Biloxi

Today was special. No flats, for one thing. But we also had some great experiences.

We decided to go to the Biloxi area on our way to Dauphin Island. We turned off the published route and encountered a little country store. Three generations of the owner's family were loafing in the shade under the store's awning. They immediately invited us to sit down and "visit" for a while. The owner gave us hot boiled peanuts (apologizing for the peanuts' being from last year's crop; this year's crop won't be harvested until July). The owner, Maudie, consulted with Steve at length on the route, calling on her other customers to add further details.

We returned to our bikes after a delightful hour with Maudie. Our road was sometimes fully canopied by great arching oaks. One unhappy note: there are many loose dogs which sometimes chase us. They are not ferocious; just going through the motions. One ran out to impress us just as a car passed us. We heard the collision and the dog hobbled off yelping. I went to the owner's house to let her know about the injury. She replied "He's been hit before." she explained that the dogs chew through the rope if she ties them up.

We found ourselves in Saucier around lunchtime. Raffeo's Seafood has masses of fish and crawfish on ice. They offer killer po' boy sandwiches. Michele and I split the 14 inch catfish po' boy while Steve had the eight-inch shrimp po' boy. The owner was so excited about the gumbo that he brought us a cup to taste, promising that it would be even better after simmering overnight.

Doris Dena made hot tamales and sold them out of her house for 35 years, as her father did for 30 years before that. The City of D'Iberville (just outside Biloxi) named her street after her. Her son carries on the tradition and he is training his nephew. We wanted to have Doris' tamales for dinner. We were disappointed to discover when we arrived at Doris' at seven that the shop closes at three. As we lamented our fate in the street, doris's son, R J, stepped onto the veranda of the house next door to see what the noise was about. We explained and R J said "There's some left. Lemme get the keys and I'll get you some." R J served us a sample round. We had a chat with R J while he packed up two dozen tamales in newspaper. We niked half of them on Steve's room; we'll have the other half for breakfast. See Steve's blog, Velo Mange.blogspot.com for pictures.