New Orleans and home

I left Kerrville Thursday morning and headed towards New Orleans. I did make one pit stop, however, to see the Alamo in San Antonio. Apparently there's a bike that someone stole from Pee Wee Herman in the basement, and I wanted to check it out. Ok, ok, probably no one remembers the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" but me, but that's funny. Anyhow, so I went to downtown San Antonio and toured the monument to Texas independence, the Alamo. I also walked down the Riverwalk a good ways, which was lined with numerous shops and restuarants. It was a too early for lunch, but I imagine that it's a good place to eat some tasty Mexican food. I think I'd like to go back and visit San Antonio and Austin at some point when I can spend more time. Good food and good music are two things I appreciate in cities, and I think they have both.

I continued my drive east through Houston and into Louisianna. The bayou, yes lawd. Just west of Baton Rouge I-10 crosses the Atchafalaya river, which is accompanied by 18 miles of swamp land. I dunno, maybe I'm a dork, but I thought it was cool driving over that much swamp bayou gator crawfish cajun backwoods funk. I think that, as far as habitats go, swamps are the most intriguing - they're just so dirty and hidden. I imagine myself retiring in either of two types of places - on a huge ranch surrounded by mountains (as in Wyoming), or in some bungalow on the bayou, a la "The Waterboy".

Anyhow, I got to New Orleans and met my parents around 8:00, and we checked into the Hotel St. Marie in the French Quarter. Friday and Saturday were spent eating beignets, jambalaya, po boys and steak, and walking around the quarter. In the quarter and dowtown things seemed to be getting back to normal - most shops and restuarants were open, and while the streets weren't terribly crowded there was a decent number of tourists. And of course there was plenty of live music at all hours of the day and night. My parents and I took advantage of the local drinks as well as I switched from bourbon and cokes to hurricanes. Mom even drank here fair share of hurricanes too, yes lawd! We also enjoyed checking out the local gift shops that had some great novelty t-shirts. Many of them poked fun at the city's situation after Katrina, like "I survived Katrina and all I got was this lousy t-shirt...and a cadillac...and a plasma TV". Or "FEMA - Find Every Mexican Available". I bought Sabo a shirt that had a picture of mayor Ralph Nagin caricatured as Willie Wonka that said "Willy Nagin and the Chocolate City". Good stuff.

After enjoying the food and alcohol of New Orleans for two days I left on Sunday towards good ol' North Carolina. On my way out of town, though, I drove through the east side of New Orleans and saw the devastation from Katrina and the flooding first hand. It's indescribable. Miles and miles of houses that have been condemned, shopping malls that have been shut down, empty parking lots - a ghost town with a few FEMA trailers. Looking closely at some of the houses I could see the water line from the flood above the front door. It was just sad. After seeing the damage, it's hard for me to believe that even half of the people who lived in the Big Easy before the storm will ever return. Things will just have to start over new, and I just hope that the unique culture of the city will remain somewhat intact.

I also got off of I-10 in Biloxi to see the damage there as well. As some of you know, I actually spent a number of weeks in Biloxi last summer with Bain, so I had a good idea of Biloxi "before". Biloxi "after" is nearly gone. Whereas in New Orleans the houses were still standing, in Biloxi they're just not there. Nearly everything within a mile of the coast has either been torn down and removed, or is still there existing only as a pile of rubble. It was unreal to me how many buildings, stores, etc that I remembered from last summer had just disappeared. Even the Biloxi civic center/colisseum had been demolished and replaced with a green lawn.

After my somber tour of Biloxi I got back on I-10 and drove. I kept driving for another ten hours until I got to I-40 exit 263 just outside of Hillsborough. I was home. Good lawd. It was a great trip - over 10,000 miles and 25 states. Hahaha, first thing I did yesterday was change the oil in my car, it needed it. Anyhow, I'll post some pictures from New Orleans when I get the chance. Hope everyone is enjoying their 4th!