Jude 2

Our best friends Paul and Emily are currently separated. He is in Biloxi doing military training/school. He has been gone since January and wont be back until July. Emily is up here with their 2 small children and really struggling.

Soooooooooo... we planned an adult only trip to Biloxi. We both have babysitters lined up. We are riding down with Emily EARLY Friday morning May 29th. We should get there around 1ish. We will spend that day in Biloxi. Saturday we plan to go to New Orleans. We will spend the whole day there. Sunday in Gulf Shores all day. We will drive home EARLY Monday.

Sooooooo... what should we do. We are open to most anything. We are looking at taking a boat ride to an island to tour Fort Massachusetts.
http://www.nps.gov/guis/historyculture/ ... usetts.htm

I would like to see the Friendship Oak Tree.
http://www.usm.edu/gc/katrina/friendship_oak.html

Other than that.. we have no plans. Suggestions wanted!

The Great River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge (closer to New Orleans) has quite a few plantations on it. One that you see on T.V. with the Oak lined avenue in front of it. (which fortunatey survived Katrina) and one is the home of the Brer Rabbit stories.

http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/lo ... erroad.htm

Biloxi has been swept clean of all the beach type trinket/t-shirt shops that are usually found on the beach. All that is left on miles of beach is a waffle house, a gas station, 3 casinos and a condo...all rebuilt after the hurricane. There are only a few hotels. It is amazing that they still have not rebuilt after Katrina. The Beauvoir (Pres. Jefferson Davis' home and Presidential library) took a huge loss and had just re-opened while we were there this time last year. http://www.beauvoir.org/

You will still see lots of devastation there and many, many empty lots where old mansions once stood beachside, but are no longer there...just driveways leading nowhere. Biloxi didn't get the $$$ that New Orleans did, but New Orleans still has some devastated areas that are still quite frightening to see.

In Biloxi, we saw a huge black box sitting in a middle of a pile of concrete (what used to be a parking lot) that had a hand-printed sign on it that said, "Regions Bank-moved to another location". When we passed the box, we realized that it was the safe from the bank still sitting there after all these years.

It is all interesting and they need the tourism $'s.

Gulf shores, AL ?

If so, or why near there (Mobile and Biloxi area), check out the Bellingrath Gardens.

Of course, there's Spanish Fort, AL (for the history buff), the USS Alabama battleship, and Dauphin Island.

We'll be leaving late next Monday for Destin, FL and coming back on Mother's Day. It's the week of the annual food show there put on by the company that sells us food for our deli. We're in a very nice condo (the grocery company's expense -- yay!) and, although the show itself intensive work it is also very fun and informative and man, some good food. My wife and daughter will have days of beach time, and I'll have Tuesday evening (hopefully), Wednesday at the beach, then late Thursday afternoon and late Friday and all day Saturday. Last year, I also won a 42" (I think) flat LCD TV. So, that was cool.

Can't wait.