Feb 1st - Back to New Orleans

Yesterday we took the day off and stayed at the park. Kathy felt puny and I was tired. I did walk around the park some. Below is one of the boardwalks in the park. The park is mostly swamp. They must do a lot spraying because there are very few mosquitoes.

This is the levee along side of the road back to the campground. The "dirt" bank is probably 6' above the road. The precast panels sections add another 8-10' of height. I couldn't find a place where I could see the other side of the levee. According to Google maps there is a channel on the other side that runs to the Gulf. My guess is that the two pipes you see in this photo are so that water on this side can be pumped to the other side. On down the road there are a couple of 36" diameter pipes that also look like they are used to pump water to the other side of the levee. We could hear boats, just couldn't see them.

 There was construction going on at the far end. I took this photo through the chain link fence that prevented entry into the area.

 

This morning (Sunday) we took the first ferry across to the city, at 11AM. The "castle" on the right side of the photo is a VERY old catholic church in the French Quarter.

I walked over to the WWII museum and spent a couple of hours there. I probably only saw a quarter of it. It was interesting but it was so "politically correct" that it about made me sick. I saw nothing about all the Jews that the Germans slaughtered, only minimal mention of Bataan Death March (where the Japanese murdered thousands of Filipino and American prisoners during the 60 mile march),  and nothing about the hundreds of thousands of women the Japanese forced into sexual slavery during the war. The Germans and Japanese started WWII, THEY were directly responsible for the deaths of over 130,000 Americans who were killed while defeating them.

Kathy went back to the Market in the French Quarter and looked around more. We met for a late lunch. We walked over to Bourbon Street and intended on finding a place to eat. We found that Bourbon Street is a dirty, stinky little street. We walked down about 6 blocks trying to find some place that looked reasonable. We found nothing that looked good. On the way back we did go into a restaurant. After sitting down and looking around we left: partly because the place stank and partly because it looked dirty.

Later we found a small place that looked decent. I can neither spell, nor could I pronounce the name of my sandwich. Kathy had crabs benedict. We both enjoyed our meals. I know they had to be good because it cost $32 for what you see on the table, that doesn't include the tip.

After eating we walked over to one of the Hop & Go bus stop, caught a bus, and rode around the perimeter of the French Quarter before heading back to the ferry and catching the 5:30PM ferry back across the river.

One thing I found to be interesting. None of the area we were in was flooded during Katrina. It is the area closest to the Mississippi and yet it is some of the highest ground in the city of New Orleans.

There is enough to look at that we could probably spend another day or two here, but we are both tired of New Orleans. It is now in the "been there, done that" category. The plan is to head to Beaumont, TX tomorrow.

May God bless you and yours.