biloxi/gulfport international airport is one of america’s many small charming regional airports that requires an astonishing sum of money and all day on the plane to reach if you’re starting on the opposite side of the country. there are direct flights to biloxi from only a handful of cities, in this case we’re actually forced to overshoot our final destination and fly all the way to charlotte, then backtrack from there. getting across charlotte airport eats up nearly our entire layover and left little time for getting food, the airport just goes on and on because apparently american airlines flies from charlotte to every tiny godforsaken airport on the east seaboard. i manage to skip most of the line at panda express by pleading my case to the server, and so i’m armed with a warm takeout container as we board the flight. my companion is not so lucky, he made the decision to abandon his order at the restaurant because it didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
onboard the small regional jet, i sit down next to some poor guy and proceed to consume my mountain of orange chicken, the sauce’s acidic odor stinging my nostrils. the plane appears fully boarded but remains at the gate long enough for me to give up on trying to finish all of the orange chicken, even though it felt like i hadn’t eaten all day the double portion was too much for me. a flight attendant passes by and asks if i would like to be seated by my companion, the seat next to him isn’t available but the seat in front is. i say sure, why not, and get escorted to the front of the plane, where i discover that i’ve inadvertently scored an upgrade to “main cabin extra”, with slightly more legroom and free alcoholic beverages. i offer the remainder of my orange chicken to my companion, who initially declines but ends up grudgingly accepting the container in the end. the girl in the seat next to me is dressed like a prostitute and gets two little bottles of vodka during the drink service, which she pours into a huge chick-fil-a soda cup bulging out of the seatback pocket. the main flight attendant is upbeat and extremely affable, telling jokes and singing to the first class passengers, although later on it’s revealed it’s all part of a scheme to hustle credit card applications for a chance for him to win a jeep*** SIDENOTE NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART*** months later i recognize the flight attendant in pictures of the victims of the american airlines regional flight that collided with a helicopter and crashed into the potomac river with no survivors in january 2025. i’m not sure how to feel about this..
biloxi has two claims to fame: gambling and george e. ohr, the “mad potter of biloxi”. they collided violently and quite literally during hurricane katrina fifteen years ago, when one of the offshore casino barges washed up on the grounds of the museum dedicated to the mad potter’s work. according to state law the actual gambling had to occur over the water, so casinos built everything they could on land (hotel towers, pools, restaurants), then connected them to offshore barges containing the casino floori heard a casino in chicagoland with a similar “over water” requirement just dug themselves a little fake lake and then built the casino over it. some got a bit whimsical with the design constraints, the old “treasure bay” casino had its land facilities built in the form of an old spanish fort, and the casino was a huge pirate ship docked on the water. there are no longer any casino barges in biloxi, they were completely wiped out during the hurricane and never replaced, the law was amended to permit gambling on land as long as it’s within a hundred feet of the water. we passed the rebuilt treasure bay casino at some point, now contained entirely within a boring generic building safely anchored to dry land. besides the loss of the casino barges, the whole area still bears deep scars from the hurricane twenty years ago, the urban density is quite low from huge empty lots scattered at random pitting the townscape. the post-katrina coastal houses are easy to recognize, they’re all built perched atop tall stilts to dodge future storm surges. the mad potter museum, meanwhile, has a bunch of fancy new tin foil buildings courtesy of rock star architect frank gehry.
the water at the mississippi gulf coast is almost unsettlingly placid for its size, it seems more like a lake than part of an ocean. there are almost no waves besides those caused by passing boats, and as far as i could tell there aren’t any tides either, the water just sits there next to the thin strip of beach that separates the water from beach boulevard, the area’s main throughfare. later i found out that the 30-mile stretch of beach on the mississippi gulf coast is entirely artificial, constructed in the fifties by the army corps of engineers, one of the largest projects of its kind. before that, the coast had been nothing but thick marshy mangrove groves, open ocean not even visible from dry land. most of the beach was exceptionally boring, even the casinos had opted to replace their beaches with opulent waterfront pools, but there was one part of biloxi beach that really captivated me: the Loop, essentially the grand entrance to the town, a magnificent highway ramp that curves out over the gulf for basically no good reason, thus enclosing a small portion of beach where they even planted a row of shrimpy little palms standing sentinel. as soon as i saw it i became obsessed with, determined to visit what may be the most unusual stretch of beach in america. on our last day i headed out there and it was incredible, i tried to capture it in photographs but i don’t think my equipment was up to the task.
