The third and final leg of the journey found us in Gulfport Mississippi, a city still pretty wrecked from Hurricane Katrina and often overshadowed in terms of destruction by what happened in New Orleans. Despite the bare foundations, the concrete stairs to nowhere, hollowed out buildings, it is still very beautiful what there is, full of buttermint colored houses (the ones that were rebuilt) and white, white sand. It's hard to imagine so much under the storm surge and alot of it has grown over with grass like it was barely was ever there. There are more than a handful of casino hotels (most were barges that were strung all over town 6 years ago and now have land locations.) We stayed in a gorgeous, semi-luxurious one with an ocean view, but, with a couple of exceptions I had my usual crappy luck in the casino. We got to see an 500 year old tree right across the highway from the beach that basically had grown so large it's branches had re-rooted themselves into the ground around it, making it virtually hurricane proof.
