Rolling down I 59 yesterday morning, we see a huge yard, acres and acres full of unused travel trailers. “Fema Trailers”  parked inches apart from each other, the yards seem to go for miles. There have to be thousands of them. We realize we are entering the part of the country most affected by Katrina.

As we get closer to New Orleans we begin to see the destruction. The causeway over Lake Pontchartrain seems to have temporary pieces in it. On them we are inches above the water and the weight of the motorhome makes the bridge rise and fall as we cross it. Once on the New Orleans side we see blocks of apartments and houses where nobody lives anymore. We see huge shopping centers where nobody shops. Industrial areas where nobody works. I can feel Marilyn tense up like she does when we drive through a crappy part of any city. She doesn’t feel safe. Belinda, in her finest proper British accent, continues to bark out her directions to our RV park, if we hadn’t given them a credit card number I’m sure we would be turning this rig around. She takes us across a bridge on to I’m sure, the worst road we have ever been on with this motorhome. We are passing through an industrial area right on the water kind of ducking in and out of temporary dike sections doing my best to keep us out of the bigger potholes. Belinda says “arriving at destination on right”. We see the gate, we don’t know the code. As Mar reaches for the phone a gal comes out on her golf cart and lets us in to Pontchartrain Landing RV Park.

We have driven in to an Oasis in all this disaster. The park is new, only in it’s second year, right on the water and while needing some time to mature is extremely well done. We are calm, relaxed, at home, we feel safe here.

Starting with the people we met who work here in the park yesterday, listening to first the local radio this morning and now watching a local TV morning show, there is an attitude about this place we haven’t detected till now. It’s all positive, like they have come through a horrible disaster and know that if they just work on it, they will recover, no problem. Perhaps they are all excited that they are here helping to rebuild. Perhaps the way our news is these days, we will stay here until we too absorb this attitude.

Today we will be shuttled to downton New Orleans to do the French Quarter. I promise to report later.

Thanks for reading.

Tags: RV Adventures

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 9:11 am and is filed under RV Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.