We went last year and well, we just love this place and decided to make a short trip once again to this awesome spot.

This time on Ship Island we simply took in some sun, walked on the beach looking at lots of marine life,  swam in the super dooper salty ocean, and enjoyed ourselves.

We had the wonderful opportunity to eat at Emerils it was crazy good.
I had the Gumbo of the Day
Shrimp & Grits Lazy Magnolia Beer Barbequed Shrimp with Smoked White Cheddar Grits, Crimini Mushrooms, Apple Wood Smoked Bacon, Grilled Green Onions and a Creole Tomato Glaze
and for dessert Homemade Ice Cream Trio.
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We also ate at Lookout 49 again, we love this place and I highly recommend it if you are ever in Gulfport, MS

A place to eat that I DO NOT recommend and should be avoided at all costs is Snappers Seafood in Biloxi. They dont even have a website and they should as expensive as the food was.  Their food was sub satisfying and ridiculously over priced. Click Here to see what others had to say

Some other things we did, were bowling, shopping and took in two movies, The Hangover, which was super funny about 4 guys and their bachelor party in Vegas, and Public Enemies, which was about John Dillinger. The movie was just…ok, it was long and drawn out.

Well that was about it, a short mini-vacation.

You really must check it out sometime.

I know this is looooooooooong overdue since I said I would do this video as soon as I got back from Vegas and that was in July, well here it is. I uploaded it to youtube.com, it turned out a little bit grainy there after they convert the video,  hope you enjoy it!

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I had been their when I was younger many times and enjoyed it. Best I can remember I had been in 1978, 1988, 1998, and now in 2008. Every ten years purely a coiencidence.
I wanted for my family to experience this great place before another hurricane like Katrina comes through and possibly wash it away forever. As you will see in this picture, the top is after Katrina, the bottom is before. See how it almost wiped it out?

Ship Island is the collective name for two barrier islands off the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, part of Gulf Islands National Seashore: East Ship Island and West Ship Island. Hurricane Camille split the once single island into 2 separate islands in 1969.

Having the only deep-water harbor between Mobile Bay and the Mississippi River, the island served as a vital anchorage for ships bearing explorers, colonists, sailors, soldiers, defenders and invaders. 

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In 1858, Mississippi passed legislation that gave jurisdiction over the island to the United States government. After the war, Congress approved an ambitious plan to construct state-of-the-art masonry fortifications at strategic locations along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, including Ship Island.

Construction of Fort Massachusetts began in 1859, but was halted due to the Civil War, when the island also became a prison for Confederate P.O.W.’s, and a base for the U.S. Second Regiment (Louisiana Native Guards led by Colonel Nathan W. Daniels), one of the first African-American combat units to fight in the Civil War. On July 9th, 1861, a twenty-minute cannon exchange between Confederates on the island and the USS Massachusetts took place and in 1862 the fort was named Fort Massachusetts in honor of the Union warship. The fort was finally completed in 1866.  You can read more about the history of this fort here at wikipedia

The Fort is simply awesome to behold. I really do not know where to begin to talk about all the cool things their is to tell about it but I will try.

One of the first things you migh notice about it is that it has two colors of brick on the outside. This is because during construction, they were getting the brick from up north, then when the civil war started, they didn’t order from up north anymore and didnt find a brick that matched.

One of the really neat things is that around the top of the fort, there is grass hills and a gutter system that catches the rain water and brings it all down to a central location within the fort for all the soldiers to drink.

One more interesting note is that there is a 50,000 pound cannon still there on one of the top sides of the fort. It was lifted atop the fort and sat in place by soliders using block and tackle. Imagine that.

There are many stories as to why there is only one left there. The one that sticks in my mind the most is the one that said there was a guy that purchased all the cannons for scrap metal and he used dynamite to blow them up to remove them. Well he got them all but the last one thats still there and there are fragments of the one that was once next to it. What had happend was while he was blowing them up, one piece during one of the explosions hit the lighthouse or a house near the light house and all was halted at this point. After that I think a historical society stepped in and took control of the property.

The 40 minute tour of the fort was very cool and informative, then we hit the beach for an entire day. While Mel laid on the beach and read a book, Justin and I trolled the beach, walking for what seemed like miles.
We saw lots of jellyfish, crabs, land crabs, and stingrays. We even caught several landcrabs and let me tell ya those are not super easy to catch!

At around 5pm its time to load  up on the ferry again and head back, and so we did, sunburns and all.
Enjoy the photos.

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We didn’t have long so we had to hustle to see all that we could in the short time that we were there. There is soo much to see that you could probably be there a month and not see it all.

First thing we did was see a show by called Mystere by Cirque du Soleil

I can not tell you in words how amazing one of these shows are. You must see one if you are ever in Vegas. Anything by Cirque Du Soleil has to be great.

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Over the next few days, we covered lots of ground and ate many great meals.

We went to see the Hoover Dam and that place is simply amazing in itself.

We took in a small zoo and saw some dolphins play and entertain everyone.

We also enjoyed shopping in a mile long circle of a mall which had us fooled at one time into thinking we were outside when we were actually inside. The sky resembles the natural sky and they even make it cloud up and rain on occasion.
See pics below.

We took in lots of sites like the Eiffel Tower replica (half size) and the Stratosphere which was around 1,149 feet into the Vegas skyline. From there we took lots of pictures of the strip. Unfortunatly it was during the day, so no spectacular night pics.

Thats about it. We shopped, we ate, we took in a show, we saw the Hoover Dam, we went to the zoo, we when uptop the Effiel Tower at night, we watched the fountains in front of the Bellagio many times, we laid out by the pool at the Bellagio and then we came home.

I will have to come back later and update this blog with videos once I get them uploaded.

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