Grand Isle, Louisiana

Love Blossoms Amid Disaster

I don't know, just thought these little kids were adorable.

The Bud Light cans as the flag pole are a nice touch.

Houma Nation Inauguration Ceremony

People of the Houma Nation in southern Louisiana have been hit hard by the BP oil disaster. Just about everyone in the community is either a waterman or an oil man. The people I spoke with yesterday adamantly oppose the drilling moratorium, saying it will destroy what's left of the economy.

Saturday's ceremony in Dulac, just south of Houma, was for the swearing-in of the Nation's new Principal Chief Thomas Dardar Jr. Organizers say it's the first time in years that the Nation has come together so strongly for an event.

Sweet perspective

Since Morgan Wilkerson was a little girl, she dreamed of getting married on the beach. But because of the BP oil disaster, she and her betrothed will have to find another place other than Orange Beach, Ala. In the meantime, she and her brother Thomas (in the video) came down to see the damage for themselves. I like how they keep the wedding cancellation in perspective. Morgan is definitely no Bridezilla. Unlike, say Tony Haywood, they don't see this as all about them.

What's a little oil spatter?

American resiliency in action to that two weeks vacation a year.

White Sands

People here claim that the Gulf Coast beaches along the Florida panhandle to the Mobile Bay are the whitest in the world, the result of quartz washed down for millions of years from the once towering Appalachia Mountains.

The local sentiment

This was taken in Gulf Shores, Ala. just off Mobile Bay. I almost rear-ended this guy trying to snap this picture.