A Blog by Chris

Bay St. Louis, Ms

This was week one of a three week trip in the South and it was a doozy…

I’m finding that our local business partners absolutely love getting the “California guy” drunk. The first night I stayed out wayyyy too late, and of course, my cell phone died, and of course, I was not checking my cell phone so I didn’t notice, and of course, Lacey called me about a 10 times, and of course, I didn’t find out until I got back into my hotel room and plugged in my phone, and of course, Lacey was not happy at all (understatement!!!) when I finally did call her, and of course, I spent over an hour in the middle of the night apologizing for not checking my phone, and of course, it didn’t happen again.

I was actually there for a conference, but I spent most of my time goofing off and having fun. Well, not entirely, I guess. I did give three presentations and they all went very well. But for the three hours that I wasn’t doing my job, I was playing.

Besides that first night, here’s a list of the fun things I did in Mississippi:

• Ate dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. It was totally amazing. I had some kind of sampler plate with filet, stuffed roast chicken and crab cakes. The crab cakes were underwhelming (not bad, just not great). The filet was awesome. The roast chicken was maybe the best chicken I’ve ever had. I actually felt kind of bad that I liked the chicken so much more than the filet since I was eating at a fancy steakhouse and all.
• Ate dinner at Emeril’s Gulf Port Fish House. If I thought the chicken at Ruth’s Chris was good, I was in for a treat. At Emeril’s I had smoked duck. It was almost a religious experience. I basically spent the entire dinner with my eyes rolled back in my head and duck fat dripping off my chin. I had to remind myself to breathe while I was eating because the food was so good I couldn’t be bothered to stop chewing and take a breath.
• Played golf at the Arnold Palmer designed Bridges Golf Club. I ran into a problem here. You see, I didn’t actually bring my clubs so I had to borrow some from one of the people there at the conference. Now, my clubs are old, old, old. They were old 10 years ago when I got them, but it didn’t matter then because I just needed something to learn how to play with (thanks Papa!!!). But the clubs I borrowed were not old. They were some really nice TaylorMades. I was worried that I was not going to play well with someone else’s clubs. I was wrong. I have never hit a golf ball so well so consistently. The problem I ran into is that now I have to find $500 (at least) to buy a new set of irons. I’m already shopping around.
• Drove along Hwy 90 to Ocean Springs. This was not as much fun, but it was very interesting. Hurricane Katrina, it turns out, didn’t actually hit New Orleans directly. It hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Now, New Orleans sustained more damage, but that was because of the flooding as a result of the levys bursting. The Gulf Coast got the wind damage. I couldn’t believe how much devastation there still is along the coast there. I was in one place and felt like I was in the middle of nowhere because there were no buildings or trees or structures or anything around. There was only a road. As I was driving along I saw, in an empty field, a bank vault with the door rusted out and swinging. I couldn’t tell, but I was in what used to be a busy intersection of a small town. There was nothing left except this steel and concrete room and empty roads.

But I know you guys aren’t here for my stories. You just want to see pictures. Fine. Here’s the view from my hotel room:

See that building there in the photo? That used to be over a mile away in another little bay. But Katrina blew it over here. How did this happen you ask? You see, gambling is legal in Mississippi. Sort of. It’s only legal on the coast. Actually, the story goes, it used to only be legal on boats that would take you out into the water to gamble. Then they let the boats stay docked (because of dangerous weather conditions I think) and allow gambling. Then, once the boats were allowed to dock, they decided to let the casino owners build permanent structures as long as they were out over the water. (The building in the photo was one of these. It became a boat when the wind blew it off the foundation and it floated to its current home.) Then they changed the laws again, and allowed the casinos to build on land as long as they were directly on the coast. Now, since Katrina, the casinos are lobbying the state to allow them to build further inland so they might not sustain as much damage in the next hurricane.

Here another view about 45 degrees to the right:

You can see hole 7 (I think) of the golf course from here.

So that was my week on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I kind of can’t wait till next year.