Hollywood Casino Park
Part Three: Southern Cross
Sunday - 10 November 2002: Bay St. Louis,
Mississippi - Welcome to the third segment of our journey! We took
another turn and are heading west now, crossing the south! Today was a
driving day, but we still saw a lot of beautiful country - and a lot of
swamp. We left Florida, off the beautiful Perdido Key into Alabama. The key
is very nice, with luxury beach-front condos, and pretty pastel homes on the
inland waterway - complete with their own private docks and boat houses. We
had been in Florida ten days.
This part of Alabama is beautiful! Huge mansions with quarter-mile-long
drives, magnificent horse farms, live oaks dripping with moss, and old
southern mansions along the mouth of the Beautiful Mobile Bay. We stopped in Fairhope, at a shady park on the bay with a lot of lawn,
for lunch - left-over chicken soup. Snickers had a walk (which means I had a
walk) and DT walked to the end of the huge pier. We saw many homes that were
identical in style to our own house today! We truly do live in a Southern
Farm house... it's just in Oregon. Fairhope is
a very pretty town. Then, we were on I-10 for a few miles to cross Mobile
Bay into Mobile (My Home Town, as Jimmy Buffett would say). We
skirted Mobile on smaller roads, hugging the shore, through the busy ports,
ship-building yards and eventually to the west side of the mouth of Mobile
Bay.
In Bayou La Batre, we passed the Perfect Alternative
Baptist Church, one of at least 100 Baptist Churches we have seen today. How
Jimmy Buffett ever grew up Catholic in this part of the country is a mystery
to me. The Alabama license plates read "The Stars Fell on ALABAMA". So
adorable... this is a very old song, from the 1930s, and one of my
favorites.
The western side of the bay is not so lovely. Quite awful, actually. Rusty,
abandoned single-wides, and houses with years of trash piled-up outside.
After weaving through the bayou, we joined Highway 90 into Mississippi. No
sign reading "Welcome to Mississippi". Just a small sign reading "Entering
Jackson County". Guess you are just supposed to know. We did a Pascagoula
Run. This industrial city is famous because the Pascagoula River sometimes
emits an unusual high-pitched buzz. We didn't hear it. I don't know what
Jimmy Buffett could possibly have to sing about Pascagoula... his song is
from the '70s...
Suddenly, we were Down Around Biloxi. Biloxi is lovely, but
I was feeling awful. It was so humid, you seriously could see the vapors
from the sea. DT had to stop and get me a bottle of Robitussen DM (and a
nipple) and I spent the rest of the drive slumped back in my chair, bottle
in hand. Biloxi now has several very fancy casinos/hotels. Not quite Vegas,
but pretty dang close. The highway skirts the coast, with the pretty beach
on one side and fabulous southern mansions on the other. The collection of
homes here is remarkable! They all sit slightly atilt to the road,
facing the setting sun! Most are two- or three-story and many have guest
houses.
We drove through Pass Christian, Mississippi - the unusual
name comes from the fact that it is located near the narrow waterway pass
that leads into the Bay of St. Louis. We ended up at the
Hollywood Casino Park (it was called the Casino Magic RV Park
in 2002) in Bay St. Louis. We are in a swamp, of course, but Hollywood
Casino Park is one of
the nicest campgrounds we have visited. We have a huge pull-through site, so
we don't even have to un-hitch The Toad. We have our air conditioners going
full-blast - not so much for the cooling, but to reduce the humidity. My
hair now sticks straight out. (Gilda Radner's hair lives on through me.)
Snickers finally stopped panting about 20 minutes after the air conditioners
started. Poor baby. I can't tell you how many people ask me if I hunt with
my dog. (Not unless I am hunting for dog biscuits.) DT was seriously
chomped while hooking-up to our life support systems. He refuses to use
mosquito spray - even the "natural" spray. He thinks it is poison. He is standing
next to a stagnant, slimy, swamp, being eaten alive by bugs and thinks spray
is poison. Must be a guy thing.
It is Sunday, so I put pizza dough in the bread machine as soon as we
arrived. Pizza, beer and The Soprano's - Sunday night is going to be good.
Even though the casino shuttle drives by every 10 minutes, and even though I
am sure a smoke-filled casino is just what my cough needs, we are staying in
tonight.
This pizza was so beautiful, I had to "share it" with you
RV Park:
Hollywood Casino Park
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