Winter Escape

As I sit at home, snowbound by the foot of snow we got overnight, I have to go back in my mind to just one brief week ago when I had my yearly birthday escape. This year I had to go somewhere warmer than here - and without 2 feet of snow on the ground! So where else to go but Biloxi, MS?

Yes, I said Biloxi. Mississippi. Hey, the Gulf Coast has long been on my list of places I have to go - my "bucket list" for lack of a better or less conformist term. I got a tremendous deal on both hotel (through Harrahs) and airfare. Plus this year has just been one loooonnnng crappy year, so the Grand Biloxi Spa & Casino sounded like the perfect place to just take care of me.






Getting there turned out to be more of an ordeal than I had hoped, thanks to a missing screw on a lens cover that kept us sitting for 2 hours before even leaving Milwaukee. Thanks to that I missed my connecting flight in Memphis and had to wait for the next one 5 hours later. But get there, I did. Finally... at 9:00 pm instead of the planned 4:00. It was 32 degrees in Biloxi that night, but at least the snow that hit New Orleans didn't come that far east. And it was still warmer than Wisconsin!

Friday was still cold - too cold for a walking adventure and that meant driving and exploring the interiors of various "emporiums of chance" as one of my parishioners called them. But Saturday morning was much warmer so I set off on foot to the town square a mile and a half away. I've got a few pictures (forgot the camera on my Sunday exploration) so I'll post some now and save some for further reflections over the next couple of days. Future thoughts will be shared on the Katrina after-effects and my Sunday experience.... but for now here are some photos from the beachfront walk on Friday.