Donuts, Pastries and Pottery

Tuesday May 14, 2013
Site 19, Davis Bayou Campground
Gulf Islands National Seashore
Ocean Springs, Mississippi

 

 

 

It’s our last day here at Davis Bayou.

 

We are leaving Mississippi tomorrow and realize we haven’t put the state on our map.  This is the first state we have added in the past 19 months.  Putting this little sticker on the map really makes us feel like we have our life back at least for a while.  Although David looks very serious about its placement, it’s a grand symbolic occasion.

 

 

 

 

To celebrate we’re going to spend the morning walking around the town of Ocean Springs beginning at Tato-nuts which I later find out was originally a SPUDNUTS.  Ha!  No wonder I want to go here.  They open at 5:00am but it’s 7:30 by the time we get there.  We’re going to celebrate with potato donuts.  Those would be vegan wouldn’t they?  :-))

 

I have to agree, Spudnuts are the only real donut!  If you’ve never had them fresh and hot you are missing out….for sure!

 

 

 

 

David has a chocolate glazed chocolate cake donut.  I’m not so much for the cake ones and have two regular glazed hot out of the oven.  They practically melt in my mouth.  I could eat an entire dozen of these I swear it.  Therefore I only buy two.

 

We leave Ruby parked across from Tato-Nuts on Government Street, the main street in town, and walk on. 

Ocean Springs is a cute little town with what seems like perhaps more than its fair share of bars and lawyers.  Do you suppose those things are causational?

We see one of the bars just across the street, a new use for a former little town gas station.  Nice big “porch” for eating out when it rains.

 

 

We stroll down Government Street toward Washington.  We find all kinds of interesting things.

 

 

 

 

 

What business do you think had these admonitions on their front window glass?

 

 

Not sure if this is someone’s idea of a joke but it made me laugh out loud.  Talk about being on the corner of………….   This little town has a great sense of humor.

 

 

 

 

 We definitely stop for old drug stores especially if they have a neon sign and a soda fountain.

 

Although it has clearly become a tourist town full of boutiques, the old drug store, complete with neon sign, is still open for business. Lovelace Drugs is on the corner of Government and Washington which appear to be the two main commercial streets. 

 

 

 

 

 

We are both nostalgic for drug stores with neon signs and old soda fountains, few and far between these days. We’ve just had donuts so an ice cream treat isn’t in the cards right now.  I’d love to come back later for a hot fudge sundae in this atmosphere but I’m afraid that will have to wait for our next visit to Ocean Springs.   We have that doctor deadline in Virginia and cannot extend our stay.  Darn it.

The old drink cooler still works and is filled with drinks.  Although neither of us is a cream soda fan, we have to take a bottle of the official Lovelace Cream Soda with us.

 

 

  

Across the street from Lovelace is…..OH NO…..a French Bakery.  Really in a little Mississippi town??  Yup – The French Kiss Pastries.   Has it been long enough since we had two donuts?   mmmmmmmmmm…..YUP.

We hightail it across the street.

 

 

Just look at these cakes and tarts and éclairs.  Oh my!

 

 

Decisions, decisions……..

 

 

We sit outside and enjoy two of the 5 pastries we buy.  The others will be for breakfast before we pull out on our way to Prairie Creek COE in Alabama tomorrow.

 

 

Time to head back to the car.  On the way we wander through Marshall Park with its original 1911 Bandstand and water fountain.

 

 

 

The beautiful live oak trees in the park and on the surrounding streets clearly predate the park.  I suspect it would take 4 people to give this tree a proper hug.  We are thrilled to be in its presence.  It is SOME tree.

 

 

 

The trees appear to have been allowed to grow in complete freedom.
Thumbs up to Ocean Springs.  If you are too tall, you’ll have to go around.  The sign on the long tree limbs warns you.

 

 

 

Just doors away from the tree above and across the street from the park I take this shot for Carrie.

 

 

 

After lunch, we decide to do two more short visits before we close out our stay in Ocean Springs.

 

We go back to the visitor center to finish looking at the exhibits including this display of the size of an osprey’s wings.  Sure puts it in perspective for me.  They’ve got longer wings than I have.

 

I also wanted to get a better picture of the screen print hangings of the paintings of Walter Anderson that greet you when you come in.  And one of the pelican bookends that are among my favorites of his pieces.  They tell me at the pottery that they cannot keep them in stock and there were none in the showroom when we were there on Sunday.

