The Mississippi Gulf Coast a prime place to go play summer hooky

BILOXI, Miss. -- Three simple words: sun, sand and sea.

The way to bliss is to wiggle your toes in the sand of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Watch pelicans patrol the shoreline, nap in the sun, read a book from a beach chair planted in the surf.

Try another three words: Be there soon.

The summer-vacation season is here. It's time to play hooky from all life's troubles and relax at the sun-splattered seashore.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast offers many more diversions: casinos, nightlife, right-off-the boat seafood, art museums, historic sites and family amusements.

Climatically blessed with moderate temperatures and refreshingly cool breezes, the Mississippi coast is a year-round destination. A tragic exception to this pleasing weather came in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina blasted ashore. High winds and 30-foot tidal surges lifted casino boats to land, blew apart fishing piers and destroyed many houses and businesses. Since then, the transmogrified cities of Gulfport, Biloxi and Bay St. Louis have undergone intense cleanup and rebuilding operations.

"Our recovery from Hurricane Katrina is going very smoothly. We are excited to have visitors coming back in record numbers. People realize the Mississippi Gulf Coast isn't gone," says Janice Jones, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau (888-467-4853, www.gulfcoast.org).

During a trip in spring, Jones eagerly shows me renovated streetscapes and doesn't turn my visit into a chronicle of loss. Marinas again offer a variety of deep-sea fishing excursions. More than 200 varieties of fish live in the nutrient-rich coastal waters. Nationally known performers take to the stage at the new Mississippi Coast Coliseum. The Gulf Islands Waterpark in Gulfport has expanded its attractions. Golfers have challenging new courses, including Fallen Oak, designed by Tom Fazio. We have lunch at ConFusion, a newly opened restaurant on Teagarden Road, a few blocks away from the beachfront. The 1920s cottage wears fresh paint. Stained and etched glass color the windows and turquoise sea glass decorates the martini bar. The chef flirts with fusion and wows guests with a knockout menu that features fresh seafood and plenty of vegetarian fare.

We also drop in on the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, a play-and-learn center nearly destroyed by the storm surge. Since reopening, it was voted "the best attraction for kids" by readers of Mississippi magazine and was named Mississippi Travel Attraction of the Year. Nature, history and commerce galleries beckon with fun, interactive experiences. Play structures are sprinkled across the well-treed lawn.

Chic, lively and very stylish casinos attract many tourists to this waterfront playground. The neon-lighted entertainment centers also feature snazzy theater, comedy and cabaret-style performances. We stay at Treasure Bay Casino and Hotel, a tower buzzing with people pursuing Lady Luck at gaming tables and slot and video poker machines. Guest rooms have been luxed-up in recent months. The top floor houses blu, a tapas bar, and CQ, a fine-dining restaurant. Both have a dazzling IMAX-sized view of the Gulf of Mexico. The pool terrace, surrounded by tropical gardens, also elicits beautiful views of the beach.

The arrival of flashy casinos in 1992 changed the face of coastal Mississippi, whose history is more about moonlight-and-magnolia charm. Summer cottages built in the antebellum era gave New Orleans cotton brokers and Natchez plantation owners an escape from oppressive heat. They relaxed on wicker-adorned verandas and enjoyed refreshing sea breezes and the shade of majestic live oak trees.

For generations, sleepy fishing villages and old family resorts dotted Mississippi's 88-mile stretch of shoreline. The seafood industry provided livelihoods for permanent residents. Many were descendants of French and Spanish colonists who harvested the oyster reefs and fished the bountiful waters. These early inhabitants also raised cattle and made tar.

Biloxi takes its name from the American Indians who inhabited the area at the time of the Europeans' arrival. The French came ashore in 1699. Local historians say the date marks the founding of the second-oldest enduring settlement in the United States. St. Augustine, Fla., has an earlier settlement date. By the 1780s, Spanish land grants caused a steady flow of settlers and the French presence diminished.

Only a slice of this antebellum period remains. As we drive along the coast, we see a generous sprinkling of giant live oaks, but many of the old cottages were lost to the wind. A few new houses are filling in the gaps. Visitors can nourish their sense of nostalgia by touring Beauvoir, the last home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The former Mississippi senator came here after his release from Union prisons and wrote the history of the Confederacy. The $4 million restoration of the single-story, raised cottage is complete.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast, an erstwhile respite for politicians, also attracts artists. Ocean Springs was the home of artist Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965). This quiet community along a picturesque harbor accepted the eccentric man, who was often seen wearing a fedora and pedaling his bicycle about town. He was born in New Orleans and educated at the Parsons Institute of Design in New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He traveled throughout Europe to complete his education.

Together with his Radcliffe-educated wife, Agnes, he came to Ocean Springs and worked at Shearwater Pottery, a venture started by his brother, Peter. In the late 1930s, Anderson was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In the years following hospitalization and recuperation, he had a productive life. He spent many weeks alone in a cottage on the Shearwater compound and made frequent sojourns to uninhabited Horn Island. There he lived primitively and painted the vegetation, birds and seascapes.

