Population: 1,004 Elevation: 85'
Good-bye New Orleans. On to Boyce.
This is pretty much what your view is in Louisiana if you are not in a swamp. The whole state is either swampy forest or farm land.
This is what the actual RV park looks like.
It's not a bad place. I would call in middle of the road and completely forgettable. It is well maintained and clean.
Here is some more stuff from New Orleans. We took a drive along Lake Ponchartrain. Here are some pictures.
I always thought that 'the wrong side of the tracks' was just a saying. In New Orleans, that's all it takes to divide one neighborhood for another. A rich neighborhoods is smack up against a poor neighborhood with either a railroad track or levy between them. That is the other divider for neighborhoods, a levy. One side of the levy, your house is safe, the other side of the levy, you flood. Our RV park was on the wrong side of the levy. The 9th Ward is where all the flooding from Hurricane Katrina happened. The levy holding back the lake broke and everything flooded. A lot of the houses still need work, especially roofs. About 10% of the houses have blue tarp roofs. The RV park is in the 9th Ward and in the industrial area so we saw a lot of the damage that still hasn't been fixed.
We wanted to check out the cemeteries, but most are closed. The old Lafayette cemeteries are all closed. I was able to get a few pictures by reaching in through the gate.
A big problem happens when concrete and plaster mix with humidity and water. They quickly stain and then start to crumble. With plaster, it makes the walls look weathered and old. Concrete turns black and falls apart. When you build your concrete things on a deep layer of mud, you get things falling snapping in half. The cemeteries were restored back in the 70's and 80's, but nothing since then. If you touch those old crypts, they flake off. Too much damage was happening with people just touching things so they closed them all down.
The big problem with concrete is with roads and bridges. There are closed bridges, which make traffic a mess. There are also condemned buildings. All the black staining makes the stuff still standing look diseased. You can make a good zombie apocalypse movie around there.
New Orleans in summary: Good food, good music, history, terrible roads, falling apart infrastructure.
It is interesting driving through Louisiana. You are driving through a very large swamp. Most of the highway is raised above ground level. You see a lot of green tree tops with breaks for water. You can tell the canals from the bayous because the canals have straight sides and the bayous are twisty. The raised highway is very bumpy. For some reason, they built them in about 10' sections with seams that don't meet up very well. The highways that are still on the soggy ground are worse, they sink in sections.
Next stop, Hot Springs Arkansas.
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