After the crazy revelry of Mardi Gras in the American birthplace of the holiday (not New Orleans, as many people assume), we headed about an hour and a half west to Bay St Louis, MS, and the Silver Slipper Casino and RV Park for some well-deserved beachfront relaxation. The RV park is about a half-mile east of the casino itself, on a two-lane road that runs right along the edge of the beach. It’s a fairly no-frills park, offering only water, electric, and sewer hookups and a free 24-hour shuttle to the casino, but the view of the Gulf of Mexico out of the back window of our Montana was absolutely to die for. And since you get a free night’s stay if you sign up for the casino’s player’s card (something we do anyway when we visit a casino), it is definitely worth the price of $35 a night.

The view from our back window at the Silver Slipper Casino’s RV park.

After arriving at the RV park, we got settled and then ventured over to the casino to get our player’s cards and check out the games available. There was no poker room unfortunately, and the video poker was fairly low payback, but we did see a single $5 blackjack table as we cruised the floor – better than nothing, but definitely not Vegas. We each threw a $20 through the video poker before dinner, with Lewis losing his and me only making $2.50 off mine, which of course I tipped to the cage cashier and simply pocketed my starting $20. Then we visited the casino buffet, which was very tasty if a tad expensive (typical). Neither of us was feeling up to gambling any longer, so we went back to the RV.

The next morning, since Hancock County, MS allows dogs on their beaches, I took Ginger out on a long line to have her first experience with the sand and surf. You would have thought she was a puppy again! She bounced and raced around, rolled in the sand, tried to eat the sand, dug a small hole in the sand and got it up her nose, chased seagull shadows, splashed in the water, tried to play with seaweed and driftwood, etc. It was obviously her new favorite place, and something we’ll keep in mind as we travel.

Ginger checking out waves in the Gulf of Mexico.

We had dinner at the casino’s café that evening, but never really did get in the mood to gamble over the 3 nights we stayed at Silver Slipper. We blew a grand total of $60 on video poker between the 2 of us and that was it. We just weren’t feeling it; even the $5 blackjack wasn’t calling our names like it usually would have been. Oh well, there’s always some other day and some other casino. I personally think some of our less-than-excited attitude could be attributed to the slightly depressing atmosphere of the general area. You see, Bay St Louis was hit very hard by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 – much harder than the news coverage of that time showed as it focused on the flooding of New Orleans.  Most of the area surrounding the casino (which was not there at the time) was buried under approximately 30 feet of storm surge with another 7 feet or so of waves on top of that. It scoured the area completely bare of its beautiful historic buildings and now all that’s left to see as you drive down the road are overgrown, empty foundations and broken pilings where the former homes and businesses stood. Some homesites are slowly being rebuilt, but even 10 years later, it’s very easy to see the devastation left by the hurricane.

After our time at the Silver Slipper was done, we hooked up again and went a bit farther west to spend a week in New Orleans at Pontchartrain Landing – our most expensive stay so far. Even with our 50% Passport America discount, it’s still costing just over $320 for 7 nights. Ouch. But it’s a gated RV park with full hookups, free cable and Wi-fi, plus there’s a shuttle that runs to the French Quarter so we won’t have to pay the ridiculous parking fees in town and we can party it up in the town whose motto is Laissez les bons temps rouler – let the good times roll!

Our first full day here, we caught the 10am shuttle to the French Quarter to spend some time exploring. Of course our first stop was Café Du Monde to have beignets and café au lait – a requirement for any visit to New Orleans. The wind made eating the powdered sugar-covered pastries a bit of a messy proposition, but they were still absolutely delicious. Even Lewis, who isn’t much of a sweet eater, polished off two of them with his café au lait. Then it was off to browse through the French Market proper, where we picked up a couple items and checked out what our options might be for lunch later. That done, we bounced over to cruise Bourbon Street and a couple side streets. Yep, lots of bars, tourist trap gift shops, and, lest New Orleans be sexist, various establishments offering both male and female revues and even the requisite gay bar and dance club. Laissez les bons temps rouler indeed!

We partook of a drink special at one of the Bourbon Street bars, visited Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo (a real tourist trap, but the altar did have a little nice tingle to it when I placed my offering on it), then headed back towards the French Market, hitting a few more shops on the way. We also patronized a street vendor on Decatur Street who was producing gorgeous pen-drawn artwork, and parted with a bit of cash as we passed some of the homeless who are very common in this city. We grabbed a late lunch in the French Market, then it was time for our shuttle back to the RV park. All in all, an interesting day.