Pictures -
1 - Day 2 started with a swim at the pool of our Royal Sonesta Hotel. In the picture - Bourbon Street is behind Nancy. The pool is made of steel and is on the third floor.
2 - The pink house was in the Garden District - an area that did not get flooded but the houses were destroyed just the same. We were riding our bikes through that area when I took the picture.
3 - Harry's restaurant is around the corner from our hotel - we did not eat there yet.
4 - We had dinner with Vi and Wayne Hirada - our friends from Hawaii. Vi is a professor at the University of Hawaii and Nancy loves working with her there. Nancy has worked 7 summers with Vi at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Valley in Honolulu.
We had a very full day - starting with a bike ride to deliver Wayne Wiegand's bag and ending with a street car ride to nowhere and sitting at the end of the line in the "bombed out" hinterland for a half hour at 10 pm. This is not the first time Nancy stranded us on a train platform in the middle of nowhere at night.
New Orleans is indescribable. The destruction is so total and the scope so immense.
What is so unusual - usually the area along the river is the lowest area. But in place where a river is depositing - like delta - the soil builts up near the river during flood and the farther back you are from the river - the lower it gets. From the sediments - the river bottom tends to rise above the surrounding land.
The French Quarter with Bourbon Street and the Garden District did not get much of the flooding from the broken levee. This area has been built up from years of the river deposits. Out hotel is in this area. So the farther away from downtown you get - the worse the destruction is.
The buses and the street cars are free to ride right now. Today - Keith and I had a discussion on the difference between a street car and a trolley - I still do not know the difference. At any rate - today I am riding a bus 20 miles east - and if I am brave I will get off the bus and walk around and take pictures.
Sidelight - Vi's husband Wayne Hirada writes a column for the Honolulu Advertiser - the daily paper. You can see it here -
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