I'm currently into week two of my house sitting gig. Week two of a three week stint. Eight days down, twelve more days to go. OK, now that the maths are out of the way, yes, I'm house sitting. The friend I'm house sitting for needed us to drive her to the airport for her 7.15 am flight taking her to Scotland. So, here is the adventure day that The Sister and I had last Tuesday. We had our friend to the airport by 6.30 and being on the coast so early, nothing was open. How to kill time? We'd wanted beignets, and I had searched out a place online ahead of time, but we couldn't find it. It was there, right where the mapping said it should be, but it was hooked onto a casino (which we'd find out later when we researched online), and we rather detest casino's, so we headed to the beach. There was absolutely no wind and at seven o'clock in the morning it was hot and stifling out there. Not as hot as it would be in a few hours, mind, but still, we were not expecting such gross conditions on the beach that early in the morning. But we trudged out way through the sand towards the water. Stood some moments to just be on the beach and beside the ocean, then trudged our way back to the car. That's our shadow selfie on the beach, the thinner shadow is The Sister. Then we headed back to Starbucks to use their Wi-Fi. We have old iPhones with no phone or data service, but we keep and use them because they are camera's and calculators and we can use them with Wi-Fi. So, on the way to Starbucks we're stopped at a red light and to the right is a sign in a window saying they serve beignets. Only they don't open for another hour, so we still had time to kill and besides we wanted coffee, so away we went. The place we had beignets at was a drugstore built in, I'm guessing, the early 1960s. That's The Sister up there outside of it, with its tri-green colours, which I adored. It was absolutely adorable inside! Bi-green coloured panels and funky space lights, there was also 60's era style faux wood (which I love) and a small diner tucked into the back left corner of the store, next to the pharmacy. The beignets were definitely not New Orleans style beignets, but were absolutely phenomenal. They were larger and more round, being the size of two traditional beignets, so an order of two really gives you four. They tasted like they'd been fried in bacon grease and were so freaking delicious. It's strange that this place didn't come up in a search of food establishments or places where one can obtain beignets on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. No, what came up in the search was the one inside that casino in Gulfport and then Le Cafe Beignet in Biloxi. We went to that one last year. That place was gross. McDonalds would do better beignets and coffee than this place. Hell, you'd find better in the trash dumpster in a seedy alleyway. When I say it was gross, I'm not even playing. The beignets tasted like some empty 'ens or sour dough starter mix that had gone way, way bad. They also didn't puff up and were greasy. Slightly moldy, wangy tasting beignets are never a good thing and practically dripping with grease is also bad. The coffee tasted like they'd gotten it from a bucket full of week old weak coffee and tea, that was tepid in temperature at best with frothed milk like it came out of a fake cappuccino machine at a petrol station. McDonald's doesn't serve beignets, but I have had their espresso coffee drinks and while I'm not a fan they were 100% better than the cappuccino or my cafe au lait. Were all the girls working that day new? Were they high? Is this how that place always tastes? Because I'm wondering how they are still open and how they have such high reviews. They had a real cappuccino maker. Industrial size. There was no excuse for McDonald's or a petrol station having better espresso or frothed/steamed milk than them. Did they just serve us day old beignets that they tried to refry? Anyways. This drugstore was nothing like that. It may have been very Mississippi, but those were some of the best damn beignets I've ever had. It's the Triplett-Day Drug Co. If you're driving in on HWY 49 S towards HWY 90 (Beach Blvd). They're on the left at the first red light before hitting Beach Blvd. If you're coming from Alabama or Lousiana and are on HWY 90, you'll get to Gulfport and turn north onto HWY 49 and they are one block from the beach. You can't miss the adorable mid-century exterior in three greens. Here's a link, so you can see it. Next up we went to an aquarium. Well, actually we had almost two hours until they opened, so we drove around. First we followed the directions to find the aquarium, because they are not on the beach. Then we drove around a little and made our way back to the aquarium with ten minutes to spare. It isn't really an aquarium in the typical sense, but it was easier to call it that than the place that used to be Marine Life but is now two different places that you can visit. Confusing, n'est-ce pas? So, it's the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies... AND Ocean