It was a pretty short drive from where we stayed near Mobile to the Treasure Bay Casino on Biloxi Beach. We left Alabama after breakfast in a driving rainstorm which made travel on I-10 a bit dicey, but we made it. Unfortunately we were hours and hours early for check in and they had no room available so we had no choice but drive around the area. First stop was my fave souvenir shop there, Sharkheads. It's huge and elevated, so you park underneath and take an elevator up. Despite it being on the 'stilts', it was destroyed in 2005 by Katrina. You'd never know it to look around Biloxi, but it was easily as destroyed as New Orleans was.
Here's Yellybean, who travels with me everywhere. My 'emotional support yoda'.
Fun fact: The last time we were down here in 2021, we were both trying to be conscious of the poles behind the truck as Russell was backing out, that neither of us noticed the pink pole in the front as he was cutting the wheel! We heard the 'crunch' sound and were chagrined to find a big old dent in the front, with streaks of pink paint! Ever since then, the truck has been dubbed 'Pinky von Dent'. I had to take a pic of a pink pole for old time's sake!
This is the dent we got over 3 years ago the first time! The pink paint has really stayed put too.
It was still pouring so we just drove around. We went to a thrift shop, and then down to an indoor flea market that had so much cool stuff that we were in there for awhile! This is the companion souvenir shop down the street from Sharkheads.
On the way to the indoor flea market, we drove into a residential area and stumbled on this cemetery. I'd always wanted to see the elevated tombs in New Orleans but the time we drove to NOLA in 2021 was just so wretched that we never even got out of the truck. I got all my pics of NOLA as we drove. So finding this one in Biloxi was a happy accident for sure. The ones in Louisiana are notorious for being dangerous and they advise to only see them with a tour group. This one was deserted and safe, so we drove through and around it so I could get pics.
After the flea market, we headed downtown to grab some lunch. I didn't go in the Coastal Mississippi Mardi Gras Museum this time cause I already did that the last time. It's very hard for me to force myself not to do a lot of repeats of things I've seen. I made that mistake when I used to travel to Victoria BC and as a result, I missed A LOT of stuff.
The Lighthouse also was rebuilt after Katrina. I've looked up pictures of Biloxi from 2005 and it was really shocking. The media hardly covered anything outside of New Orleans.
Back past Sharkheads!
We were finally able to check in around 330 pm and we had a room facing the Gulf, although by the time we got settled it was getting dark and it was still raining.
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