Hollywood Casino Park

Part Three:  Southern Cross

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