Day 25: Alpharetta GA to New Orleans LA

Monday, May 11
Alpharetta, GA to New Orleans, LA
Odometer Begin: 109,336
Miles traveled: 513
Time spent traveling: 10 hours
Other: Price for 3 beignets at Café Du Monde: $2
Wx: partly sunny high 80s F, humid, T-storms
States traveled: GA, AL, MS, LA

After sleeping in this morning and running a few errands, (such as swinging by a UPS store so I could mail home a box of clothes) we started out late to avoid the ATL traffic. Our drive took us predominantly on I-85 & I-10 through the cities, like Montgomery, Mobile and Biloxi, hitting the occasional thunderstorm along the way. We arrived at St. Bernard State Park around 7:00pm, set up the tent, took showers and then went to check out the Crescent City. Being in St. Bernard Parish, our drive in took us right through the Ninth Ward, which was the section of New Orleans that was hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. Even now almost 4 years later, there are houses that have been repaired or rebuilt next to ones that are still being fixed up or apparently abandoned. The neighborhood that we drove through was Bywater, which is supposedly recovered better than others. The style of homes, I thought, was really charming and had a distinct style; front porches, tall narrow windows and doors, many with wrought iron embellishments and shutters. One source I found called the style “Shotgun”; usually single story with no windows on the sides and all room connected with out hallways. This was so you could open the front and back of the house and a breeze would blow through. But the neighborhood in general was run down, it was hard to tell if it was hurricane damage or if just from it being a typical old neighborhood on the outskirts of a city, where the working class neighborhoods are.
We spent time walking around the French Quarter, which has really cool French Creole architecture but since it was at night, I didn’t get good photos. We parked on Decatur St., stopped at Café Du Monde for beignets, (think fried dough but more like a donut) and then went to check out Bourbon St. It was Monday night so, we may not have gotten the truest impression but I felt it was a little over rated. It was like Hampton Beach board walk plus, Larry Flint and Jazz. New Orleans will definitely be a place we will have to visit again. But for now we just want to get into the arid southwest and do some hiking!

Louisiana

Here are our photos from Louisiana.