hitting the beach picture post
This picture post includes shots from Mississippi and Alabama. When i originally planned my trip just by looking at the maps, i figured taking the coastal road from Texas through Florida would all be pretty much the same scenery, but that wasn't the case at all. Texas was industrial. Louisiana was marshy. But everything changed when i hit Mississippi.
Whenever you enter a state on highway that is just big enough to get a welcome sign saying you entered it but not so big that it's impossible to stop, it's fun to take a photo. I think this is the first state where that happened, or at least the first one where the welcome sign wasn't in the middle of some long, tick-filled grass.
But i didn't really feel like anything had changed until this next photo. I was riding through the same kind of boggy, piney landscape as i'd seen in Louisiana when... boom. The beach. The ocean.
The next morning i went back down to the beach and went out for my first paddle in the Atlantic since my brief paddle in Cameron parish (Louisiana).
The whole western section of the Mississippi gulf coast seems really run-down and abandoned. Kind of like a place that once might have been a cool place to be, but maybe because of hurricanes, or COVID, or just the fickle preferences of tourists, a lot of it is shut down now.
Here in Bay Saint Louis they have spent a bit of money trying to spruce up the place. This is a debate club whose hall was used to host black performers back in the day.
I also got caught in some construction at Bay Saint Louis and snapped this shot, which is a nice little glimpse of small town America.
Most places that have beaches around the world are trying to create sand dunes to protect from storm surges. I liked this picture because you can see a baby grass plantation, like the birthing of a dune.
When i was growing up, there was a famous arcade game called Out Run. You drove a convertible down a wide, beachside road lined with palm trees. Even though it's a Japanese game that's set in Europe, for me that somehow became an image of America, some kind of mythical perfect place where you could drive forever in the sun, listening to music, just chilling. Very, very occasionally the real America turns out to be like that dream. The Mississippi gulf coast was that. Look how empty the road is. It felt like i owned the whole place.
Also pictured: Waffle House, an ubiquitous fast food chain that has displaced Sonic since getting into the south.
Alleyway in Gulfport.
Another view of the same alley.
Here is a picture of a dune that has started forming properly. It's not a big one yet, you can just see the sea from the road.
I had to get another little photo in front of a Mississippi sign. They definitely like their signs here.
This is a boardwalk up near Biloxi, i think.
Some of the old tree trunks along the coast that got snapped by hurricanes were left in the ground and turned into carvings. In Bay Saint Louis there was an awesome tree trunk with angels carved in it, but i couldn't get a good photo. Here is one carved into a dolphin.
I didn't get many good photos of Alabama, because it was really overcast. This is a shot crossing the bridge/causeway to Dauphin Island.
Since the campsite on the island didn't allow tents, i had to immediately get on the ferry and try my luck on the other side of the bay. I snapped this shot on the ferry, a rare photo where i captured a few people. In the background you can see a couple of the many oil platforms that litter the Alabama coast.
Ferry selfie!
On the other side of the ferry there was a brief stretch of really awesome desolate landscape. Looks especially desolate and lonely in the gray weather, but actually just past that house on the left you hit a miles-long strip of vacation rentals and RV parks that do not allow tent camping.
This was a boat ramp and fishing pier, closed for some reason. It was an interesting spot, though, because it's looking north into Mobile Bay, and because the wind was a strong northerly, this was the first place since hitting the coast where i could smell that salty, fishy smell in the air.
Taken from the last bridge in Alabama before getting to the Florida border. Just a few hundred meters down the road is the Flora-Bama bar, but more on that in a future post.
So that was my very brief little journey through the deep south. I don't know if it really counts, because i only spent 3 nights there, and all of them were right on the coast, which is probably not representative of the rest of the region. But, also, this was the first time on the trip where i really started feeling like i was properly on holiday. Seeing the ocean, and the beach... it just relaxed me. I think i missed the ocean a lot. I used to hate it when i was young, but getting back there after being stuck inland for over a year, it was pretty awesome. Just the wide open space, the endless horizon... i loved it. And there is a lot more of it to come in my Florida panhandle journey. To be continued.
