Biloxi

Our RV park in Biloxi, Mississippi is just across Beach Boulevard from the waters of the Gulf Coast, and it's beautiful.  Pristine white sand beaches.  Lovely mansions lining Beach Street.  The weather is nice and warm.

One of the problems associated with a lifestyle of moving from place to place is that whenever you need to have a service performed, you are flying blind.  That is, the auto mechanic and the dog groomer and the primary care doctor you've used for years are 2000 miles away and aren't interested in doing house calls under those circumstances.

I desperately needed a haircut.  Nancy found a well-reviewed barber in a shopping mall.  When I walked in, a black barber was cutting a black man's hair.  Two other black guys appeared to be awaiting their turns.  I said hello.  No one responded.  Not a peep.  I was beginning to think I wasn't valued as a potential customer.  I left, my dignity only slightly bruised.

The internet yielded another option - Joe's Barber Shop.  A white guy was cutting a white man's hair.  Two white guys appeared to be awaiting their turns.  But there was another barber whose chair was empty, so I felt lucky that I didn't have to wait.  Unfortunately, the young man may have been a trainee, and he gave me a bad, uneven cut.  Overall it was an improvement, though.  I no longer looked like an old homeless person, just a little odd.  (No photos available.)

We've tried to hit as many presidential libraries as possible on our trip, so we took the opportunity to visit one in Biloxi.  And this library was a little different.  It was the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library.  You don't remember President Davis?  He was the one and only president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.  The library is on the grounds of Beauvoir, the last home of Davis, where he lived after two years' imprisonment for his role in the attempted secession.  Pictured below are Bouvoir and then the funeral carriage in which his body was borne in supposedly the largest funeral ever in New Orleans.

Biloxi is still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina all these years later.  The storm surge reached 25 feet and damaged every building near the beach to one extent or another.  Many homes were torn down, and most of the new houses are built on pilings that raise them well above ground.

Our last evening in Biloxi we bought three pounds of cooked crawfish in their shells and feasted on them in our motorhome.  Our one restaurant experience in Biloxi - at Half Shell Oysters - was wonderful.  We expect to eat well in our time on the Gulf Coast.