Biloxi

"Down around Biloxi," Jimmy Buffet once sang, and that's all that I can remember of that song. But despite that setback, I decided to go visit Biloxi anyway.

Pascagoula, my apparently new home town, is located right on the Gulf Coast halfway between Biloxi and Mobile. Having seen everything Pascagoula has to offer, probably on my first day here, I had ventured over to Mobile a few times. Mobile was certainly bigger, but all I could find were more chain (if at least not fast-food) restaurants and shopping malls. Although still better than Pascagoula, I decided to venture in the other direction.

It may be the same distance, but Biloxi certainly felt further. Maybe it was the unfamiliarity. But I drove the 25 or so miles on I-10 to Interstate 110, which takes you south right into the heart of town.

The big business in Biloxi is gambling. There are casinos everywhere, and you can't miss them - they rise above the town in garish neon blue, sit out in the Gulf in gigantic imitations of pirate ships, crowd U.S. 90 along the coast.

I will say this for Biloxi, though - at least they had the good sense to keep 95% of the development on the landward side of the coastal road. Unlike, say, Myrtle Beach, which Biloxi resembles in other aspects, in Biloxi you can still see the sea without having to check in to a high-rise hotel. Myrtle Beach has just about completely privatized its shoreline.

Anyway, driving along U.S. 90 in Biloxi, I saw the Gulf on one side, and on the other side I saw: casinos, t-shirt shops, fast-food joints, t-shirt shops, adult bookstores, t-shirt shops, Hooters, t-shirt shops and the home of Jefferson Davis, incongruously stuck in between, well, t-shirt shops.

I probably should have gone and played in a casino for a while, just for the experience. I probably should have ate clams at Hooters. But instead, I got back on I-10 and drove back past Pascagoula, and ate supper in Mobile.