New Orleans

Some doorways in the French Quarter. (Anna went a little overboard with doorway pictures, but this is the best.)
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No drive from Texas to Florida is complete without a stop in New Orleans, and we were both excited to go there for the first time.  We soaked up some French Quarter history and nightlife (saw a few great bands play and observed the Bourbon Street madness from a safe distance).  We also explored a few other neighborhoods, took a short trip down to the swamps, and caught a AA New Orleans Zephyrs game.

Perhaps the most important, however, was the time we spent driving around the neighborhoods hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.  It was very humbling (and infuriating) to see the destruction that is still left and the huge disparity between the wealthy and poor areas of the city.

Classic French Quarter...notice the disco ball in the corner of this building.
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So many houses are abandoned…best estimates are that the city now has 60% of its pre-Katrina population.  On some streets no one is back.  On others, every house was rebuilt and occupied.  On others, there were rows of trailers in the front yards.  The sight of trailers was simultaneously a mark of hope and of despair…it meant that people had come back, but that they didn’t have the money or the support to rebuild their homes yet, two years later.  Maggie’s new favorite motto: “Make levees, not war.”

This house was on our way back walking from the Quarter to where we were staying.
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(please bear with us and the abundance of photos for this entry... we took so many and it was really hard to choose)