Thursday, November 10, 2005.  We have now left the Natchez Trace and heading for Slidell, LA.  Stopped in Utica, MS, and asked an African American lady where there was a pay phone and she handed me her cell phone to use.  Some people are just so nice.  Have called Becky and she is waiting for us, looking forward to seeing her at long last.
These are just some of the pictures along the street where our friends live on Lake Pontchartrain,  just the other side of them got the worst of it. All along the street there are piles of rubbish from the damaged homes.  At one time after the disaster it was only a one lane. It is still really bad after 2 1/2 months.  The government is sending out 14000 trailers for them to live in, to enable them to fix their homes.  The ones that are fixable.  Amazingly we fit in with all the other trailers along the street.  Our friends just got their trailer but they cannot move in until everything has been inspected, they have been living at their son and daughter-in-laws a few miles away.  We kid with them that they are now trailer trash like us except of course most have nothing except the big plastic garbage can full of emergency supplies the trailer comes with, e.g. blankets, sheets, food, toiletries.  We have not gone to New Orleans yet.

This is a bridge that was down in the Biloxi area.
 


 

 


 





 






 
Most of the pictures are in the Slidell area except where indicated.

 


 


This picture is from New Orleans the area where the Levy broke.  It will take years to rebuild New Orleans, if at all.

 

Another picture from New Orleans-Levy area.

 
Saturday, November 12, 2005.  Below is our hostess and host, Becky and Roland.  They have treated us so good by taking us out to see the sites and feeding us at the best eating places even dancing.  Ate my first "soft shelled crab",  It's a crab that has shed it's shell and picked right after while it has only a fine soft shell so that you can eat the whole crab with no shell.  This is a Louisiana delicacy.   When you live in what they call the "War Zone".   You need to get away from it awhile.  It can be depressing.  New Orleans motto "Lesser Les Bons Temps Rouller" sure does live on with this couple.  Louisiana is under Napoleonic Law.
We went to a dance in New Orleans. Had a lot of fun and forgot what the hurricane did for a short time.
Nearly everyone line dances...
I also met Becky's mom, what a sweetheart. 

We then had dinner at her baby sisters and there I met the rest of her sisters and baby sister's grandmother.  They made me feel quite at home with catch of the day fresh fish and chips.

We are hooked on the Shrimp Po' Boy.  It's a bun stuffed with breaded shrimps and sauce.  Big Shrimps.

My sweet Becky wanted us only to see the beauty of her home land.  I think she hated for us to see all of the hurricanes destruction.  She did not want us to see and remember the ugliness.  She took us to see the beautiful Bellingrath Gardens.
Sunday, November 20, 2005.  Now at the French Quarters in New Orleans, a small portion of New Orleans that was barley affected by Katrina.  Other parts of New Orleans was indescribable.  Rows and rows of homes abandoned.  Each home showing a brownish water level above the doors in the areas where the levy broke.  No people anywhere.  Even while we were at the French Quarter there was not a lot of people whereas usually the streets are full of people.  They still are under marshal law there with a curfew of 2:00 p.m..  You see police cars everywhere and petrol men from New York.  Katrina not only left behind a lot of destruction but a lot of insecure people.  People who only want to get their lives back to what it was.  These people need help.

The "Old French Quarters" survived hurricane Katrina.  It still has that air of celebration and gayety.
New Orleans was founded on a bend of the Mississippi River in 1718, French colonists laid it out in a neat grid

 



 


Lafayette Cemetery.  The crypts (on left side of picture) holds generations of families.  If you own one of these crypt's; you are put in there when you die and if another family member should die within a short time thereafter, they will put them in the perimeter wall surrounding the cemetery (right side of picture) as a layover area until after 3 years.  They will then lower your remains (bones) to the bottom of the crypt with the rest of the family and then remove the next family member from the layover area and put it into the crypt.
Roland and Becky took us to Deanies's Seafood Restaurant in Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, I had the best shrimp dish.  To die for.  There was only a half a pound of butter in the dish.  It was the best shrimp dish I have had.


 

 

 

 


We took a guided tour with a carriage ride through the French Quarters.
 

 


 












In the background is St. Louis Cathedral, the heart of the district, is flanked by grand Spanish colonial public buildings.  In 1856 the city erected the statue of Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans and namesake of the public square.  The inside of the church was beautiful.  I am sure many a pray was said for the hurricane Katrina's victims there.  I know I said one.

The streets where lined with apartments that had these beautiful wrought iron railings with which the French Quarters are know for.

 

 

 

Tuesday, November 22, 2005.  We left Slidell with many happy memories of our visit with our friends.  They will be in our prayers.
The Lafayette Visitors Center is the greatest.  Being only a year old, it has lots of parking room, one section for trucks another for RV's, plus you can stay overnight.  Inside there is a 4 min show on the area and good rest rooms even free coffee.  The employees are really nice. 
Breaux Bridge is where Crawfish etouffee was created and first offered on the menus.  The area hauls out  about 2 million lbs. of crawfish a season.  There street names are in English/French.  If a local is know by their nickname then the telephone book list their nickname instead of their first name.  St. Martins Parish seems to be the heart of the Acadian people.  We ate "Boudin" (here it is a boiled sausage with ground pork, rice, liver and seasoning).  We also had "Cracklin" (FRESH pork rind). Denise, you would have loved that, I know I did.  For dinner we went to "Pat's" at the fishermen's wharf in Harriston, St. Martin's Parish.  We had breaded pieces of catfish as an appetizer, entree was shrimp with crab meat lump over rice and crawfish tails over rice.  Laurent, this is a place you must visit.

A painting of actual decedents of the first Acadians that came to Louisiana.  There is 3000 names cast in bronze plates of the first Acadians


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From their arrival in the late 1700s the Acadians, or "Cajuns," were a people apart.  Mostly small farmers and craftspeople, the settled in the bayou country, where their isolation was compounded by their distinctive dialect and their fierce loyalty to family and place.

Times change, meanings blur, and people's sense of themselves evolves. But "Creole" retains its old meaning as an adjective describing the food, music, and customs of those areas of Louisiana settled during French colonial times.
 

(Welcome to da swomp), Denis's favourite line. We had a tour of the swamp with Buth Gouvereau, a direct descendant from Nova Scotia/France.  He is a real Acadian and a graduate biologists for a 3 hr. swamp tour which was great.  We saw birds, alligators, turtles. He explained how the Cypress survived in the swamps.

There were alligators all over the place.  They have alligators hunting season in September.  They hang the hook with a dead chicken on it up to 2 feet above water, the higher the elevation the bigger the alligator and the next day the chicken that is gone is the line they pull to the boat with the alligator on it.  When close to the boat, they then shot it. (taste like chicken)

 

 

 


Today various groups in Louisiana describe themselves as "Creole".  Their link is in the early 1800s, when Louisiana ceased to be a European colony and became a possession of the USA.  "Creole" came to mean "native to Louisiana".  For many natives-French, Spanish, African, or German-it meant "us". French speaking, locally born.
 

 

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