September 5, 2009 Ocean Springs, MS; Gulfport, MS; Jackson, MS; Memphis, TN

We got up early and decided to drive to McElroy's on the Bayou in Ocean Springs for breakfast and it proved to be a good choice. The new restaurant, built to replace one in Biloxi that Hurricane Katrina had destroyed, was built overlooking beautiful Fort Bayou and the large homes that lined it. As we ate a delicious breakfast, we were able to watch boats that were taking an early morning run on the waters, and birds that were in the trees near the windows. After ending our meal with an order of beignets, we decided to drive into the downtown area of Ocean Springs to see what had been done since the storm, but we soon found that the city was teeming with people because of an event called Art Walk. The streets were lined with tents where artists had set up to sell paintings, pottery and sculptures, and people were walking everywhere. On Government Street, we passed interesting-looking places like Government Street Grocery (actually a restaurant) and Chandeleur Outfitters. I would have liked to have stopped and browsed around, but my mother had to meet her friends from school at the White Cap Seafood Restaurant in Gulfport at 11 AM, so we headed back west into Biloxi on Highway 90. The White Cap was owned by one of her old classmates, Carl Lizana, and was a beautiful new building at Mississippi City, since, once again, Katrina had blown the old one away. We spent a couple of hours there, eating and talking, and then we left, heading out the new Cowan-Lorraine highway out to Saucier to start the drive back to Memphis. In Jackson, we went to a restaurant near the stadium called Sal and Mookie's that proved to be some of the best pizza either of us had ever eaten. I was especially impressed by the herb garden that they had growing outdoors beside the building. From there we stopped by Lemuria Books in Banner Hall, where I bought a book about New Orleans, and then, after a cappuccino from the Broad Street Baking Company downstairs, we started back home to Memphis. We soon learned that the history-making football game between Mississippi State and Jackson State had not gone well for the JSU Tigers, as they got blown out by the Bulldogs.

September 4, 2009 Memphis, TN; Jackson, MS; Gulfport, MS

I had agreed to drive my mother down to Gulfport, Mississippi for her high-school reunion, so we stopped by a Starbucks in Memphis for a pick-up breakfast, and then we headed down I-55, breaking for lunch in Jackson, Mississippi at Majestic Burger. In Gulfport, I had reserved a room for us in the Holiday Inn, which turned out not to be the old hotel I remembered on Highway 49, but a new one around the corner which had just opened in November and was beautiful. Our room was luxurious and comfortable. The party for my mother's class was at a house on the Tchouticabouffa River north of Biloxi, so I drove her out there, and met a number of her friends from school. The party was underneath the new house, which had been built since Katrina, on a patio that backed up to the bayou and boat slips. Afterwards, I had hoped to get beignets, but the Mary Mahoney's LaCafe that used to stay open for 24 hours and which offered them had not been rebuilt since Katrina, so instead we drove across the new Highway 90 bridge, which was lit up in blue neon, across to Ocean Springs and then back to Gulfport along the beach. In most of these areas, there is almost nothing left of the houses and businesses that once stood across from the beaches. A few buildings survived, and new condominiums and motels have gone up, but the rebuilding process is slow, seemingly much slower than New Orleans, perhaps hindered by the bad economy and less familiarity. Biloxi just doesn't draw the tourists that New Orleans does, even with the casinos.