our dumpy little motel was right across the street from the beau rivage casino, the fanciest casino in Biloxi. its 13-story hotel tower, the tallest building in Mississippi, loomed over us, mocking us. i looked up room prices at the beau rivage and they were only ten dollars a night more expensive, so typical of our employers to do this. at least there was a hot tub, my friend assured us, though when i went to check it out i discovered that what he’d thought was a hot tub based on google maps satellite view was actually a little rectangular foot-deep kiddie pool, i’ve never seen anything like it.
what was supposed to be a relaxing work-and-degenerate-gambling trip quickly spiraled into an emotional rollercoaster with multiple inversions, plunging from “it’s over” to “we’re back” and then back again at breakneck speeds. the key issue was that officially i was not supposed to be there, i was filling in for someone who couldn’t make it at the last minute, and my friend/boss who brought me out decided that due to internal politics the best way to handle things was to do so without informing any of the higher ups. i’d come in, do the work as usual, the original guy would get paid and pass it along to me via venmo. the work would get done, the bosses would never know a thing, no harm no foul. the only way things could possibly go wrong is if one of the higher-ups decide to randomly fly in for an unannounced visit, which they basically never do. so, i’m sure you can guess what ended up happening...
i ducked into a nearby restroom and hid as soon as i recognized the big boss approaching in the distance, but it may have been too late. things seemed fine for a while, the big boss didn’t seem to have noticed a thing, then when my friend least expects it he casually asks “oh by the way where’s [guy who was supposed to be there]”. instead of fessing up and trying to play off me replacing the other guy as no big deal, my friend digs the hole even deeper, he makes up this lie about the guy being sick and staying in his hotel room for the day. that was pretty much the point of no return and in the extensive post-mortem debates almost everyone agreed it was a bad call, i’m sure the big boss would have been fine with me filling in, as long as my friend had been honest about it from the outset.
as if we weren’t already deep enough in the hole, we played things very risky and took a huge gamble by all going to the casino right after work, letting me be seen in public hanging out with everyone. just in case, we prepared this absolute bullshit story about how i was doing contract IT work in houston and decided to drive over and visit my friends who were sort of vaguely in the area (houston is a six hours away). of course, it wasn’t a coincidence that the big boss’ “random” unannounced visit had been to biloxi, he was on the casino floor too and must’ve spotted me hanging out with everybody, immediately putting together the whole story. he then pulled my friend aside and confronted him, demanding to see the guy that was supposedly holed up sick in his hotel room across the street. my friend came clean, except not entirely, admitting the guy wasn’t here at all and that i was filling in for him, but then he doubled down and dropped the whole Houston story, claiming no company money had been spent bringing me out (extremely untrue, those biloxi flights were expensive). as expected, the big boss didn’t really care i was filling in, he knew i was a good worker, but he was FURIOUS and DISAPPOINTED that he had been lied to by my friend, taking it as this huge betrayal because he’d even sort of considered my friend his protégé.
