Bye Bye NO and the Road to Natchitoches

We set out this morning and returned to the Lower 9th Ward of the city. The Lower 9th is between the river and a canal and had water up to and over the roofs of homes after the levee gave way. We drove randomly around several streets of the residential area and every street was the same: Block after block of boarded up, damaged homes with a few undergoing restoration or reconstruction. The empty homes have yards that are completely over grown by 2 years worth of weeds. A few residents were about, but we saw less than 15. Typically, it seemed like about 1 or 2 houses being fixed up in every 2 blocks. We saw a boarded up school and a boarded up church. More than just the people are gone, the neighborhoods are gone.

As we headed back across town on our way out, we passed St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. There are four cemeteries associated with the St. Louis Cathedral. Since this one was open and tours were going on, we parked and took a quick look around. I'm fairly used to seeing above ground crypts in Louisiana, but I had never seen them stacked so high! Rather than family plots you see in other cemeteries, the families there have crypts. As various members of the family are "in need" of a crypt, they are added on top of their ancestors. The crypts in there had dates going back to the early 19th century and as recent as 2003.

From there we headed out US-90 west to New Iberia. On the way we passed through lots of swamp land where the highway was elevated for miles at a time. We also passed by some very large sugar cane fields. We saw sugar cane at all stages of growth including a lot that was being harvested. At one point where lots of it was being hauled to a mill near by, there were a lot of pieces lying along side the road. So, of course, we had to stop and pick up a couple of chunks. We haven't tried it yet, but I remember when I was a kid and we came to Louisiana we would get sugar cane, peel it and chew the center which was very sweet.

We stopped in New Iberia for lunch (it was nearly 2:00 when we got there). We had in mind to get some Cajun food and stopped at a restaurant named Clementine's. It turned out they did not have much choice and we ended up just ordering salads. Mary got a baby spinach with grilled chicken (what else) and I got a Caesar salad with fried oysters! It turned out that both were excellent.

From there we went on to Lafayette. We just drove through the city and noted the somewhat random pattern of streets, University of Louisiana Lafayette campus and some large old houses. We didn't dally long there, but now we can say we've been to Lafayette (and didn't get lost).

From Layette to Natchitoches is about 120 miles by I-49. We rolled into the Hampton about 5:30. While we knew the annual Christmas Festival of Lights would be in progress when we got here, we did not find out until we booked the room yesterday that this is the kick off weekend for it. As a result the hotel is quite full and we were probably lucky to get a room. But, we did. They were having a manager's reception when we arrived, so we just noshed on fajitas and beer for dinner and retired to our room. We'll check out the lights tomorrow night. Hopefully, they will be lit.

I did manage to get a bunch of pictures from Key West put up on Picassa tonight. I'll try to get more pix up before we get home.