(We are traveling the Great River Road (Mississippi River) from New Orleans to northern Minnesota, a trip that will take 2 1/2 months to complete. My sister Gloria and her husband Don Martin are traveling with us in their Winnebago Journey.)
 

New Orleans

The Mardi Gras Campground in New Orleans sounded like a great place to spend a few days while touring New Orleans, the Delta area and Baton Rouge. Heading into the city from the east on I-10 we saw total destruction with many areas of houses and business totally wiped out. After three U-turns on city streets we finally pulled into Mardi Gras Campground and found it was a paved parking lot with about 50 FEMA trailers packed close together and room for four RVs. Don, Gloria, Linda and I surveyed the situation and then looked at each other hoping someone would say something. Then we said in unison “What should we do?” The campground down the street was worse than Mardi Gras and the luxury campground downtown cost about $80 a night including taxes. We decided to stay one night and then make a decision whether to move, but by morning we decided to stay a week because the campground was fenced and gated and the folks in the FEMA trailers seemed friendly.
 

South of New Orleans

The object of our trip was to follow the Great River Road from its mouth where it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico to its source at Lake Itasca, Minnesota. Most caravans travel from north to south, but we did not want to begin in northern Minnesota in cold weather and end in New Orleans during the heat of summer. Also, most caravans travel the road in 18 to 30 days and we wanted to take at least 2 1/2 months. Why be in a hurry? We are retired and we wanted to enjoy Old Man River with a relaxing journey staying in small towns.

After crossing the Mississippi River in New Orleans we picked up highway 23 and drove 79 miles south to where the road ended and that was as close as we could get to the mouth of the river, about 10 miles from where the river dumps into the Gulf. The Corp of Engineers has done a great job of hiding the river with levees on both sides to keep water flowing in the river’s channel; otherwise, the river would vary its course year to year.

One thing was obvious in the Delta area was the total destruction from Hurricane Katrina - houses and businesses totally destroyed or abandoned on the near sea level peninsula. FEMA trailers formed communities with some lots containing hundred of neat rows of trailers. The oil industry had reopened and a few new houses were being built.

Driving back north at West Pointe a la Hache we took a free ferry across the Mississippi River to the east side and picked up highways 15 and 39 into New Orleans. St. Bernard Parish was very sad with street after street and entire communities of gutted and abandoned houses and businesses sitting silently waiting for orders to destroy or rebuild. In my humble opinion there are only two options - the torch or bulldozer. It will take generations to rebuild New Orleans and there is not enough money or willing workers to do the job. OK, enough about New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina and the broken levees that flooded the city.

Downtown New Orleans

We began our visit to the downtown area and French Quarter at Café du Monte drinking chicory coffee and eating beignets - French Pastries covered with powdered sugar. The restaurant has been in business since 1863 and offers under-cover and out-door seating. We walked around the French Quarter (in daylight), visited Jackson Square, did some window shopping, watched the horse drawn carriages, the street entertainers and other tourist. For our evening meal we selected Landry’s Seafood House and had a delicious meal.


One of the highlights of New Orleans was a two-hour cruise on the Natchez, an authentic sternwheel steamboat, one of only five that plies America’s rivers. After boarding near the French Quarters we steamed down river watching huge sea going ships that go as far north as Baton Rogue. We went by the oldest wood house in Louisiana, by chemical plants and oil refineries and the place where the Battle of New Orleans occurred. In that conflict Andrew Jackson’s troops defeated the British in a Revolutionary War battle that secured New Orleans and the lower Mississippi River for the United States. Cruising back up river we approached the New Orleans skyline and the Crescent City Connection Bridge. The trip was narrated so we learned the interesting history of the city, the river and the commerce and importance of New Orleans to the United States. Did you know the river is 200 feet deep in New Orleans and on the day of our trip the water was flowing at 7 miles-per-hour? That sure is a lot of water.

The Garden District is the home of beautiful mansions, ornate houses and the Lafayette Cemetery. We printed a walking map and drove to south of St. Charles Ave. where we parked and set out on a walking tour. Some of the houses were huge and beautiful with well trimmed gardens. We saw the house where Confederate President Jefferson Davis died, we saw interesting and unique houses, many decorated with iron railings and fences. We saw where the wealthy and important people of New Orleans lived and neat row houses where the less fortunate lived.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was established in 1833 and is still used as a burial site today. Wow, it is eerie walking through that graveyard and reading the inscriptions. A vault may contain as many as 16 remains and many people are buried in the walls surrounding the cemetery. Some of the tombs are falling apart and a few have been restored.


The sidewalks in the Garden District are original bricks and that caused a problem. While walking back to the car Gloria tripped on the unlevel bricks and fell hard, got a few scrapes and bruises and knocked a front tooth loose. So our next stop was the Medical Center of Louisiana where Gloria was checked and a dentist popped her tooth back in place. What a sad place. Before Hurricane Katrina, MCL was one of the leading medical and trauma centers in the United States. Now it is a skeleton of itself and I will guess it is at least 90% abandoned. A nurse was retiring the next day and she was interested in our fulltiming lifestyle so she talked to us often during the four hours Gloria was getting medical attention. The nurse told us about the former professional and talented staff of over 100 highly trained nurses in her department that has been reduced to only 10 nurses, many with few skills or training. She said New Orleans will never return to what it once was because the educated and talented people moved to other cities and will not return, which leaves the city full of uneducated, unskilled and unemployed citizens. The people in the waiting room all looked like homeless people and several times police dragged in drug addicts and people injured in fights to receive medical care. Sad, sad, sad!!!  But I must say Gloria received excellent care and when she emerged at 9:00 p.m., she said “Let’s go eat” so we did.
 

