Cool morning, warmer afternoon, sight seeing in Ocean Springs....

Our Location: Magic River Rv Resort, Long Beach, Mississippi

This morning was very cool 39F/3.8C at 6:15 a.m. when I headed up to the fire. I can tell you I had my gloves and two heavy sweaters on, one with a hood. I didn't find it as damp as usual this morning and I have no idea why, but I'll take it!!

Gets about 10 miles to the gallon towing...does well except in the mountains

The morning fire was different without Ken this morning, no long slow southern drawl which I always enjoy hearing. Buzz, Mac, Ron and I were all kind of just shooting the breeze and discussing Buzz's big win last night. Lisa wandered up, eventually Pete, then Jeannie, and I think Chuck too. Butch stopped by, Robert also put in an appearance and one of the new guys (passenger in this car) who's name I don't remember. Linda also showed up at some point. It was an interesting fire this morning!

Dogsled in the background...

Home before 8:15 a.m. for breakfast but before eating I grabbed my camera, headed out to take some pictures of a vintage car and trailer which was pulling out today. The car was 1964 Ford Falcon and the trailer was a 1962 but I forget what kind. After eating we read for an hour to let the outdoor temps warm up before we headed out to walk. The walking path is a mile circuit and usually Riley does 2 laps and I do 3 or sometimes we're ambitious and each do 3 laps but this morning she stopped at 3 and I went one more. I had reasons for one more since we didn't walk yesterday and the day ahead promised to be 'filling'. ~laugh~ 

The Vietnam Memorial in Ocean Springs....

From the sports complex we headed out to Ocean Springs to do some sight seeing. Cruising along I-10 we finally reached the exit for the National Sea Shore Park, just past that was our destination The Vietnam Memorial. It is two long three sided pieces of cement that form a 'room' in between them. On the inside of the walls are pictures and names of those that served in the war from Mississippi . There were at least 45 rows on each side and the list of names/pictures was 5 per row.  The statistics say:

649 Killed-in-Action
10 Missing-in-Action
8 Prisoner-of-War
for a total of 667 Mississippi Casualties of the Vietnam War. 

That's a lot of casualties from just one state! It was a very moving tribute that allows you to put names and faces together. Many young men, a few mature men, African-American, Caucasian too but the loss was all male, not a single female in the bunch. The names were southern names such as Willie James, Donny Ray, Bobby Ray, Jimmy Earl, and the list goes on and on. Some of the pictures were taken at various times in the lives of these young hero's from childhood to high school football and on to military service. Flags and flowers were wedged into the cracks that joined the concrete as a simple tribute to a lost loved one. Also on display was a Medivac Helicopter on a pedestal, the mast from a ship and numerous flags. A walking path equaling 1/3 of a mile surrounds the whole park. It is well done and very tasteful. A must see if you are ever in the area. 

Rows and rows of pictures

Rows and rows of names

 From here we headed out to find some lunch. We once visited a Chinese Restaurant with my Dad, and his sister/husband when we were here once a few years ago. We wanted to find that place but couldn't remember the name. I had a rough idea where it was and eventually we found it. It's called Beijing Chinese something. ~laugh~ I still don't know the street and one would think I would have logged it into the GPS right? Well one would have been wrong in such thinking and should have reminded me before we left the area. ~laugh~

Looking into the memorial, pictures above, names below the ledge, benches in the middle. Both walls are covered in row after row...

From there we managed to find our way down some back roads that were heading in the right direction but not exactly where we wanted to be. I will tell you that we eventually found our way to I-10 once more and headed on back to our own neck of the woods. Not home but toward home. We had another stop to make. Can you guess where? I'll wait while you think about it. ~laugh~ You guessed it, Wally World for groceries. We were running low on a few veggies and a couple of other things and figured it would be better to pick them up today than wait until tomorrow when it will be much busier there.

Submarines were built on Pascagoula, Mississippi, a few miles from this memorial

We crossed paths with a person that was very .....fragrant ...but not in a good way. Truly thought the Chinese food may come back to haunt me. ~laugh~ We hurried out of the area only to have this same person come up behind us in the check out line. The cashier wrinkled her nose and looked around saying," Oh it must be the rabbit food." The guy in the next aisle was checking out with a bag of rabbit pellets or something, but it wasn't the rabbit stuff.  I was glad to get out of the store and felt sorry for the nice cashier that was left behind to handle this customer.

Do you think it's looking like spring?

From there we headed home and managed to get the groceries put away. The cat was kind of happy to see us but wasn't interested in any contact, she just looked down her nose with a look that said," Big deal, so you're home, I have sleeping to do, so go away." ~laugh~  She is a diva!!!

Everywhere you look there are Azalea's blooming...

For the past number of days we've seen so many flowers blooming and the blooms are reddish/pink/pinky/white and a few other colours. Like Canadians have hedges of cedar's or such things down here in the deep south they have hedges of Azalea bushes. They grow in the wild as well. Such a riot of colour in random spots. The green grass is an excellent backdrop to show off the bright colours. The leaves are also coming out which is adding more green to the picture as well. 

Such vivid colours...

Since we had a large lunch we opted to miss dinner which meant we were able to head up to the fire earlier than usual. Cool tonight but not too bad plus the fire was nice. Lots of folks up there, lots of laughter and good humour. The party broke up slowly but by about 9 pm everyone was heading inside.

Such abundant blooms....

So that was our day, much busier than yesterday, still not earth shattering but fun, entertaining and educational. We consider that a great day! Hope you had a great day as well.

So on that note, thanks for stopping by. Until next time...be safe, take care....