Whenever you enter a state on highway that is just big enough to get a welcome sign saying you entered it but not so big that it's impossible to stop, it's fun to take a photo. I think this is the first state where that happened, or at least the first one where the welcome sign wasn't in the middle of some long, tick-filled grass.
But i didn't really feel like anything had changed until this next photo. I was riding through the same kind of boggy, piney landscape as i'd seen in Louisiana when... boom. The beach. The ocean.
The next morning i went back down to the beach and went out for my first paddle in the Atlantic since my brief paddle in Cameron parish (Louisiana).
The whole western section of the Mississippi gulf coast seems really run-down and abandoned. Kind of like a place that once might have been a cool place to be, but maybe because of hurricanes, or COVID, or just the fickle preferences of tourists, a lot of it is shut down now.
Here in Bay Saint Louis they have spent a bit of money trying to spruce up the place. This is a debate club whose hall was used to host black performers back in the day.
I also got caught in some construction at Bay Saint Louis and snapped this shot, which is a nice little glimpse of small town America.
Most places that have beaches around the world are trying to create sand dunes to protect from storm surges. I liked this picture because you can see a baby grass plantation, like the birthing of a dune.
When i was growing up, there was a famous arcade game called Out Run. You drove a convertible down a wide, beachside road lined with palm trees. Even though it's a Japanese game that's set in Europe, for me that somehow became an image of America, some kind of mythical perfect place where you could drive forever in the sun, listening to music, just chilling. Very, very occasionally the real America turns out to be like that dream. The Mississippi gulf coast was that. Look how empty the road is. It felt like i owned the whole place.
Also pictured: Waffle House, an ubiquitous fast food chain that has displaced Sonic since getting into the south.
Alleyway in Gulfport.
Another view of the same alley.
Here is a picture of a dune that has started forming properly. It's not a big one yet, you can just see the sea from the road.
I had to get another little photo in front of a Mississippi sign. They definitely like their signs here.
This is a boardwalk up near Biloxi, i think.
Some of the old tree trunks along the coast that got snapped by hurricanes were left in the ground and turned into carvings. In Bay Saint Louis there was an awesome tree trunk with angels carved in it, but i couldn't get a good photo. Here is one carved into a dolphin.
I didn't get many good photos of Alabama, because it was really overcast. This is a shot crossing the bridge/causeway to Dauphin Island.
Since the campsite on the island didn't allow tents, i had to immediately get on the ferry and try my luck on the other side of the bay. I snapped this shot on the ferry, a rare photo where i captured a few people. In the background you can see a couple of the many oil platforms that litter the Alabama coast.
Ferry selfie!
On the other side of the ferry there was a brief stretch of really awesome desolate landscape. Looks especially desolate and lonely in the gray weather, but actually just past that house on the left you hit a miles-long strip of vacation rentals and RV parks that do not allow tent camping.
This was a boat ramp and fishing pier, closed for some reason. It was an interesting spot, though, because it's looking north into Mobile Bay, and because the wind was a strong northerly, this was the first place since hitting the coast where i could smell that salty, fishy smell in the air.
Taken from the last bridge in Alabama before getting to the Florida border. Just a few hundred meters down the road is the Flora-Bama bar, but more on that in a future post.
So that was my very brief little journey through the deep south. I don't know if it really counts, because i only spent 3 nights there, and all of them were right on the coast, which is probably not representative of the rest of the region. But, also, this was the first time on the trip where i really started feeling like i was properly on holiday. Seeing the ocean, and the beach... it just relaxed me. I think i missed the ocean a lot. I used to hate it when i was young, but getting back there after being stuck inland for over a year, it was pretty awesome. Just the wide open space, the endless horizon... i loved it. And there is a lot more of it to come in my Florida panhandle journey. To be continued.