when my friend came back from the confrontation he was shaken, i’d never seen him like that before, in a quiet and wavering voice he said he couldn’t stay any longer at this casino, so we immediately left and went to the one next. from his demeanor and what he told us, it seemed like it had never been more Over in history, it was surprising that he hadn’t been fired on the spot but there was still a strong possibility it was coming soon. as for the rest of us, our fates were entwined with his, we had no idea where we stood, that whole night we didn’t even know if we’d be allowed to go in to work the next day. we had good luck gambling but it wasn’t nearly enough to dispel the gloom, afterwards we drove for dinner to this hokey tourist trap family restaurant with an upbeat beach-themed atmosphere that contrasted comically with how sullen everybody was, we sat there mostly in silence drinking beer after beer. i don’t remember anything particularly special about the food or service though i want to note that it had an astonishing 4.8 stars from over 27,000 reviews on google, possibly the country’s most celebrated restaurant according to google reviews. we retired to our hotel rooms after dinner except for our most degen gambler friend, who returned for a late-night session and reported that he saw the big boss still there. the big boss seemed to be taking it hard as well, usually he’s disciplined about going to bed nice and early, instead he was sitting alone at the craps table at midnight glumly drinking a beer.
we woke up the next morning to discover that nothing had changed overnight, the big boss had flown out early in the morning without talking to anybody even over text, and as far as we could tell he hadn’t even told anyone else at the company what had happened. we followed his lead and pretended like nothing had happened, showing up for work Business As Usual in the morning, though while we dared to think that perhaps we might just be Back, it felt like the sword of damocles was hanging over our heads. although we were now probably safe for the remainder of this job, it very well could end up being our last one...
on our last day in Biloxi, we finally had some time for tourism. the mad potter museum was closed Mondays, so we headed the opposite direction down to something very unusual i'd stumbled upon during my google maps reconnaissance of the area, right beside our workplace: the “Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Museum”. “wait a second,” you might be thinking, “i don’t recall there ever being a president jefferson davis.” that’s correct, jefferson davis was never president of the united states, he was the first and only president of the confederate states of america! it turns out “presidential library” is not a protected designation, there is no committee or organization that officially accredits presidential libraries, the presidential libraries for legitimate US presidents are operated by various independent foundations and such, there’s nothing stopping other organizations from declaring something a “presidential library”. the jeff davis (as i began referring to him after seeing “jeff davis blvd” on a nearby street sign) presidential library was located on the grounds of his estate beauvoir, the historic main house also available for touring. every positive google review made sure to clarify that they only visited because they are very interested in HISTORY. i stole glances at beauvoir every time we passed by on the coastal highway, a small confederate flag flying in the corner of the grounds hinting at ominous things....
on the grounds of the estate, the presidential library building was stately, a tasteful mix of modern and classical architectural elements, shining white in the sun amid the lush vegetation. it was not even close to being as large as the libraries for US presidents, though. we went inside to purchase (very reasonably priced) tickets for a tour of the HISTORIC beauvoir house, the combined gift shop/ticket office inside the presidential office was stuffed with made-in-china confederate flag merch, plus some slightly more inspired additions like a red "MAKE DIXIE GREAT AGAIN" hat. we had some time to kill before the scheduled tour, so we strolled around the estate grounds, i wish i had known beforehand that they rented golf carts for $10 apiece because i would've totally rented one and shredded rubber with the boys around beauvoir.
on the hour we gathered for the tour at the steps in front of the main house. our tour guide was the most southern grandma in existence, she spoke with an accent thick as molasses, the strongest i've ever heard. she spoke with impressive vigor and enthusiasm for her age (and considering the thousands of tours she's probably led), which appeared to be sustained by a deep love for jeff davis that reached across time - within the house, she gestured towards a potrait of the man and exclaimed "isn't he a HANDSOME feller!?!" as she gave the tower, she laid out a personal hagiography of the man, recasting failures such as his disastrous camel scheme during his tenure as secretary of war as "genius" and chalking it up to being too ahead of his time. she seemed acquainted with all the most intimate details of the davis family's life at beauvoir to the extent that it's almost as if she'd seen it all herself as a young belle, working as a servant during its heyday doing the washing up or the cooking, admiring mr. davis from afar, perhaps they had some kind of secret affair, and now she haunts beauvoir forever...