The Walter Anderson Museum of Art in the center of Ocean Springs has an extensive collection of his work, including the "Little Room" mural. After his death, the family entered his cottage and discovered whimsical, pastel murals inspired by the Book of Psalms. The room was moved from the Shearwater compound to the museum in 1991.

Murals on the walls of the community center were Anderson's gift to the people of Ocean Springs. The extraordinary artwork traces the history of the coastal area. Museum visitors step into the adjoining community center and are surrounded by the 90-foot imaginative masterpiece completed in a colorful impressionistic naturalist style.

The museum's skylighted interior of warm southern yellow pine is a welcoming place. The main galleria and two galleries house wood carvings, pottery, watercolor paintings, sketches and personal artifacts of Anderson's. It is a treasure, perhaps not expected, in this folksy town that is also known for its friendly eateries, ladies' boutiques, antiques shops and bonbon-hued cottages (228-872-3164, www.walterandersonmuseum.org).

Biloxi, across the bay from Ocean Springs, has its own eccentric artist. George E. Ohr (1857-1918) set up his first pottery studio in 1883. He traveled widely to learn about emerging artistic styles, particularly the Arts and Crafts Movement. His sculptural ceramics became decidedly modern and put him among the first abstract artists working in the United States. He became known as the "Mad Potter of Biloxi" and pushed the limits of clay. A new museum to hold an extensive collection of Ohr pottery is rising on the Biloxi waterfront. Silver pods shine like a thousand mirrors in the sunlight. World-renowned architect Frank Gehry designed the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art "to dance" in a live oak grove.

"Frank Gehry has been familiar with George Ohr's work for many years and loves it," says Marjie Gowdy, museum executive director. This is the only Gehry-designed museum in the Southeast. His structures, such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millenium Park, draw hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. Gowdy percolates with enthusiasm, saying, "We think it will be very exciting to have this Gehry museum on the Gulf Coast."

The museum complex was nearing completion when Hurricane Katrina battered the coast. The curved beams of the four-story education building led some to believe the structure was heavily damaged. "No, actually that's Frank Gehry's design," says Gowdy, indicating that the steel-and-concrete facility withstood the surge. Construction has resumed and the opening date is anticipated for early 2010. The pottery collection will be enclosed in bulblike galleries. "The four pods will hold about 25 pots in each. Frank Gehry designed fabulous cases." The four-acre property will also have a tower for views of Deer Island (228-374-5547, www.georgeohr.org).

A few of America's most beautiful and unspoiled barrier islands parallel the Mississippi coastline. Sea currents and winds constantly move and reshape Petit Bois, Horn, East Ship and West Ship islands. Petit Bois once extended much farther east into Alabama. Four-mile-long Ship Island was divided by Hurricane Camille in 1969. Horn Island, a 3,650-acre ribbon of pristine wilderness, supports diverse habitats, including pine and palmetto forests, lagoons and beaches. Petit Bois is a wildlife sanctuary with a sizable population of alligators, raccoons and a multitude of birds. These flecks of land are part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.

We have an 8 a.m. departure from the Gulfport Yacht Harbor for a cruise to West Ship Island. Laughing gulls follow us away from the dock. During the 12-mile crossing of the Mississippi Sound, we breathe the salt-tanged air and look for Atlantic bottlenose dolphins that often cavort in the ship's wake. "The sound has a huge dolphin population," says Capt. Louis Skrmetta of Ship Island Excursions (www.msshipisland.com). As we approach the island dock, black skimmers fly just above the water's surface. Brown pelicans flap and drop in pursuit of small fish.

Hurricane Katrina wrought devastation on this small island. A storm surge of about 30 feet swamped the island and demolished the National Park Service facilities. Joe Suttles, facilities manager for the reconstruction, is here to check on the new restrooms, outdoor showers, picnic area and snack stand. These are crucial because hordes of beachcombers prefer the clear water and shell-laden, white-sand beach of the barrier island to the more silty water washing up to the mainland's beaches.

Sunseekers spill off the boat, cross the boardwalk and hit the beach almost as quickly as the sanderlings hustling between tongues of surf. They are eager to cultivate a tan and dog-ear a paperback. Children dig their naked digits into the sand and begin the pleasurable task of sand-castle-building. Boogie boarders barrel shoreward and fishermen cast nets into the surf.

People take time to explore Fort Massachusetts, a relic from America's feuds with the British. Early in the Civil War, Confederates seized the unfinished brick fortress. Federal troops under the command of Adm. David Farragut regained the defense post in 1861 and completed its construction. The island was used as a staging area for the capture of New Orleans and as a prisoner-of-war camp. Visitors climb to the top to inspect the two 15-inch Rodman cannons and grab a panoramic view of the interior marshes and sparkling, sugar-white shoreline (228-875-9057, www.nps.gov/guis).

(Linda Lange is the travel editor of The News Sentinel in Knoxville, Tenn.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)