Cajun Adventure, Post-Hurricane Rita
(continued)
“I did do a bit of Zydeco years ago,” he said with a little laugh. He said his back hurt him more in recent years, though, so his dancing days were over for now. I thought how hard it must be to keep a spine straight if you’re always walking on one leg. Walter told me he recently took disability retirement from the plant where he had worked for 30 years.
Freeman taught Anna how to use a caulking gun, and she went to work caulking every crevice and wood trim mar she could find. We knew it would be a short day of work, because we had decided to finally go to New Orleans that day.
We had a decent map, but Freeman and Walter augmented it with their own directions. Walter kept saying, “When you leave New Orleans, be sure to stay in the right lane and follow the ‘Bootie’ sign. Don’t go through Baton Rouge because if there’s an accident on that causeway, you can get stuck for four or five hours. There’s nowhere to go.”
I made him spell “Bootie.” He thought it was “Boute” or something like that.
Finally Walter said, “Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles couldn’t get lost going there.” I didn’t pick up on that joke until an hour later, when we were on the road to New Orleans.
Anna and I bid our good-byes to Walter and Freeman and left shortly after 1:00 pm. We knew it was the last time we’d see these two lovely men, and that was sad for us. I can’t count the number of times Walter said “Thank you” to us. He called me “ma’am” a lot. It was humbling to be thanked so profusely.
Allons à New Orleans! Let’s go to New Orleans! Taking on any such trip is something that makes me feel I must gird my loins for battle – my never-ending battle with navigation. But Anna and I really wanted to go – to see the damage from Hurricane Katrina, and to have fun in the place we remembered so well from our trip there in January of 2003. During that visit, Mike and I and Anna had a rendezvous with my brother Dan, his wife Nan and their two daughters Nikki and Ali. They live in California. Our official reason to gather was to celebrate Nikki’s 21st birthday. Unofficial reason – who needs a reason? It was a great time, in spite of not enough warm clothing for the 50-degree dampness.
The sky was so amazing as we drove along that Anna leaned out the window to snap a picture. Better than a “Simpsons” sky – bluer than blue, lots of white clouds posing for a photo.
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anna sweet photo |
“The Simpsons” sky |
When I think of Louisiana, I think of “prairie.” As we drove, there was a prairie burn blazing away – lots of smoke drifting in the sky. It was weird to see big flames so near the freeway.
Eventually, I realized we were on a bridge – probably crossing the Atchafalaya Swamp below. Mike and I had spent a couple of hours on that swamp when we visited for Festivals Acadiens in September 2003. It is vast. It covers almost 600,000 acres, our country’s largest swamp wilderness.
Before the DNR got strict about wetlands, Louisiana built this amazing causeway right through the swamp. It goes ON and ON and ON. Joe Paris later told us that the usual cost for a mile of interstate is one million bucks... but for the Louisiana bridge-freeways, the cost can be many millions per mile. The pylons have to reach 60 to 80 feet down under the swamps to firm ground.
Our trip from Delcambre to New Orleans – about two hours -- was mostly on bridges! We were surrounded by swamp vegetation – spooky skeletal swamp trees and Spanish moss hanging all around us. I have never been on a more amazing car ride.
We arrived in New Orleans about 3:00 pm and got off the freeway around the Super Dome, where thousands of flood victims huddled during the weeks after Katrina hit. I had no idea where to find the lower ninth ward, where the damage was the worst, so we just drove around.