mississippi in 2011

sunset at clarkco state park, mississippi

Nice place.

SockMunky poses once again

at clarkco state park in east mississippi

quiet and clouds

It was cloudy—a nice change from all the bright sun of the week before—but warm with a pleasant breeze. I pulled out my folding chair and my sandwich, and sat on the beach for a little bit, looking out at this view of Biloxi Bay.

what we make from petroleum

Pascagoula, Mississippi, is the home of Chevron's chemical plants. Pascagoula sits on the Gulf Coast and on the banks of the Pascagoula River, which, like many other rivers in the country, is used in industry and is often abused by those same industries. This is nothing new; it's been going on as long as people have been making things. It just doesn't stop.

Now, I can't live without chemicals, so it's not the actual manufacturing of the substances that bothers me. It's the assumption that the natural resources that we need to make these things will be around forever in their pure and useable form. There is only one amount of water on the Earth; it's just in many forms—vapor, ice, liquid—and in many states of cleanliness. That's the problem. Once we mess it up, it's extremely expensive to clean it up. And no one wants to spend the money to do that. Nor does anyone want to spend the money to make sure that water isn't messed up in the first place. Yeah, yeah, it's better than it was in the 1950s and 1960s and the 1970s, but it's not as good as it should be.

Ok. A rant. You rarely have to read this much. You just didn't smell the air today when I was photographing these pipes. It was nauseous. Really. Yuck.

good change, ugly picture

Four summers ago, when I came through Biloxi, Mississippi, I could not see the water. The entire shore was built up with condos and casinos. This is what that same place looks like today. Most of the casinos and condos are being rebuilt on the land side of the road, and the shore is being made accessible to people with sidewalks and parking areas. Using Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Nature took over to make sure that we would look at Nature.

gulf sounds

Listen to the waves coming onto the beach. And then, look at that dark grey stuff that looks like eroded rock. See that? It's sand that feels like it has lots of tar in it. That's all I know now. I'm bringing some home, so any of you chemical analysts out there who might want to offer your services would be rewarded with seeing what the sand on the Gulf of Mexico coast in Mississippi contains.

no boating under the influence

Vicksburg, Mississippi, tries very hard to keep the river from the city's streets. The levee wall is high and bleak on the river side; painted with murals on the city side. The river is high.

careful

Live, scary, large, wild alligator. Did I say scary?
And wild. This is not some penned creature; this one lives at Yazoo National Wildlife Refuge, where I was the intruder. And, this one might very well be sitting on her nest. Maybe not, maybe. You tell me.