Oak Alley Plantation

Along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge are many old plantations and we decided to visit one - Oak Alley. To get there we had to drive I-310 across Hale Boggs Bridge over the river, a bridge with an interesting story. In 1976 the only way to cross the river was by ferry and a boat loaded with passengers collided with a freighter killing 76 people. It was decided the bridge needed to be finished (already under constructed) and after six years and many constructions problems the bridge was completed. The were 100,000-ton pier support problems, cable problems and the bridge bounced causing the asphalt-epoxy road surface to crumble. Today engineers continue to check the bridge and continually make improvements. The bridge rises 150 feet above the Mississippi, stands 400-feet tall and the cable supporting the bridge are under 130,000 pounds of stress per square inch. As of today engineers don’t know how long the bridge will last and the estimate is (maybe) 75 years. We are grateful it didn’t collapse while we were crossing.

We drove across St. Charles, St. John and St. James Parishes and saw many mansions and old plantation homes before arriving at Oak Alley. The story of Oak Alley begins with its trees. In the early 1700's an unknown settler built a small house on the site of the present mansion and he planted twenty-eight live oak trees in two well spaced rows, reaching from his house to the Mississippi River. In 1839, Jacques Telesphore Roman, a wealthy Creole sugar planter built the present mansion for his young wife to lure her away from New Orleans.

Oak Alley Plantation with its antebellum mansion is surrounded by 25-acres and the remaining original land of over 1,100-acres today contains a 75-acre residential complex, 600-acre sugar cane field and 450-acres of virgin woodlands. The opulence of the mansion has been authentically restored to its original grander and tours are given by guides in period costumes. Photographs of the interior are not allowed.

The beauty of the mansion and grounds has gotten the attention of movie and television producers. The following have been filmed at Oak Alley - Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte; Nightrider; Dixie: Changing Habits; Days Of Our Lives (one segment); The Long Hot Summer; Interview With A Vampire; Primary Colors and many others. Some of the movie stars who have been filmed at Oak Alley include Bette Davis, Suzanne Pleshette, Cloris Leachman, Paul Newmar, Joanne Woodward, Don Johnson, Cybill Shepherd, Jason Robards, Ava Gardner, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, John Travolta, Kathy Bates, Larry Hagman and others. Wow, I felt honored to be able to walk the grounds and enter the house where many famous people have tread.

Baton Rouge

From our base camp in New Orleans we took a day trip up the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge and toured the Louisiana State Capitol. The high-rise building was built under the leadership of Governor Huey P. Long during the Great Depreciation and in 1935, three years after it was completed, Gov. Long was assassinated in the Capitol and he was buried in the garden in front of the building. The Louisiana Capitol is the tallest state capitol in the United States standing 450 feet high. Twenty-five hundred rail cars were needed to bring in the limestone used on the exterior and the interior marbles which came from distant places like Vermont and Italy. The cost to complete the building was a modest $5 million.

An open Observation Deck circles the 27th floor and at 350 feet high it give a great view of the surrounding area. To the west is the Mississippi River, to the south are the gardens and downtown area, to the east are formal rose gardens and an old arsenal, and to the north we saw chemical plants and oil refineries. Before leaving the Capitol we stopped at the House of Representatives Chamber and sat in the galley overlooking a session of lawmakers working (they looked more confused than working) so we saw Louisiana’s lawmakers in action.

The Old State Capitol is a gothic castle overlooking the Mississippi River and now it contains a Museum of Political History. Before leaving Baton Rouge we took an elevated walk to the riverfront to watch boats of many types in a beautiful setting.

FEMA Friends

I’ll talk just a little more about New Orleans and displaced citizens. Before leaving we met Joyce, her boyfriend Norman and her cousin Vernon, living in a FEMA trailer beside us. Linda taught Joyce how to make items from Wal*Mart bags and Linda visited her in her trailer and gave her craft supplies. Don taught Joyce and Vernon stick weaving. They had lived in a FEMA trailer since Hurricane Katrina and were struggling to survive. Vernon walked out holding an empty coffee maker and told me he wanted to make a pot of coffee, but he didn’t have any. Then he told me he was trying to collect enough money to buy some sausages for their grill. I told him I would give him enough coffee for two pots, but I do not hand out money. While I was getting the coffee Linda reminded me we had a frozen package of Polish sausages we had had a long time and suggested we give it to our new friends. I handed it to Vernon and he grabbed the package and ran hollering “thank you, thank you, thank you.” At that time we realized they were starving. The next morning before leaving Linda and Gloria went through our pantries and refrigerators and each collected a bag of food to give our friends. Joyce cried as she accepted the food, told us thank you, and gave all of us big hugs as we left. New Orleans and its citizens are a difficult situation and we can not fully understands the problems. My personal thoughts are did we help those people buy giving them food or did we delay their recovery by helping them delay getting jobs? At least it felt nice to give them a small amount of help. God Bless Joyce, Norman, Vernon and all the others.

Our next report will start at Natchez, Mississippi, up the river from Baton Rouge.