New Orleans

Brad and I finally drove over to New Orleans yesterday. We went for a scouting trip for our anniversary weekend. We have gone to New Orleans for our December anniversary almost every year for the last 17 years. We have had some long discussions about whether we should try to go this year. We finally decided to go there as a show of support for NOLA and to add a few tourism dollars back into their economy. We had no idea what to expect when we drove over there yesterday.

Although you can see the water line inside the houses that are left here on the MS coast, you can't see an obvious water line on the outside of most of the houses. The water was clean and the only line you see is where there is a small salt or silt deposit. Going in to New Orleans from the East, the water line we could see was black and goes up about 4 feet on the outside of every standing structure and tree. It goes on for miles. Of course the water was a lot deeper in the harder hit areas but we did not try to go into those areas. We did drive around downtown and into the French Quarter which was not flooded. We were happy to see many places open for business and we made reservations at one of our favorite hotels in the Quarter.

We stopped into a car dealership downtown and spoke with some employees for a bit. One of the women who worked there told us about how the business had survived the storm but over 100 cars had been stolen and the offices looted. They did recover most of the cars.

As we were driving around looking at some of the damage, we were blocked by a large group of people marching downtown. They were protesting FEMA and the clean up efforts down there. Until that moment, I had only been discreetly taking a few pictures through the window of our van, but when the traffic stopped, I got out of the van to take some photos of the protesters. Then, all of a sudden the lady in the car next to us jumped out and started taking pictures, and within a few minutes, almost every single car around us had either a driver or passenger taking pictues. I guess they all drive around with their cameras in their cars, just like we do here.

I am looking forward to our weekend down there and especially being able to spend more time talking with some of the residents. One of the best things about New Orleans has always been the outgoing friendly nature of the people and I love to go there and chat them up. I know there will be plenty of good food, good music and great stories.