 

 

 

 

 

I forgot to mention in my post about our earlier visit the eco tips posted all throughout.  They are very educational.  I especially hope this one gets taken very seriously and adopted.

 

This is a really wonderful museum and if you are in this area, whether you camp at Davis Bayou or not, you really should stop by and experience it.

 

 

Our last stop in Ocean Springs for this trip is fittingly the same as our first.  We’ve come full circle during our short stay here  We return to Shearwater Pottery.

We drive into a treed world of unique artistry.  Mother Nature and this family have worked together to produce a place outside of time.

 

 

 

We go into the pottery showroom and ask if it is possible to watch the potter.  It is pretty late in the afternoon and my fingers are crossed that he isn’t finished for the day.

“Sure just go on over” is the response.   FABULOUS!  Amazing actually.

 

 

 

 

We walk over to the work buildings where we find Nick taking apart molds and cleaning them.

The room has racks of pottery molds.

Nick tells us about the entire process as he takes the mold off of one of the woodpecker handled cups just like the one I intend to buy.

 

 

 

Notice the pelican bookends on the upper shelf to the left.  From this link, you can order them, or any other Shearwater pieces, in any of their current 16 glazes and have them delivered right to your door.

 

 

 

While David and Nick talk about the old belt driven machinery still in use here, I wander into the next room where I find Jimmy Anderson, the Master Potter, son of the pottery’s founder Peter Anderson, doing glazing.  We are too late to see him at the wheel for which I am sorry.  But that’s just another great excuse to return again to Shearwater.

 

 

He is putting glaze on pieces he has thrown and fired earlier in the week.  It looks like an art to me, knowing how to dip the pieces in the glaze tub, how long to leave them in, when to stir the glaze, how to remove them without getting drips and runs or at least just a hint so it’s clear they are hand made.

 

But Jimmy says no, once you learn it’s easy.  He tells me his father Peter called it the dishwashing of being a potter.  You just do it.  You don’t have to think about it.

 

 

These pieces have had two glazes put on as is obvious from the colors.  While I am there Jimmy tells me that all pieces are glazed two or three times before their final firing depending on the colors you want.  He submerges some pieces in the glaze he is working with, sets them over to dry and then later dips just the rims again for a thicker glaze.

 

In the kiln room I see the original oil kiln put in by Peter and Walter in the 30’s and no longer in use after Hurricane Katrina’s damage to it.  It has been replaced by an electric kiln  on the other end of the room.  I forgot to get that picture.  It wasn’t as interesting as this one I guess.

 

 

Pottery that has come out of a final firing and pottery ready to go in.

 

 

 

  Peter Wade Anderson, Jimmy’s son and the third generation Anderson family potter, joins the conversation.  He is a young man in his mid thirties I imagine with whom we have a wonderful conversation in which I was so absorbed I forgot to take his picture.   DRAT!   Another reason to return.  I took the picture below off of the Shearwater website.

 

 

It’s time for the potters to call it a day.  Peter Wade’s son has a T-ball game and dad and grandpa are going to watch him play.  It has been wonderful seeing this working area of the pottery and talking to them both.  I feel like I’ve just spent time with celebrities and in my world they definitely are.

 

We return to the pottery and I look all over again at everything there.  I don’t need a thing, I don’t have room in an RV for a thing but there are so many pieces I would love to have just for their sheer beauty.

 

 

 

There are several boxes under the counter in the office room.  These are sets of dishes that have been ordered and the pieces are put in the boxes as they come out of the kiln and are approved for sale by Jimmy.
Some lucky people are going to have entire sets of dinnerware from Shearwater Pottery.  Apparently it is a local tradition as a wedding gift.

 

This is one of my favorite glazes.  It reminds me of the sand and aqua waters of the gulf shores.

 

 

 

For beagle lovers everywhere it is clear that the designer here must have had a beagle.

 

 

It’s nearly closing time and so I take my woodpecker mug up to the counter and happily pay $22 for it.  Its colors remind me of the beautiful blue Gulf waters.   They didn’t have one in my favorite glaze but this one is a very close second.  I could have ordered it but with the difficulty of on the road delivery and not wanting to have a tangible reminder of my wonderful days in Ocean View, I opt for this one and I love it just as much.

 

 

We’ve had a terrific visit in Ocean Springs.  If you have not read the 3 previous posts on the works of Walter Anderson I really hope you will.  His art work is truly amazing.  You can find them in the blog archive on in the right hand column. 

I definitely underestimated how much time I’d want to spend here.  Tomorrow we are on the road to Alabama for a few days as we wander to Virginia.