HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM & CHRIS....Caching in Ocean Springs, MS 3/20/2008

We want to wish our twins Tim and Chris a very very Happy Birthday and hope that they have a wonderful day and enjoy themselves with their families. We headed to Ocean Springs this morning to do some caching, again!!!!!! This is east of Biloxi so the damage we saw was nowhere nearly as bad as what we saw in Biloxi and Gulport. There were some buildings ripped apart and some road damage but really, like we said, not as bad as farther west along the coast, although it did rip apart the bridge from Ocean Springs to Biloxi about a 2 mile span and they have built a new one now and in fact it really hasn't been opened completely as yet. Our first cache was at a park and ride location and then another at a car wash.
Then it was on to Marble Springs which was a site that was used first by the Indians. It was most popular for medicinal purposes from the 1850's to 1920. It was also known as Mineral Springs and was the best known nationally of Mississippi's manymineral spring resorts. It was a lovely small park with gardens, a cannon, gardens with statues and a round brick gazebo covering the mineral springs.
Then it was on to a small park in the middle of town, the it was a cache near a wall mural also in the middle of town. The mural was called Ocean Springs: Past, Present and Future. It was an image of Ocean Springs spanning over 300 years, bridging the passage of time with depictions of the people and wildlife, who have shared this special place through the ages. Respect.... for the wonderful place in which we live and the great people who came before us. Love.... of this land, the sea, and its bounty. Peace.... the hope that we can always find a peaceful solution. Education....our future as a community of emotional and responsible individuals, growing in a positive sense as a whole. Prosperity....the joy of life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The mural was painted by Chris Stelby, grandson of Walter Anderson a well known painter who lived in Ocean Springs.
Then it was on to the Walter Inglis Anderson Museum also in downtown Ocean Springs right around the corner from the mural. Walter Inglis Anderson was born in 1903 in New Orleans to George Walter Anderson, a grain merchant, and Annette McConnell Anderson, an artist. His mother’s love of art, music, and literature strongly influenced Walter (called "Bob" by his friends and family) and his two brothers, Peter and Mac.
It was in the late 1930s that Anderson first succumbed to mental illness. He was diagnosed with severe depression and spent three years in and out of hospitals. In 1947, with the understanding of his family, Anderson left his wife and children and embarked on a private and very solitary existence. He lived alone in a cottage on the Shearwater compound, and increased his visits to Horn Island, one of a group of barrier islands along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He would row the 12 miles in a small skiff, carrying minimal necessities and his art supplies. Anderson spent long periods of time on this uninhabited island over the last 18 years of his life. There he lived primitively, working in the open and sleeping under his boat, sometimes for weeks at a time.
He endured extreme weather conditions, from blistering summers to hurricane winds and freezing winters. He painted and drew a multitude of species of island vegetation, animals, birds, and insects, penetrating the wild thickets on hands and knees and lying in lagoons in his search to record his beloved island paradise. Anderson’s obsession to "realize" his subjects through his art, to be one with the natural world instead of an intruder, created works that are intense and evocative.
Walter Anderson died at the age of 62 in a New Orleans hospital of lung cancer. Much of the work survived only by chance; it was discovered in drifts, like autumn leaves, throughout his cottage after his death.
We then went to another small park in downtown, we have never seen so many small parks as there are in these cities in the South, and a multi-cache that required us to find coords stamped on the wooden boardwalk first and then go to the final stage with these coords.
Then it was on to a puzzle cache located at Camp Victor which is being run by Christus Victor Lutheran Church in an old garment factory and warehouse. It now and since 2006 housed the volunteers coming in to help with the Hurricane Katrina relief. It has a new commercial kitchen, carpeted dorms with bunk beds to house 250 people, bathroom facilities, and is heated and air conditioned. The "angels" have come from all over the nation, as well as Canada and about two dozen other countries, to selflessly assist in the recovery of Gulf Coast communities as there were 64,000 homes destroyed and over 78,000 more damaged. The volunteers over the months have painted 8 murals on the outside walls of this building and we did a puzzle that had to do with the murals. As you can see by the pictures the murals are lovely.
Our last cache was at another of the Whispering Giant carved wooden statues done by Peter Toth. We saw another of his statues, Mus-Quoian, in Dothan, AL at the Houston-Love Memorial public Library there. This carving is entitled Crooked Feather and is #17 of his carvings. It is located near the old Ocean Springs-Biloxi Bridge that was wiped out by Katrina and near where the new bridge is constructed.
Then it was on back to the RV and as usual Mom did the logs and I showered and then it was dinner time. After dinner we watched tv and I started the blog but was falling asleep so I put it up until today. Well time to go until tomorrow and we love you all.


Picture List:1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10-Camp Victor & The Murals, 11,12,13-Ocean Springs Wall Mural, 14,15,16,17,18-Marble Springs, 19-Egret, 20-Crooked Feather, 21-St Michaels Church-Damaged