Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's land.....

Up early, breakfast in the casino and I cashed out my chits....($123.00) without ever pulling another slot handle. We headed out to Beauvoir, the home of Jefferson Davis. http://www.beauvoir.org/

This is the newly restored home. Only two antebellum homes on the coast in Mississippi survived Katrina. FEMA, the state of MS and donations already spent restoring the mansion and its' furnishings is over 4.8 million, with much restoration still needed. The house is only 23' above sea level and the surge was over 24'. Along with hurricane force winds, it is a miracle it was not totally destroyed.

This is a picture of the home before renovations started.

Beauvoir means beautiful view and this is the view from the front porch....beautiful indeed!

Even after all these years, they are still picking up pieces of china and such. With each rain, more goodies surface!!

The artists who repainted all of the interior of the house spent months figuring out the original colors. The architecture is amazing. Check out the rounded corners......

All of the furniture was restored (or is in the process)......this 1854 harp went out in a cardboard box in pieces and was just sent back less than a month ago. Until one actually witnesses the wrath of Katrina, it is hard to even fathom the damage she caused.

One of the bedrooms, with it's magnificent furniture. I didn't take a lot of pictures of the interior since the decoraters were inside putting Christmas decorations up!!

We took a quick trip over to Ocean Springs, a unique little town which has over 90 restaurants.

The stores were not only unique in their content but also the way they were painted and decorated. Many of them reminded me of Bahamas stores with their bright colors.....

I absolutely loved this old time drug store. The soda fountain reminded me of the old Rexall pharmacy in the small town where I grew up. If it had not been so early in the morning, I definitely would have indulged in a "cherry coke"......

Very unique street signs.....

This was a spa (of sorts).....Joseph, the owner/operator promised Ruth and myself, he could make us look 10 years younger with just one treatment. We wanted to stay and have TWO, but the boys didn't want to wait.....spoil sports!!

Before lunch, we stopped at the Beau Rivage casino....NOT to gamble, but to check out the beautiful Christmas decorations. All the figures were animated and you truly felt you were in a winter wonderland. I loved this little kid laying in the snow just a kicking.....

I couldn't even start to estimate the number of live plants adorned the entire casino......

magnificent trees. The casino itself was magnificent!!

My favorite of all the animations.......I AM totally in the Christmas mood now!!

We found out if we signed up for a player's card at the IP Casino, we could get the lunch buffet for half price (Sr day). We all decided we would go in and have lunch but NOT gamble. Well.... of course they had to give us $10.00 in free play for being new members. Salt ended up winning $23.00, Ruth over $50.00 and I hit the penny machine for $156.00. We all took our money and hopped in the car and headed for the city of New Orleans.