Adventures. Basically you buy your ticket at the first building which is Ocean Adventures, and you come out the other side into a courtyard surrounded by three other buildings that are in the Ocean Adventures enclosure area. You have an arena for bird and reptile shows and attached to it is an area with parakeets. Another building is the area for the dolphin and sea lion shows and the third is for the stingrays. I would probably mind this, but I don't because the animals are rescues either from the wild or from other aquariums, so that is nice. While we did see the parakeets and the dolphins swimming around and watched the sea lion show, we didn't stay for everything because we'd had four hours of sleep and had been up since four am. But we did spend a lot of time in the stingray building. It's a touch pool, so when they swim by you can touch them, but it was also cathartic to just watch them, and I adore stingrays so. Then you walk or take a short train ride to IMMS (Institute for Marine Mammal Studies). There's a theatre with an information video on the reel, which we didn't watch. Then a room with a few touch pools or star fish, sea anemone, some skates and rays, and horseshoe crabs; as well as aquariums lining the wall with various fish and other sea creatures and some snakes and two baby alligators. I was sad that the horseshoe crabs couldn't be picked up, but I could still see them, which was nice. There used to be another place on the coast. So where Marine Life was like the small, Mississippi version of Sea World with animal shows, the J.L. Scott Marine Education Center was like this room, but bigger. They no longer exist as Hurricane Katrina took out both it and Marine Life. But where this is Marine Life's counterpart, this marine thing, I don't recall the name, associated with The University of Southern Mississippi in Ocean Springs is the J.L. Scott counterpart; only I don't think they have anything like this anymore. I think it's day excursions out into the wilds to get hands on learning and experience of nature, which is cool, but not the same; and also probably a bit pricey and nothing we wanted to delve into on this short half-day jaunt. So, every trip to the coast when I was growing up, I made my parents take me to J.L. Scott. I loved it there. I honestly can't stress that enough. I'm not even sure why. The sub level was painted black and full of various size aquariums and the upper entrance level had the touch pool, information on ocean pollution and specimens. I've been to aquariums in Knoxville and Wilmington, and I've been to the Aquarium of the America's in New Orleans probably thirty times. This place was still my favourite, hands down! One reason was for the touch pool and the horseshoe crabs inside. You were taught how to hold them too! You put your arm in the water from hand to elbow with the palm facing up. A horseshoe crab will basically crawl on your arm and hold on with its barb pointing away from your body. It didn't hurt to have their little leggies holding on to your arm. It was slighty ticklish with a little pressure to it. You could even lift your arm out of the water and they'd stay on and wiggle their leggies slightly. It was really cool because I mean how many sea creatures can you actually hold that don't mind it? I had a freaking prehistoric sea creature hanging out on my arm! Who wouldn't want that?!? So, I was really hoping that I'd be able to do that here, but sadly, no. I've even picked up live star fish and sand dollars and sea biscuits in the ocean and it wasn't nearly as awesome as getting to hold a live horseshoe crab. Though it was cool, but also scary, because we were kind of far out and the water was murky and I was the only non-drunk person picking these things up, so I was the only one out there thinking, "This is slightly ominous...". There was also another room with some fossils and specimens and information. It was also cool. I like the simplicity of the IMMS building better, but families that had come over from Ocean Adventures basically found it too simple and too boring and would quickly leave to go back to the other place. Except for the stingrays, I preferred the IMMS portion better. By this point, however, we were getting really stupid because we were hungry and tired. We caught the sea lion show and left to go eat at Lil' Rays. I don't know if it's the best seafood place to eat on the coast, but it's one of the few places from our childhood that still exists and it is really, really, really good. So we both had our usual fried shimp po-boys with mayo and lettuce only with a side of fries. Then, because the shrimp was so good and we were so hungry, we ordered a basket of it. We have no regrets.
Then we drove to Barnes and Nobles, because we do love bookstores and we don't have this one in our town. We putzed around a little, purchased some coffee for the drive home and left. It was one of the best days either of us have had in a long time.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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