On the Road to NOLA

My friend Mary Jane and I headed out Saturday morning on our way to a Pink FlaminGoes GTG near New Orleans. We met up at a rest area near Seguin and were off down I-10. It took us a little longer than we planned to go through Houston because there was a big accident. Even though there were warnings about the accident for at least 8 miles in advance, people waited until the last minute to move out of the left lane so of course traffic was backed up. Once past Houston, we stopped at a Rest Area for lunch.  By the time we reached Sulfur Louisiana, we were ready to stop for the night. We stayed at the A+ Motel and RV Park. It was a return visit as we had a GTG there earlier. It's a nice park.....unfortunately, Mary Jane's phone suffered an early demise in the hot tub.

Sunday morning we headed off to Lafayette where we turned off on Hwy 90. It was a nice change of scenery from I-10. We saw a couple of interesting small towns and lots of sugar cane fields. About an hour from our destination, we hit heavy rainfall. Fortunately, it stopped before we arrived at the Bayou Segnette State Park in Westwego right across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.

Most of the group arrived during the afternoon and got set up. The sites are really nicely spaced out and long but very narrow so somewhat difficult to back into so those who arrived earlier got a good show.  Later we carpooled to the Westbank Grill for dinner. Sage did a fantastic job of putting together a bag of pamphlets and she also made each person a decorated mug with flags and a handkerchief stenciled with a pink flamingo. Sage and Claudia are the coordinators for this GTG and they have done a great job of finding things to do.

Monday morning we all headed to the Algiers Point ferry boat to cross over to New Orleans, While we waited for the ferry to arrive, we had a chance to check out this nice mural.

 

Some of us were a little better prepared for the rain than others.

The air was a little thick looking across at New Orleans.

We met up with our bus tour a little ways from the ferry. Our bus driver was quite a character with lots of info on all the different areas we went through in New Orleans. He talked quite a bit about Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans in 2005 and how it affected different areas of the city. Although he evacuated before the hurricane, not all the other members of his family did. He lost several family members. It was interesting to hear his perspective but also very confusing. He talked about how New Orleans was one of the richest cities in the U.S. due to all the tourism money flowing in. Then he talked about the terrible shape that many of the roads are in but said that the federal government won't give them any money to fix the roads because New Orleans has open container policy everywhere and that violates federal rules. His philosophy was that they should just understand that is how New Orleans is and give them the money anyway. He also talked about how a lot of people from the city got in trouble when they evacuated to other cities because they wanted to live just like they lived in New Orleans and that behavior was not acceptable in other cities. One other thing he talked about was Fema trailers and the health problems they caused. Interesting was his comment that he knew that the reason he has to wear glasses was the fumes in the Fema trailers although he had told us a while earlier that he did not return to New Orleans for more than four years after Katrina. The last story he related was how people here could not understand how a lawsuit against a company whose barge hit a bridge killing a large number of people was dismissed by a federal judge because Katrina was a category 5 hurricane. Terrible about the loss of life; however, it seems obvious that the company couldn't have done anything to prevent the barge from hitting the bridge.

It was an interesting trip; however, I wasn't able to get decent photos due to the rain.

Halfway through the tour, we stopped at the city park, a beautiful place. Just a word to the wise....save your appetite for beignets for the Café du Monde in the French Quarter because the ones served here just don't come close to comparing.

A beautiful and interesting tree near the café in the park.

After the tour, we decided to head to Mother's Restaurant for a late lunch or early dinner.

Mother's Restaurant is very well known and there is a whole wall of celebrities who have visited.

 

Carolyn and I decided to split one of their Ferdi Specials.  It was very good.

More pictures of the New Orleans shore from the Algiers Point ferry. These are not black and white pictures....it was just very gray.

Just as we were leaving the parking lot for the ferry, we saw this ship go by. The Mississippi River is busy.