Day seventy - Sunday

This afternoon we drove into New Orleans and visited the Longue Vue House and Gardens. This mansion and eight acre grounds was owned by Edith and Edgar Stern who were related to the Sears and Roebuck fortune. The grounds were beautiful and the mansion elegant and fascinating. We had a private tour of the mansion.

Our next stop was 118 Winthrop Place in New Orleans. This house was in one of the neighborhoods that was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina. It was also the home of Sue Chatterton when she was growing up.

We found the house on a street bare of asphalt and sporting recently denuded lots. Many of the twenty five or so houses on the short street were still empty and boarded up. Half-a-dozen lots were empty and a few new homes had been erected. The flooding ruined the street and the city has not resurfaced it yet.

Sue's house was empty. The foundation had been damaged and inside the floors have been torn up and sheet rock torn down. A large sign on the front of the house said "WE TEAR DOWN HOUSES." Two doors to the right a new, elevated, house was being built. The house to the left had been torn down and now has a travel trailer sitting on the lot.

We had hoped to go by Sue's Grandmother's house at the other end of town but didn't get a chance to after having a very late night at the French Quarter. Sorry Sue!

The rest of the evening was spend at the French Quarter. We had dinner at Cafe' Maspeiro on Decatur Street. The meal wasn't the "WOW" meals we've had at other places but it was good. The place was packed and the price was right. It is one of the few places in the French Quarter where you can get a good meal at a reasonable price. To get things going, we shared the salad that came with my dinner and a bowl of Jambalaya for $4.00. The Jambalaya was good but rather bland. Ann had been wanting a Muffaletta since we got to New Orleans and here she had one. For seven dollars she got a HUGE sandwich with fries. She enjoyed it very much, or, half of it anyway. I ordered the Seafood plate which comes with oysters (I passed on those in favor of more of everything else) fried shrimp, fried catfish and fried calamari with the salad and fries for $10.75. I found the fried seafood to be rather bland. I figure we're in Cajun country and food here should be exciting! It was good, but not exciting. I only ate half of it and we took the rest home.

After dinner we walked to Bourbon Street where there were lots of people. Many people had come from the nearby Superdome where the Saints had just played a home game and lost. Losing didn't seem to dampen the spirits of the fans on Bourbon Street. The street and bars were full and people were happy. The two nights we walked around Bourbon Street we saw no fights or confrontations. Police cars would drive through every once in a while and foot patrols were scarce. People just seemed happy to be there. Even the sloppy drunks were nowhere to be found, even at 11 o'clock at night after a losing effort by the local team. We did see two officers on horseback tonight. They rode right down Bourbon Street.

It may have been a little more crowded because today was the day the streetcars started running again after the lines were damaged by Katrina. There was a big party for the starting of the streetcars. Except for a small section that had been repaired this summer, today was the first day the cars had run.

We spent most of the evening just walking up and down Bourbon Street. We did go into The Blues Club for a couple of drinks and live music. The band was very good and played traditional jazz, blues and some rock and roll. We had drinks called a Blue Note. It has Vodka, Rum, Blue Curacao and sour mix. Good drinks although a little pricey at $9.00 each. And, they come in small plastic cup. We figure we're paying for the drink and music so not to complain - too much.

Just after eleven o'clock we got back to the car. On the way out we stopped at the fire department where we had a look around. They had their roll up doors open and the troops were sitting and watching the world go by. Nice guys who took us into the station for a look around.

Tomorrow we head west toward Houston!

The top photograph shows one of the gardens and the mansion at Longue Vue. The rest of the photographs show Sue's home in New Orleans. The third "home" photograph shows the house the current owner built behind Sue's old house. The current owner is an artist who bought the property and, before the hurricane, build a new house in the back and turned the original house into a studio. The last shot is of the interior. I shot it though a screen window, thus the poor quality.