6th Mar – 14th Mar 2022
Our next day on the Hampson Gulf Coast Slow Tour took us a whole one hour’s drive eastwards into Mississippi. We were long overdue a laundry day, with no machines at our next place, so we factored in a laundrette stop en route. There is something deeply satisfying about doing all ones washing in one foul swoop and, despite the obvious evils of tumble driers, that includes leaving a laundry with a big folded pile of hot, dry, clean clothes, sheets and towels. Another cheap dopamine fix for me.
Our next stop was a small, genteel town called Ocean Springs, a short bridge-based journey from its better known neighbour, Biloxi. Biloxi’s skyline is moderately blighted by large hotels and monstrous casino buildings but Ocean Springs is still, with the exception of an isolated town-centre brutalist block, a charming collection of late 19th C and early 20th C homes and buildings. It even had an actual old town centre. Marvellous! Add to that a beautiful white sandy beach fronted with many handsome homes, plenty of safe cycle routes, lots of magnificent old oak trees lining many of the roads, a plethora of hostelries and a definate artsy vibe and this was another of our favourite types of place.
Only 3 miles from town is another great park called Davis Bayou Campground which is located within the Gulf Islands National Seashore. This National Park extends along the coast from Mississippi, through Alabama, to the Florida panhandle and includes many of the gulf barrier islands. We had booked eight nights here thus starting the phase of our trip with extended stays in each camp. The weather was improving and it was time to stop dashing about as much. As I write this I realise that my describing our existence as involving anything remotely close to ‘dashing’ is a bit of a stretch, but even we have scope for slowing down. We also are starting to visualise the end of this trip and are now back-planning our stops and journeys to get to our end-point at the right time. We have time to kill.
As the name might suggest, the park was situated on a bayou. Happily the mosquitos weren’t too bad and there were some very sweet little bats that came out at dusk to help with bug control. We saw the first fireflies of our trip and the first moderately sized alligator ‘at large’. It was only about 15m away but we unfortunately have no phographic evidence. Oh, and there was one worryingly confident racoon. This was out in the broad daylight and had absolutely no fear of anything. I had to fend it off with my camp chair. It might have just been used to humans, but there is rabies here and although it was not foaming at the mouth it did look a bit dishevelled. We reported it to the resident ranger. She was going to get maintenance to ‘deal with it’. Sorry dude. You were just a bit too freaky. The most annoying wildlife was the dreaded ‘No-See-Um’. A tiny biting gnat that was small enough to squeeze through our bug screens. There was no escape. They were everywhere. Kept at bay only by a smokey fire, a brisk breeze and 40%, skin-melting DEET spray. They are evil.
We cruised in and out of town several times during our stay here. The weather was mostly lovely and we found a few good places to have lunch. One of the bar/restaurants was owned by a very interesting chap called Ken who had many amusing anecdotes of his work and travels in the Middle East. He managed to match the garulous chit-chat of my beloved and we spent several pleasant hours chewing the fat with him over a pint or two of his own brews. The town’s art credentials are grown on the back of its most famous son, the nationally acclaimed artist Walter Anderson. In his later life he was a recluse and spent much time by himself out on Horn Island, rowing out the 12 miles in his little wooden boat. He would draw and paint the wildlife and landscapes in bright watercolours. The town has a great gallery museum of his life and work, including his old boat and a relocated little studio cottage, the interior of which he entirely decorated with murals. No-one had seen this during his lifetime. The museum is also connected to the original community centre of the town that he also completely decorated internally with murals. He had offered to do this for the town but they weren’t that keen for some reason. He wasn’t that well known then. Eventually they relented and paid him $1 for the commission. He didn’t quite finish the work before his death from lung cancer at the age of 62 in 1965. Now he is famous and the town is pleased as punch with their masterpiece. Suprise, suprise. His work wasn’t really to my taste.
There were a few nice shops in the town but we resisted the urge to buy anything. After four trips we are really maxed out on storage space. We have all that we need and no space to store anything new. Our extra stuff is slowly taking over the back seat of Big Dave and its a ‘one-in-one-out’ situation now with clothes and things. If it ain’t consumable by us (food & drink) or by Big Dave (petrol) then generally we don’t buy it!
This was a week with many strolls and bike rides, many camp fires and meals cooked over the hot coals, many games of cards,one thunderstorm and one dump-station drama. (Nothing that a brisk hose-down couldn’t solve but was a trifle embarrassing). We had a whole day of doing absolutely nothing and one day we had to move campsites. I even managed to get the height-shy Hampson to cycle to the mid-point of the Biloxi Bay bridge. He is very brave.