The Art of the Welcome Sign

While traveling through other states, one of our traditions is to get a photo of the "Welcome to 'Our State'" signs. No, not like many tourists, where you stop the car and have all the family pose in front of the sign-we don't have time for that sort of thing! But I get the shots nonetheless. And I love seeing how different states choose to welcome visitors who have arrived from their neighboring state.

"Welcome to Alabama the Beautiful" and an addition mentioning the current governor; Interstate 65. Short but sweet with a  nice little slogan and an extra sign that might have to be changed every few years.
Many more after the break....

Simply to thy cross I cling

Pass Christian, Mississippi

I am back!

And I don't know where to start! It has been almost exactly a year since I posted last and I've had a somewhat busy year. Could have been better, but gas prices and a crappy car being what they are, well I can't change those things right now.

This time last year I posted about the town of Cairo, Illinois that I had just visited. And within a month or so the town was all over the news with the possibility of flooding due to historic floods along the Mississippi River. I suppose the town was spared eventually, at the cost of others. That's how it goes.

I am not sure how I will continue here though. If I should continue the daily themes I had set up or if I should just start randomly posting some of my favorite photos that I've taken and posted on Flickr. I may just do that for now until I can gauge a response(LOL if there is ANY!).

So here is today's photo, taken from a recent trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to visit family and see just how things have changed in seven years after Hurricane Katrina-it was quite sad.

Wednesday Hump Day

Wednesday is Hump Day, and I am posting photos of bridges to get us over that hump.

This is the railroad bridge going across Saint Louis Bay from Bay St. Louis to Pass Christian, Mississippi. The photo was taken from the Bay St. Louis side in 2007. Much of the bridge was destroyed as the eye of Katrina came up this bay in August 2005.

Messy

The Arbor Station Apartments, Long Beach, Mississippi. Destroyed completely by Hurricane Katrina on Monday August 29, 2005. My mom's apartment was someone around here. She lived on the second floor. There was nothing left of it. The Gulf of Mexico can be seen in the distance on the horizon between the legs of the stairs on the left.

Photo was taken on September 17, 2005.

Hurricane Katrina

This was taken from the car-because, well you couldn't really get out safely around here. This is in Gulfport, Mississippi, about 2 weeks after Katrina devastated the area. My sister lived in Gulfport at the SeaBee base, my mom in an apartment in Long Beach. We got passes to cross the railroad tracks just south of the base in order to head west along 90 to get to my mom's apartment. This boat was several blocks inland in someone's yard. The wood was mostly from cargo trucks that had been parked at the Gulfport port-about a mile away.

There was nothing left of my mom's apartment.