My drive today

I drove down I-10 to 110 to Biloxi and took a right onto Highway 90/Beach Boulevard. The weather was perfect Fall and that always makes things seem better to me. The first thing I see on Hwy 90 is a ruined building with a sign on the cyclone fence for a "coming soon" condo development. I'm looking to the right beause my first stop is the old cemetery. It wasn't the most interesting cemetery I've visited, but the live oaks were huge and beautiful.

























Then I go to the beach. It's strange to think I've been 20 mintues from the ocean for a week and this is my first visit. The beach is beautiful and sandy, but the water looks like onion soup. The sand has been trucked in from somewhere, it looks like Florida panhandle sand. The beach isn't peaceful as it is one lane away from Highway 90 (the four lane artery that follows the coast from Mobile, AL toBay St. Louis, MS). It was strange to sit there, on the beach, and look out at the calm gulf water thinking about the missing houses behind me.















In the less than 9 mile drive from Biloxi to Gulfport, it seems as if 80 percent of the land is still unrecovered. Cement slabs, empty lots, half-dead live oaks, hand-lettered signs nailed to trees in place of street signs.

In the "downtown" area of Biloxi, there the shiney new casinos and the evidence of Katrina. Below is across the street from the new Hard Rock Casino.

























There are more shots on Flickr.

Tomorrow, my friend T. and I are driving farther west along Highway 90 into Bay St. Louis, which was all but obliterated.