June 19 – Thursday (90, 3H's)
As we left Greenville, we continued south west on 65 to Mobile. This stretch of road is lined by tall pine trees for miles. Excellent road! No snow and ice to ruin them. There was no city for 100 miles. We always start out with no air conditioning and the windows open. You do not need a thermometer when traveling I have found. We judge the heat of the day by when we need to roll up the windows and turn on the air. Today it was at 10:30am. As we passed Mobile, I saw a big sign that said "Mobile home of the KC-45 airplane". I'll have to look that up later. The landscape began to change at about 11:00am when we started our trip west on route 10. Many bayous and swamp bridges (at least that's what I call them).
Route 10 takes us through Mississippi then through Louisiana. At a Flying J in Biloxi MS, we spoke with a lady who told us that Biloxi was where the eye of Katrina hit. Whole houses and the pads they rested on were lifted into the air and hurtled a great distance. The natives to Biloxi are not short to tell you that they need more help than New Orleans (NO). The difference is water damage in NO and the poor of poor have no way to get back on their feet.
Route 10 travels through the heart of NO to the west side where we will stay at the KOA. As we approached NO, the road became like a rollercoaster. There were dips that caused the motorhome to bounce up and down to the point where I had to slow down. As we went through NO the city began to show its scars from Katrina.
We arrived at 2:30pmCST and settled in at site 99. This KOA is very small, no grounds at all, but it had a concrete pad…nice! As soon as we were able, we changed into our bathing suits and went swimming. I thought it would be refreshing only to find the water warmer than bath water. As we swam, we struck up conversation with 2 ladies who had a personal tour of the lower 9th ward where things are as they were in Sept 2005. She told me to contact NOLA to get involved in helping to rebuild it, she also recommended NO cooking school for classes on Creole and Cajun cooking!
We ate dinner (BBQ'd) then went for a small bike ride. We found that we were able to ride the levy for 14 miles to the zoo which we will do tomorrow. I contacted a group called Camp Collide (http://www.campcollide.org/). I interviewed the executive director, Chris, and told him our vision. After conversation, I decided to partner with them and we will be in Chalmette (18 feet under water on Sept 2005) working for the Lord to rebuild homes…and peoples lives! We continue to work on Ethan's insect collection (I just caught a weird looking wasp). After a hot and humid evening, we retired around 11:00pm.
