Easter was enjoyed by all of us this year. As usual, the Easter Bunny made a visit to our house and left a large supply of Easter eggs strewn across the front yard. In addition to the eggs, he left lots of good stuff in an Easter basket. The Easter Bunny has good taste in books. “Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!” by Mo Willems was a great pick.

Samantha’s cousin John and his wife had the whole family over for an Easter luncheon. Amazingly enough, the Easter Bunny visited their house as well. This meant many more eggs for Peter. I suspect he will be eating Easter candy for a long time. We took lots of pictures of the “Egg Retrieval Process”.

 We visited the Gulf Coast of Alabama this spring for a week in March. We stayed in the Mobile Bay area. Samantha’s family rented a beach house on Dauphin Island just outside the bay. The tiny island has a history going back 300 years. At one point it was the capitol of the Louisiana Territory, which covered nearly two thirds of the United States.

The west end of the island was damaged by Hurricane Ivan and then pretty well destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, but the east end of the island where we were staying was hardly touched. Our end of the island was pretty sleepy, but the damaged west end experienced a traffic jam of contractors each weekday as they rebuilt the multi-million dollar beach houses.

It was a relaxing week spent walking along the beach, eating good food, visiting with family, and sightseeing along the coast. We put a about 1000 miles on our rental car during the week, so there I guess there was quite a bit of sightseeing.

Samantha’s dad has spent a lot of time over the last year working in both Biloxi and New Orleans. We spent some time in both cities during our trip.

The damage in Biloxi from Hurricane Katrina was dramatic, as the full force of the storm sat over the city for many hours. There are whole areas of the city that were wiped off the map, with only foundations left standing.

The damage in New Orleans seemed more widespread, partially because the population base was so much larger. You can drive for mile after mile through New Orleans and it looks like a ghost town. In many areas everything is still standing, even the cars parked in front of apartment buildings and homes, but you don’t see any people. Everything you can in every direction is uninhabitable.

The difference between the areas of New Orleans that flooded and the area that didn’t are striking. The areas that weren’t flooded are filled with people and commerce and look as nothing has happened.

We finished our afternoon in New Orleans with a walk through the French Quarter. This was the only area of New Orleans where I felt comfortable taking any pictures.

On our trip to Alabama, we visited the Gulf Coast Zoo in Gulf Shores, Alabama. This is a little zoo with about 300 animals. It was a great place to visit with a little boy who likes animals.

The zoo had only recently reopened after having been closed for 18 months due to hurricane damage. The zoo took the brunt of by three hurricane strikes over the course of 14 months. Each time they were close to finishing reconstruction, they were hit by another hurricane. The zoo staff had to evacuate all of the animals to higher ground each time.

The zoo has been the focus of a television series on the channel Animal Planet entitled “The Little Zoo That Could“. The series chronicles the zoo’s efforts to rebuild after the hurricane damage.

My understanding is that the zoo’s long-term plans are to relocate to higher ground.