Gulf of Mexico Tour: Day 6 in Perdido Key

Many canceled hotel rooms on the Gulf coast of Alabama and Florida despite seemingly beautiful beaches and clear water.

This vendor sold two beers in four hours. The Flora-Bama, right, a beach bar in Perdido Key, Florida, had a handful of patrons. Cars filled up to the third level of the usually packed garage, which is on the Alabama side.

A few workers disembarked a cart after a day's work. Oil had made landfall a week and a half ago.

Off in the distance, a shrimping boat works as an oil skimmer while a boom rig, left, separates oil from water instead of drilling for oil or catching bottom-feeding fish.

Sunset over Perdido Key on the Alabama side.

I stepped on an oil blob, which squished and crumbled like Play-Doh. I found many of these on the beach at Gulfport, Mississippi, but I had no idea at the time what they were until someone educated me in Perdido Key, Florida.

Gulf of Mexico Tour: Day 5 in Mobile and Pensacola

Riding in a Greyhound bus on Interstate 10 in Mississippi Friday evening

Oil in Mobile Bay?

Torrential rainstorm in Pensacola, Florida

I unfortunately didn't take any photos in Mobile, Alabama. That means I have to go back, right? One of these days...

Gulf of Mexico Tour: Day 4 in Gulfport

Gulfport, Mississippi has two casinos and a beach.

A lone crab. The only creature I saw in two hours on the beach.

Workers trained on this beach to prepare for an oil-spill cleanup if it makes landfall.

The water in the Mississippi Sound -- which is between mainland Mississippi and barrier islands that abut the Gulf of Mexico -- looks strikingly yellow. A local told me muddy water is normal.

A thunderstorm looms ahead.

Can you spot a typo? -- U.S. Route 90