Biloxi MS Day 1 Part 2

After our beach adventure we ended up taking a nap before meeting up with a friend for Dinner!  Hi, S!  

We opted for the #1 ranked restaurant in town per tripadvisor, Half Oyster House for dinner.

It was amazing!  We had Royal Red Shrimp, 

Red Fish Orleans (Blackened redfish topped with Gulf shrimp sauteed in our original New Orleans style smoky Cajun sauce. Topped with jumbo lump crabmeat.) with Sweet Potato Creme brulee and Cheese Grits, 

and Fried Green Tomatos and Crab Cakes ... (Fried green tomatoes layered with blue crab cakes. Served over lemon aioli and topped with crab ravigotte.)!  

Mural inside the restaurant:

Biloxi MS Day 1 Part 1

The view leaving the entrance to Hubby's worksite -  (if you can't quite tell, that is the ocean in the background!)

On display at a local souvenir shop - a shark sculpture that was damaged but survived Katria. 

We enjoyed lunch at Wentzal's Seafood.  It billed itself as New Orleans style.  Must've been good ... we failed to capture a picture of our meals.  Sorry! Wifey had Chicken Alfredo and Hubby had a crab au gratin.  

On the way home from lunch we took a break in time to stop and have a brief adventure on the beach.  Being off season it is pretty deserted:  

Hubby enjoyed seeing the wildlife soaring above our heads!  They were beautiful!  

While Hubby looked up, Wifey was busy with her toe's in the OCEAN!!!  (please ignore the desperately needed pedicure!)

Hubby got in the OCEAN action too:  

Back at the sky - looky what God did:  

Eclipse Pt 3

Several hours before the eclipse began, we did a quick exploration of the Farm to scout the best place to shoot from come totality. I, wifey, really wanted to shoot the horizon with the sun/lack there of somewhere in the background. With totality scheduled around 1:00 pm local time, this proved impossible, so we finally settled on shooting just the sun/moon itself from the side yard.

All wifeys photography research and experience (cough cough) did not prepare her for exactly how bright the partial eclipse still would be!  Luckily her father in law came to the rescue with his welding helmet lens. Using it as an additional filter, all of the partial eclipse shots below were possible!  Thank you, FIL!

Part of planning months in advance of the eclipse included purchasing eclipse classes from Amazon early and promptly growing complacent that we were ready!  A week or two before this weekend, our glasses were recalled!   This time it was wifeys mother in law who saved the day and bought us replacements at a local store. All of the retail outlets and online were sold out near our home!  Thank you, MIL!!!

Come totality, no lens was needed and those pics were just shot with a D3200, lens at 300 mm.

Panoramics and selfies shot with iPhone 7+!

Eclipse Pt 4

Driving home from the eclipse, Wifey still kept her eyes on the sky!  God is a FANTASTIC Artist.  Even a cloudy day can't stop him from shining.  

Sadly though, about half of America was also traveling away from the line of totality.  And half of them heading south ... traffic was challenging to say the least!   

But we listened to KLOVE and talked about nothing and arrived at home in about 2 extra hours vs. the normal trip.  

Eclipse Pt 2

The Saturday before the Eclipse was a vow renewal for two of Hubby's friends from college, so we stopped by KC to join them in celebrating their marriage.

We arrived at the ceremony site while family pictures were still ongoing, and after some debate made a quick Starbucks run while we awaited start time!  One Frappuccino with extra shots and one decaf. We've become something of a mess!  Hubby prefers the smores flavor and wifey the red velvet!

Sadly, no pictures exist of these festivities ... but to make up for it ... check out our hotel room!

Eclipse Pt 1

For a few months in advance of the recent solar eclipse wifey had been planning a trip to visit Hubby's parents and break out her camera!   The drive up north was surprisingly pleasant considering how much Wifey stresses over road trips!

Along the way, we stopped in Bentonville AR for lunch at our favorite food truck .... Crepes Paulette! It was scrumptious and a great break from the monotony of hours on the road. A new-to-us truck was parked next door so we also were able to enjoy some yummy pizza along with our not-so-healthy crepes.

A rock is available near the food truck parking for kids to draw on with sidewalk chalk!  How adorable is this:

 A farmers market was in progress nearby in the downtown Bentonville square.  We didn't have a chance to look around but the culture in NWA seems fantastic!

An art installation also nearby combines a sculpture of a paint tube with planted flowers as the paint!  

Making this stop even more special is that it fell on a weekend a week shy of our first anniversary .... we ate Crepes Paulette the morning after our wedding!

Everyone say .... aweeee!!!

Branson and Natural Bridge

This weekend we embarked on a quick one night trip to Branson, MO to see Moses at the Sight and Sound Theatre!  We deferred to TripAdvisor to help choose our dinner destination and ended up at Baba's Burgers & Gyros. 

Yummy!  

After dinner, we went on to the theatre and settled in for a fantastic show!  

Our seats were great!  Row 4!!

And we were even able to get someone to take a photo of the two of us.

We arrived at our hotel late late that night and were so exhausted I only managed the one photo ... 

On the trip home, we made a slight detour to check out the Natural Bridge of Arkansas.  We've driven past this attraction many times but never stopped before.  

For $5 a person, you gain access to the Bridge and a small historical museum.  

Inside the museum is a cross-section of a tree with marked rings showing its age and presence at various points in Arkansas history.  

Past the museum, we saw the natural bridge! 

Overall the natural bridge is a good side stop if you're traveling through north central Arkansas.