1969, and was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which destroyed many of the buildings on the grounds and virtually gutting the main house. The Jefferson Davis Presidential Library's first floor was gutted in the storm and over a third of the collection was lost.
Though slow to recover, the storm gave the foundation responsible for the estate the chance to properly restore the house to the condition it was when occupied by Davis and his family.
However, the gulf area is not all stories of destruction. On the Gulf Park campus of the University of Southern Mississippi (formerly Gulf Park College) stands the Friendship Oak. Believed to be over 500 years old (the University dates it from around 1487), the massive tree has a trunk over 18 feet in circumference, and the wide mass of limbs spreading over 150 feet wide.
It is amazing, given the destruction to the area, that this oak (in sight of the Gulf) has survived storm after storm, as well as the onslaught of humans (and students).
Yet another sight that survived is the self proclaimed "World's Largest Rocking Chair." At thirty-five feet tall, the chair has survived just inland from the gulf for almost 15 years.
NOT is dwarfed by the chair as it sits in the lower right hand corner of the photo. He doesn't need such a big chair to land upon, being such a small duck. It does continue his theme of hanging out with oversized items though.
In the spirit of all that reconstruction and life, NOT was happy to find that there still was a Waffle House to be found in Long Beach along the beach. All the comforts of home.
