Bay St. Louis, Mississippi — Slow Days on the Gulf
We didn’t come to Bay St. Louis to see the sights.
We came to rest. And the town was perfectly fine with that.
Getting There
We drove from Gulf Shores to Bay St. Louis along the shoreline — as much of it as we could manage. Through Pascagoula, Biloxi (which had a wonderful shoreline), then Gulfport, Long Beach, Pass Christian, and finally Bay St. Louis.
Most of the drive was along the water. Stunningly beautiful.
Bay St. Louis sits right on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, about an hour east of New Orleans. Small. Quiet. A working waterfront with a laid-back feel.
The Bay St. Louis marina, boats tucked in on a grey January morning.
A fuller view of the marina.
The Angel Tree
We walked along the waterfront and found something we weren’t expecting.
The Angel Tree.
The plaque tells the whole story.
The Angel Tree — carved from an oak that survived Hurricane Katrina.
In the early 1900s, a woman named Ovenia de Montluzin looked out her kitchen window and saw workers about to cut down a young oak sapling to make way for a new avenue. She asked them to stop. They did.
On August 29, 2005 — Hurricane Katrina — the storm surge washed away the de Montluzin family home, a historic turn-of-the-century villa that had become the Bay Town Inn. Of the seven people inside that morning, four survived. They clung to that oak tree for several hours while the waves washed over them.
Years later, the tree was carved into what stands there now — angels, pelicans, and wings emerging from the old trunk — and moved to this spot along the waterfront.
We stood there and read the whole plaque. Twice.
Beach Days
The beach in Bay St. Louis is wide and quiet. We walked it more than once.
The Gulf of Mexico stretching out at low tide.
A long walk down the beach.
So relaxing.
Breathing holes in the sand — tiny creatures living just below the surface.
Hundreds of them, dotting the wet sand. Little mounds and holes where small creatures — sand crabs, worms, bivalves — breathe and feed just below the surface. We’d never paid that much attention to them before. Hard not to once you notice.
Puzzles and Rest
I was recovering from a head cold, so we intentionally relaxed during this stay. We completed this puzzle, the Lighthouses of North Carolina. It included Oak Island Lighthouse, which we had just visited earlier in the trip.
The Lighthouses of North Carolina puzzle.
Rest. A puzzle. The Gulf.
Not a bad way to spend a few days.
Next up: we’re heading to Galveston, Texas. Stay tuned!