the grand finale of the tour was a bottle of ice cold water fetched from a chest fridge on the back porch, must appreciated amidst the muggy climate. we descended down to the aboveground basement, an old architectural climate stabilization trick that had inadvertantly saved the house from being totally swept away during the hurricane by raising it up like stilts do. in the basement, an old tv of the kind the teacher used to wheel into class played a video on loop of some tourists driving along the coastal boulevard just prior to hurricane katrina. the scenary was dramatically different, the whole boulevard shaded by majestic live oak trees, stately historic houses standing alongside the road in places that are now either empty lots or home to stilt-houses. i also noticed that when they drove by the old presidential library, it flew a gigantic car dealership size confederate flag. i leaned over to my friend and quipped "even the confederacy has gone woke".
afterwards, we went to have a look inside the museum. the slick exterior of the building was a bit out of step with the contents, most of the exhibits seemed to have been prepared not by professional curators but by random boomer hobbyists. many had the air of school poster projects, typed up in word, printed out on the home printer, cut out, and then glued to colored cardstock or a posterboard. it was a little bit like attending a "confederacy fair" at a local middle school where each student was assigned some topic to make a poster on like "THE LIFE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS". i'm sure at least one school in the south has unironically done something like that. there were some displays that looked a bit more professional, like the classically-trained oil painter who painted an extensive series of heroic confederate battle landscapes, talented enough to recast battles that i'm fairly sure had been crushing defeats as stunning victories.
one corner of the building contained some offices and an elegant conference room, which upon further inspection appeared to be the meeting place of some kind of larp confederate government-in-exile. somehow we'd stumbled upon the last stronghold of the confederacy, though i couldn't find any evidence they used the room to hatch any plots to overthrow the north and rise again, instead it seemed like they mainly met to bestow ultra-posthumous medals recognizing the heroism of random confederate soldiers whose heroic deeds had unfortunately been overlooked for over 150 years. by now they appear to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, though, i read a citation hanging on the wall for a medal awarded in 2018 for a petty officer who'd skipped a battle to go fight a duel in a nearby creek with another officer over some minor slight, he lost horribly and died in the duel. that was legitimately all the context given for the award, i really could not tell you what they were possibly going for.
examining some of the exhibits, the Woke Confederacy reared its head again in a section about the diversity of the confederate army. "look, the civil war wasn't about race or slavery or anything, we had a black soldier and a native american general!" there was in fact a full-blooded cherokee confederate general, stand watie, notable for being the last confederate general to surrender. apparently many native americans allied themselves with the confederacy, either due to lingering resentment of the federal government over things like the trail of tears, or for pragmatic political reasons, hoping to retain their autonomy and avoid the creation of the new state of oklahoma. in another exhibit, there was some impressive vexillogical autism on display that i cannot possibly do justice to without displaying in full:
the actual “library” portion of the jeff davis presidential library was in the furthest corner of the second floor, a single room with the size and vibe of an elementary school library, though the shelves were a lot taller and the books were much older and with fewer pictures. it looked like they had given up on much of the actual library functions, the librarian’s desk was unmanned and instead host to a device that demonstrated how telegraphs work. spread across the circular reading tables were a collection of confederate officer uniforms and rifles, with an open invitation to dress up in them and take pictures. i suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising, considering that civil war reenacting is america’s oldest and most respectable cosplay/larp tradition...
new orleans, LA
booking a return flight departing biloxi/gulfport international airport had apparently proved too difficult, so my travel companion and i were going back through the airport in new orleans, about an hour and a half drive away. this was a welcome detour for us since now we had a chance to go sightseeing in one of the most unique cities in america. we even rebooked our flights to leave a couple days later to give ourselves extra time, and the price difference between our original flight and our new mid-week flight was so big that we were able to upgrade into premium economy on top of receiving a $200 flight credit. my companion had even arranged a stay at an upscale hotel right in the middle of the french quarter (he insisted that we could not stay anywhere else) by getting his dad to book it using credit card points. the only issue was that we had no way of getting to new orleans, my friend/boss said he’d try to arrange something but never got around to figuring something out, so we were forced to rent a car for all of six hours (and $80) from a rental car stand that was fortunately located right across the street at the beau rivage casino. we also acquired an unexpected tagalong, our degen gambler friend had slept through his alarm (to no one’s surprise) and missed his flight from biloxi, he rebooked his flight to leave from new orleans and hitched a ride with us.
