Mississippi gulf coast, still beautiful

We've taken a short drive to the Mississippi gulf coast and are staying in the small town of Long Beach, just a few minutes from Gulfport. The beaches are clean with white sand as far as the eye can see. Sea birds are abundant but the people are gone. We found a few workers that seemed to be walking the coastline in search of tarballs. The magnificent homes that we remembered from our trip to the coast 30 years back are gone. The Magic River campground where we are staying for two days, sits a mile plus inland from the gulf, it was under 18 feet of water as the surge from Katrina hit. Magic River was the original Passport America campground.

With the exception of a few visitors at the many local gaming establishments, it's empty here.

Buccaneer Park, the pirates haven

Along the gulf east of New Orleans was the area hardest hit in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina came ashore.  Winds of over 140 MPH and a tidal surge of nearly 30 feet completely leveled all of Buccaneer State Park where we are staying tonight. Located on the beach in Waveland, Buccaneer is in a natural setting of large moss-draped oaks, marshlands and the Gulf of Mexico. The land was first used in the late 1700's when Jean Lafitte and his followers were active in smuggling and piracy along the coast. The park site, also known as Jackson's Ridge, was used as a base of military operations by Andrew Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans. Jackson later returned to this area and built a house on land that is now Buccaneer State Park.
The newly constructed homes along this area sit high above the gulf.

Katrina victims/St. Bernard State Park

As we left New Orleans yesterday for St. Bernard State Park we drove through the lower 9th ward. Many reminders of the events of Katrina are seen on the houses still in ruin today. Nearly every house in New Orleans was searched for bodies and hazards, then the findings were noted by a spray paint marking left on the front of homes. The cryptic markings have meaning for who searched the site, the date the house was searched, any hazards such as gas, downed lines or dead animals and the bottom quadrant of the X indicates the body count. Controversy still surrounds the body count and even today, they are still finding the remains of people in houses that were checked in 2005.

Our short trip to the State Park in St. Bernards Perish took under an hour. Gary has learned to wear his gloves and open everything with care. When he went to hook up the rig in our site, there were two locals hiding in the electrical box. One little lizard lost his tail when Gary opened an electrical box. The tail twitched on the ground allowing the lizard to escape. Not to worry, this is a life saving technique for these lizards and a new tail will grow back.

Happy Thanksgiving from the one that got away!

Who dat

New Orleans 30+ years later

It's been a long time since Gary and I first traveled to New Orleans. Much has changed and one can only say that the big easy, has not had it easy after Katrina and this years oil spill. The city lives but the scares are deep and you wonder if they will ever heal. We are in an RV park setting on a canal between the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain. The wall behind us is one of the levies that broke flooding the 9th ward.

The people of New Orleans are proud of their cities comeback, of their Saints Football team and their spicy cuisine. We walked the French Quarter which was not flooded and enjoyed a bowl of gumbo. It was in the mid eighties today and the warm weather should continue through Thanksgiving.

The Natchez Trace, last day

In the 1800's the Trace had several stands (Inns) along the way, providing a place to sleep and sometimes a meal for 25 cents. Mount Locus, a days walk out of Natchez is one of the few still standing. It started as a farm but with the popularity of the trace, the owners built a bunk house out back and called it Sleepy Hollow.

Just a short distance from Natchez sits the second largest burial Emerald Mound in the US. Around 1400, ancestors of the Natchez Indians built the 8 acres ceremonial and burial mound, next to the Trace. It's difficult to capture the size but it is as tall as the hardwood trees standing near and very long.

The town of Natchez is a nice little town. Seated along the banks of the Mississippi river with views of Louisiana on the far bank, she has retained her charm over the years. There are many homes falling into disrepair but the old girls along the main road into town still shine bright. There are several Antebellum Homes and we found one fixer-upper that we were told is now owned by a best selling author. Gary stopped to talk to a man painting the home and he mentioned that he has been working on the place for two years. It looks great!

Cypress swamps and Alligators live in these parts

The cypress swamp along the Natchez Trace was a nice walk but no gators. We camped in Rocky Springs, another free park, for three days, we made a side trip to Vicksburg, home to several important civil war battles.

Last leg of the Nacthez Trace

The last 100 miles of the Natchez Trace changed as we entered the state of Mississippi and so did the climate. We are in the deep south now, the pathway has fewer hills, the trees are still full of leaves and the weather is in the 70's by day and 50 by night. The parkway is still the smooth two lane with speeds topping 50 mph and little shoulder to speak of. The old trace (the real one) is very deep in spots as seen in the pictures. Sometimes as deep as 20 feet or more. One can only imagine how difficult this would have been on a hot Mississippi summer day with bugs, snakes and robbers at any turn. But when we reflect back to those who traveled the Trace, it leaves us silent. The Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes, French and Spanish explorers, Civil War soldiers, Kaintucks, Meriwether Lewis, Hernando de Soto, Andrew Jackson and James Audubon to name a few.

Confederate graves on the old Natchez Trace

Just a short drive down the Trace (mile marker 193) we entered the Jeff Busby campground. Not as nice as Meriwether Lewis but still nice for Free. The campground has 13 sites and so far, no more than 6 campers in all. We hiked the short trail and walked to the overlook for a view of the still vibrant color.

On the way south we stopped at the Pharr Mounds and a site on the old trace that has the graves of 13 unknown confederate soldiers. Pharr Mounds is the largest and most important archaeological site in northern Mississippi. Eight large dome shaped burial mounds are scattered over an area of 90 acres. These mounds were built and used about 100-1200 A.D. by a tribe of nomadic Indian hunters and gatherers who returned to this site at times to bury their dead with their possessions.

The Civil War left its mark on the Trace as it did upon the rest of the South. The soldiers marched, camped and fought along portions of this historic old road. A 5 minute walk on the Old Trace takes you to the graves of 13 unknown Confederate soldiers, thought to have been injured in a battle nearby. But the original markers have long been gone so little is known who these men were and how they died. The headstones face back toward the trace so people on the path can see the graves.