Florida, Alabama & Mississippi

On Tuesday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and set out for Biloxi, Mississippi, driving on the back roads of Florida’s panhandle, keeping as close as possible to the coast. In the town of Mary Esther, just outside of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, we stopped at a Piggly Wiggly to stock up on sodas. I’m not sure why, but visiting a Piggly Wiggly has been on my bucket list for a long time.

We were able to find my soda (diet Mug Root Bear at $5.99 for a case of twelve), but couldn’t find Kathy’s Orange Crush. One weird thing, though; as we drove through town, all of the streets had piles of dead branches in the front yards, just as if everyone had decided to trim their trees at the same time.

After crossing the bridge into Pensacola, (what a beautiful bay, shining in the morning sunlight), we started noticing a number of street signs knocked askew, houses without shingles on the roof, and large trees knocked down. I commented to Kathy that it looked like a tornado had come through. She got on the phone to Google and found that it was the damage caused by hurricane Isaias, just a few weeks ago; the same hurricane that knocked down trees on the Blue Ridge Parkway when we were there.

Just before we crossed into Alabama, near Perdido Key in Florida, we stopped by a Walmart Supercenter to see if we could find Kathy’s sodas there. Although we rarely visit Walmart at home, we’ve become something like aficianados on this trip. In addition to Kathy’s Orange Crush, look what else we found. I didn’t know that they still made these.

When we crossed into Alabama, our other bucket list item was to try fried green tomatoes. I did some Web research, and the name that kept coming up was Lucy Buffet’s Lulu’s in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Lucy is Jimmy Buffet’s little sister. We found the restaurant just after noon and ordered the tomatoes. They were pretty good, but nothing life-changing (However Kathy loved them).

After the appetizer we both had the half-po’boy and bowl of gumbo special. I had the shrimp po’boy with chicken and sausage gumbo, while Kathy had the oyster po’boy with the shrimp and crab gumbo. I have to say that the gulf shrimp were large, fresh, and delicious, nothing like those I’ve had in California, or even in Florida.

After lunch we drove through the tunnel under Mobile Bay, which I found terrifying, and then down the coast to Mississippi. Instead of corn fields or cane fields, we started driving by cotton fields.

As usual, Kathy wanted to feel the cotton with her own hands, so we stopped and she picked a little.

The closer we got to Biloxi, the more traffic we encountered. Instead of the relative isolation of the Forgotten Coast and its understated bungalows, the shore was covered with huge condominium towers. As we got closer to Biloxi, these were replaced with casino resorts.

Our hotel, the Hyatt Place, was about a mile down the coast road from the Biloxi casino strip, about a block from the Biloxi lighthouse. We walked down to the lighthouse and took a picture. Then, we walked across to the boardwalk, and looked at the statue of Fred Haise, a Biloxi native who was one of the Apollo 13 astronauts. We continued down the beach, walking on the boardwalk, under the freeway and towards the casinos in search of something to eat for dinner. 

We didn’t find anything, so we decided just to head back to our hotel and snack on chips. As we were walking back, with the setting sun, from behind the casinos came first one shrimp boat, then four more. They had their lights on and their nets out, and it looked just like scene from the book we were listening to as we drove: Forrest Gump.