April Roadtrip, Day 6... Possum Walk

Day 6

April 6, 2023

With no breakfast at the motel, the Waffle House across the road was certainly convenient. From the walk back from breakfast.



After breakfast, I had planned on a six mile round trip hike that started along the Pearl River bordering Mississippi and Louisiana. It was mostly boardwalk and forest floor. I parked the car and started walking.





Possum Walk was a post Civil War town of mostly freed slaves. Many worked in Logtown, the neighboring logging community. When the saleable lumber was gone, the last lumber company closed up shop in 1930. With the lumber industry gone, both towns declined.



In 1961, NASA chose a site three miles north to test rocket engines. The last remaining residents were relocated.




As for the trail, it did seem promising...



Sure, there were a few trees down across the trail, but still no complaints.












I have no idea how far I walked. But, after forty-five minutes I had had enough. Between the gnats, mosquitos ad biting flies I'm amazed at the people who lived here. Especially since this was still early in the season.

All that's left of Logtown is the cemetery. I took a brief walk through and found some very recent markers.







I worked my way back towards Bay St. Louis and made a stop in the town of Waveland. In what used to be a school, then town hall sits the Ground Zero Museum, dedicated to Hurricane Katrina and what it did to the community. This was the epicenter of the storm.





Inside, there's a sitting room with a looping video of testimonials by the people who lived here and decided to ride it out. Some had been through a long list of storms. Others believed the old story that storm surges never cross the tracks.



South of the museum you do cross the railroad tracks and dip down about four feet. The track bed does make a bit of a natural berm.



Insides, the storm surge reached the blue line above the door. Some of the walls even collapsed.






Hurricane Katrina hit in August of 2005. As you drive to the coast, there are still plenty of empty lots.











There are a few homes across from, or a few blocks in from the beach. New building rules went into place after the storm.











On my first trip to the Mississippi coast, I was introduced to Lazy Magnolia's Pecan Ale. The brewery is north of Bay St. Lewis in the town of Kiln(pr; Kill) boyhood home of Brett Favre.





Of all the breweries on this trip, this one I couldn't pass up, though I was gently reminded they pronounce it pe-Cahn here, not pe-CAN. Great people and some amazing beer. As luck would have it, they had been closed for renovation and were in the midst of a soft reopen. When I asked about the airplane suspended from the brewing room ceiling, everyone said the same thing, "it was here when I started."





I did venture back out to the coast for sunset, such as it was...