The Road to New Orleans

We woke up in Pensacola Beach this morning to a heavy overcast with brisk wind. It wasn't all that cold, but not exactly balmy either. We went down to the beach and walked in the Gulf. Finally, we got our feet wet in the Gulf. So we now have done the Atlantic, Pacific, Phillipine Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. Another milestone!

We couldn't decide if we wanted to stay in Pensacola another day or head on to New Orleans. Heavy rain storms were predicted and we expected we would encounter heavy traffic on I-10. Finally, we decided to just go for it and deal with what ever we encountered. As it turned out, we did not run into any rain until much later in the day.

We stopped in Mobile, AL getting there around noon. We walked around the downtown area a bit and "collected" the cathedral there. The city has a strong Spanish heritage and many of the buildings had very ornate wrought iron. I found the downtown area interesting because it was neither "run down" nor modern. In other words, it was pretty much as it has probably always been. A lot of people were all about (church services were starting and ending) including at a restaurant that had a Sunday brunch. The restaurant had both inside and outside seating with the outside seating on both sides of the street between the restaurant and a nice downtown park. Lots of folks were sitting outside although (see above) it was not exactly balmy. Anyway, we took lots of pictures of buildings around the downtown district.

From there we got back on I-10 to Biloxy, MS where we drove down to the beach road (US-90). Mostly we just wanted to see what things look like 27 months after Katrina. What we found were a number of new casinos seeming to do a good business while the surrounding residential areas were still completely devastated. Originally, casinos in Mississippi had to be floating. However, after Katrina tossed the floating casinos all over the bay front area, the laws were changed to allow the casinos to be built on land. It looked like there were six to ten brand new high rise buildings with casinos and several more under construction. As we drove west on US-90 we saw mile after mile of devastation. It was a little strange because in some areas, you might not even notice anything amiss except that there were no buildings at all for about a block from the bay. There were streets but with no houses on them. Often, the only way you could tell that there had been a house on a lot was a random set of concrete or brick steps that at one time led to a front door or a fireplace or swimming pool in the middle of open ground. There were also For Sale signs (mostly "by owner") all over. Some houses were being built or rebuilt and some that were still present were just boarded up. One interesting affect of the storm was how it affected multi-story commercial buildings. Many of those building now look like they are raised up on pilings. However, what happened is that the ground floor was completely washed away leaving the second floor on up standing on the steel girders that form the skeleton of the building. The upper floors were generally still present but were wind damaged. We saw lots of places where there was a large parking lot, but no buildings around it indicating that a small shopping center or large store was completely wiped away. Other places, the only indication that a church had once stood on a chunk of land, was a sign indicating what the church was and that they planned to rebuild. At one point we passed an auto "junk yard" that did not have any indication that it was an established business. However, there were literally hundreds of vehicles stacked up in a large lot. They all seemed to be late model cars but all with heavy body damage. We saw many FEMA trailers parked in vacant lots or in front of boarded up or gutted houses or sometimes in what appeared to be communities set up on large parking lots. When we drove through Pass Christian we went through an intersection where traffic lights were torn from their supports leaving just the wires sticking out. However, there was no need to replace the signal lights as there was no traffic at that intersection since all the buildings that had been in the area were gone.

As we got closer to New Orleans, the skies darkened and the rain got heavier. It was pretty dark by the time we got into New Orleans itself, but we could still see that the results of the storm. We saw one place where there had apparently been a fire station, but now the fire trucks, etc. are just parked out in the open. Since it was dark when we got into the heaviest damaged areas of the city, the most noticeable thing about the neighborhoods was the lack of any lights in or around the houses. The houses were mostly boarded up and there was no sign of life in the area. Even the street lights on the side streets were out. It's all very sad.

Our hotel is in the downtown area of New Orleans just a couple blocks from the French Quarter. Since it was raining so hard when we got here, we just ran down to a corner deli / grocery store here and got some fried chicken, a meat pie and red beans and rice to bring back to our room. Our first New Orleans meal was a big success! It was all good stuff. We spent the rest of the evening reviewing tour guides to get an idea of what we want to do tomorrow and how we want to get around. The weather is forecast to clear up tomorrow so we are looking forward to a day of walking, looking and eating.