I'm going to the coast tomorrow to do some research.

The little town of Kreole, MS is just west of the Alabama line. It sits along Highway 90 and is close to hundreds of square miles of salt marshes, bayous and wetlands.

Kreole plays a key part in one of my upcoming books- call it on the scene research. I'll be taking photographs, talking to locals, walking around and will be taking roads off into the bayous and wetlands.

If you want to see where I'm going search for Kreole, Mississippi on either Google maps or Google Earth.

I live for stuff like this. Those swamps and wetlands go on for miles until they become the Gulf. Not all of our coastlines are sandy beaches. Salt marshes are a key feature of the Gulf Coast from Texas to Alabama. They make great places to fish and hunt but you sure wouldn't want to live there.

There actually is a rare breed that does live out there. They are usually shrimp boat operators. They live in houses built on stilts. Believe it or not, many of those houses survived Katrina unscathed because they were built to take it. The people that live out there are very self reliant. One old fellow wasn't seen or heard of for six weeks after Katrina and did just fine.

I'll be going to Bayou Heron, Bayou Cumbest, Orange Grove Road and Old Stage Road.

Some of these places are very old. Places originally inhabitated by the Spanish or the French (because the Indians knew better to live in the malaria and yellow fever infested swamps).

Many of these places were built and then built over on successive occasions and generations. The only two old Spanish Forts still in any kind of shape are in Pascagoula and Mobile. There was no effort to preserve them elsewhere. They were built in walking (or riding) distance of each other in colonial times- all centered around New Orleans of course.

Over the years these bayous have been the home of all sorts of shenanigans and skulduggery. Pirates used them to hide from warships in the early Caribbean. They have since become a haven for smugglers of rum from Cuba during Prohibition and later drugs from Columbia and farther South.

These are places that it wouldn't occur to most people to explore. I love them. To me they are the very edge of the map where the roads end and the adventure begins.