Mississippi Gulf Coast Getaway [Part 1]

My husband and I recently spent a couple of days exploring the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Although temperatures were cool, the skies were blue, the beaches were white, and the brilliant blue gulf waters were a welcome respite from a couple of weeks of dreary, cold, and icy winter days.

During our visit, I managed to capture about 800 pictures, which I have to sort through before I can share them.  No, I won't share all 800 of them ... and I don't think I captured any really outstanding pictures ... but I do have some stories to tell about a few of them.

Here are a couple I took from the balcony of our hotel, which was right on the beach.  The first one is of a couple of the "beach pools" created when the tide went out.

You can see the "ghostly" skyline of Gulfport in the distance in this picture ...

Seagrasses along the beach at Bay St. Louis ...

Over the next few days, I will be sharing more of my pictures, along with the stories behind them.  I hope you will join me.

 

Ice Feathers

This morning, the residents of Vicksburg were greeted by shimmery ice-covered trees and shrubbery, but, thankfully, we were spared icy roads.  I had a hair appointment in Jackson, and you know what the postal service says about, "Neither snow nor rain [nor ice] nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds?"  Well, the same can probably be said about most of us ladies when it comes to our hair appointments.

As I was carefully backing out of the driveway, I did a double take.  The Pampas Grass beside the driveway was completely covered in ice and its fronds were so pretty I had to go back inside and get my camera.

The fronds reminded me of feathers encased in glass, and I captured these pictures from inside the car sitting in the driveway ...

 This next picture is my favorite ... isn't God's handiwork truly breathtaking!

It is not humanly possible, even for the world's finest glass makers, to replicate the graceful elegance of that single ice-encased frond. 

  

Our little male cardinal greeted me when I returned home from Jackson.  He was sitting on a bench underneath our Japanese Maple, as if he was waiting for me to come home and put out some fresh sunflower seeds for him, which I'm going to do when I finish this post.  I captured these pictures from inside the kitchen window.

  

The ice will be gone tomorrow ... and so we will we.  We're heading South to spend a couple of days on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and are looking forward to sunshine and temperatures in the mid-60s. Wish we could send some sunshine your way, but perhaps I'll at least have some "sunshiny" pictures to share.