We left on Thursday from Memphis, heading down to Oxford, MS to visit Rowan Oak, former residence of William Faulkner. While Madison and Andrew were less enthusiastic about the part of the adventure (Andrew views Faulkner mainly as a charlatan with some skill with dialects, and Madison only knew what we told her on the ride down about his contributions to the canon of American literature for which he won a Nobel prize), I was totally stoked, since I'd been wanting to visit there since we moved to such close proximity.
The house was very well-preserved and contained many personal items from Faulkner's life. Even Madison was impressed with the grease pencil outline of A Fable on the walls of the study. We were allowed to amble around the grounds which were quite peaceful. Leading from the house was a walkway lined with huge cedars and led to an interesting circle garden. We had some time to kill, so we took a stroll aways down a path into "Bailey's Woods." After a bit, we were back in the car, headed to Jackson, MS, our overnight destination. We hit a Motel 6 and let Madison swim and went to dinner, then hit the hay pretty early. Our plan was to rise the next day and head down to New Orleans to see what we could in a few daylight hours.
On Friday, we rolled out of Jackson a little earlier than Andrew would have preferred, and headed down I55. We arrived in the city in the early afternoon and set out to find the City Park, which contained the Besthoff Sculpture Garden, adjacent to the New Orleans Museum of Art. The Sculpture Garden greatly exceeded our expectations, and, although I had tagged this stop as a free activity, we gladly threw in $10 in the "Donations Accepted" jar.
It was my intent that, from the City Park, we cruise the Garden District in car, which is just what we managed to do with one vague map and Andrew's instincts. After ogling the lovely homes in the Garden District (which reminded Maddie and me of Charleston), we turned our attention to the that fabled place, the French Quarter, or, in the old local French vernacular, the Vieux Carré. We parked somewhere and started walking towards Jackson Square. We stood briefly on Bourbon Street, then found a great spot for lunch in the Pontalba Building, right off the square. We admired the architecture of the buildings and St. Andrew's Cathedral and people-watched. Then we strolled around the square and through. An afternoon thunderstorm was quickly making its way in, so we headed back to the car by way of Pirates Alley.
On our way into the city from the north, we didn't observe too much devastation. Within the city, you could see where some places were messed up and other places were getting fixed. Leaving the city going northeast to Mobile was a different story. It was like a ghost town for miles and miles. We saw so many empty houses, whether apartment buildings or nice suburban homes. We saw many blue-tarped roofs and trailers parked in front of houses and a FEMA trailer park. Unreal.
We made our way to Mobile to spend the night and give Maddie some more motel pool time. Then the next morning, we headed into Gulf Shores to check into our beach house and meet up with our friends.
We met our friend Thomas first, and he checked with us. The Beckham family arrived a couple of hours later. After some initial confusion about an undisclosed caretaker's house 30 ft behind our house, it was decided that everyone, including caretaker Bob, was going to live and let live. There was also a problem with the number of beds (we thought there were 3 beds in one room for the kids, but they remodeled and didn't update the internet info), but the real estate company worked that that out with air mattresses, and everyone was happy.
It would be silly to do a day-by-day breakdown of our activities during the week. The weather was great, the kids swam, the men fished, Andrew cooked, I bartended, the Beckhams majorly helped with the kids, Thomas tended the crab traps...good times in all. The guys and kids went to a go-cart amusement park place one day, while Janice and I went to Alligator Alley (the coolest place ever). I went to Bon Secour Wildlife Preserve early one morning with JBz. We ate crabs we caught from the lagoon one night and went out for a seafood feast another night. In all, it couldn't have been a more pleasant and chilled out time. I never could bring myself to venture over to the old Saunders beach house, but Andrew retrieved several cool artifacts from there.
The drive back was a bit rough, with me driving and Andrew sleeping in preparation for work at 2:30am Saturday morning. We ran through some major rain and wind between Hattiesburg and Jackson. But we made it, and Andrew went to work, and now we all are getting back into our regular routines.
Madison and I, however, will be leaving on Sunday to head to Manistique, MI for 2 weeks of camp fun. We've been shopping for all our supplies and are nearly done. What a bunch of stuff, and I am not in to shopping at all. We've managed though, with Vicki's help, and today we UPSed our bedding up there so it won't take up space in our airline luggage. We are getting quite excited!
Eventually, I'll post some vacation pictures, maybe along with some from the Upper Peninsula.
Originally posted at www.myspace.com/wannabedutch on 06/20/07.
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