Today we decided to drive around to see what we could see.  We found ourselves on the Gulf Coast Scenic Drive along the Gulf of Mexico.  This area, the southern coast of Mississippi, was hit hard by hurricane Katrina, and suffered again with the oil spill last summer.  

We saw several miles of clean white sand, no sign of any oil spill.  We could see where hurricane Katrina had left its mark in some places.  But for the most part everything was cleaned up and rebuilt and looking good.  The hurricane had stripped a lot of the 500-600 year old oak trees that lined the road along the beach.  Many of those trees died as a result of the salt water that had been brought in by the storm surge and killed the roots.  The city decided to turn a lot of those trees into sculptures rather than remove them.