things got unexpectedly hairy on our way down to new orleans because i had to return the car before the rental office closed at 5, meanwhile we had been sent on a sidequest to retrieve my friend's work phone, which he'd apparently left behind while working the day before. but the security office in charge of lost and found didn't open until 3:30, so we ended up leaving the biloxi area with almost no time to spare. i rocketed down the highway to new orleans going fifteen miles over the speed limit the entire time, though disappointingly the ETA according to apple maps barely seemed to budge despite my most aggressive driving.
after crossing the legendary I-10 twin span bridge over lake pontchartrain, the new orleans cityscape came into view, it was new but also vaguely familiar, possibly from too many hours spent playing left 4 dead 2. in my panicked state i somehow managed to get to the front entrance of the hotel barreling right down bourbon street, despite the fact that usually the street is completely impassable due to pedestrian traffic. i dropped my friends and the bags off and then scooted off to drop the rental car at a nearby resort. i walked back and then we all got settled in the room, there were three of us in a relatively-cramped room with just two beds, so we busted out one of our old tricks and created the "megabed", getting the nightstand in the middle out of the way and pushing the two beds together to create one gigantic bed with plenty of extra space in the middle for a third person, the crack between the beds cemented with towels and other miscellaneous stuffing.
i have to admit that with the exception of bourbon street, the french quarter (vieux carré) of new orleans really is All That. despite being the most famous and busiest part of the city, bourbon street has firmly achieved "tourist trap" status and as a result sucks total ass. it stinks horribly, like sewage, possibly from decades of built-up vomit from drunken tourists. along with said drunken tourists, at night bourbon street is thronged with beggars, club promoters, and other solicitous types. along the street, the only establishments are all criminally overpriced restaurants, bars, and clubs, many of which offer a signature beverage served in a plastic novelty cup (incidentally, the french quarter is one of the only places in america with no laws about open containers or drinking in public).
only a block or two away from bourbon street, things improve dramatically: the hordes of tourists and solictors thin out, the stench vanishes, the restaurant quality increases while the price plummets. really, the rest of the french quarter is delightful, like nowhere else in the world, a unique district of charming preserved franco-spanish colonial architecture peppered with cute little shops and restaurants. we ate delicios po' boys at a local institution called the "napoleon house", because local conspirators behind an attempt to bust napoleon out of exile in st. helena planned to give it to him to live in (unfortunately he died before they could put their plan into action). we strolled around the french quarter for hours, just chatting and savoring the atmosphere, before settling on a dive bar to park at for the rest of the evening. we made the perfect choice, it is probably the best establishment of its kind in america, it's called the "chart room", cash-only an patronized primarily by locals. a draft miller high life was $2 and any cocktail $8, we sat at a table half on the street so we could smoke cigarettes from a cigarette vending machine just inside, $10 a pack, according to a barfly the cheapest price in the city. maybe it was all possibly only thanks to bourbon street soaking up the sin...
the next day, we remained committed to taking it easy in the Big Easy, we got chicory coffee and beignets buried in an avalanche of powdered sugar at another legendary cash-only establishment, the cafe du monde, then we took the trolley down the NOLA museum of art. they had three pots by the mad potter of biloxi on display, apparently they still don't know to this day how he was able to create some of them with the tools available to him at the time. when we returned, we toured some of the shops in the french quarter, there was a good selection of bookstores that just had piles of old books and at a cigar shop with humidors lined up like drink coolers at a convenience store we picked up some cheap cigars and smoked them by the pool at the hotel. yup, new orleans really is All That...