New Orleans, LA - Serendipity

We made plans but altered these along the way and the day turned out better than we might have imagined. Hey, isn’t that the way? Ya gotta go with the flow and make choices which seem the best at the time. We planned to travel the gulf coast from New Orleans to Biloxi and visit the last home and Presidential Library of Jefferson Davis at Beauvoir. We didn’t even get half way there.

Our first stop was the Vietnamese bakery down the road for cinnamon rolls which friends of ours said were delicious. But, isn’t saying ‘delicious cinnamon rolls’ a tautology? Oh, no, no cinnamon rolls so we settled for the almond rolls with pecans. Oh, my, they were um - um - good, maybe better than a cinnamon roll. Let’s get another. No - maybe we’ll want a treat later today. Let’s not spent all our calories at 9:30 in the morning, let’s save some for later.

Next, we began crossing the bridge which links LA and MS, looked down and saw - wow, an old fort, let’s stop to see it. Well, yeah, we were already on the bridge with no way to turn around s we drove to the end of the bridge, turned around, got to the fort and walked around it. Neat old fort. Mostly bermed, built in a baseball diamond shape with a moat around it and a last ditch citadel in the middle. The fort was built 2 years after the War of 1812 to protect New Orleans and the Gulf Coast from British invasion. It was named after Zebulon Pike (as was Pike’s Peak) who led the American Expeditionary Forces for the Louisiana Purchase and who died in an accidental explosion of an ammunition magazine in 1812. It was used on and off until 1890 and then allowed to deteriorate until the state took it over as a park in late 1900’s. Both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Gustav have damaged it but the state has worked to restore it and clean up the debris.

We could walk through the whole fort and around the top edge. Cannons lines all three sides of the fort (luckily no cannon from this fort has ever been fired),

the moat surrounded it

and in the center was a thick-walled citadel in the middle where the soldiers could hole themselves up if the fort was breached. But, not they could still shoot outward.

Almond rolls, historical fort - hey, this day is going pretty well.

OK, now let’s cross the bridge and head to the MS Welcome Center. Here one of the volunteers told us about a neat refurbished Depot in a small town called Bay St. Louis. You really ought to see it and they have some marvelous Mardi Gras costumes. OK, not on the plans but, we’ll do it. Meanwhile there is a marvelous drive along Beach Road, along the Gulf. Here we found some sculptures that had been carved out of trees that had fallen in Katrina’s vicious winds. They were carved by Marlin Miller who grew up on the family farm in Manson, IA. He served in the Air Force and now lives in Florida. He carved 40 sculptures along Hwy 90 in Mississippi. He wanted to create some beauty out of the massive destruction. And, he certainly did. He donated 2 1/2 years to this project.

Here’s one we found in Pass Christian.

And, here is a second one combining metal and wood.

We did find the Depot and thought it wonderfully restored. But, the Mardi Gras costumes are marvelous and we could get close to really see them and all the little hand stitching they required. In the museum in NOLA, the Mardi Gras costumes were not as spectacular and more protected. I’ve only shown one of the many they have here but look at the fine hand sewing in the second picture - part of the costume pictured.

Then the Bay St. Louis Welcomer there asked us if we’d like some ‘Magnolia Bucks.’ Huh? Well, BP, which ruined their tourist business for several years has given the communities along the Gulf grants of money to use as they see fit to attract tourists. Some communities put up billboards, some have TV ads. BSL decided to hand out ‘Magnolia Bucks’ to each tourist to use in the local businesses. Then the local businesses turn them in and get money for them. We were going to refuse but - how dumb would that be? So, we had an absolutely marvelous lunch at the Cypress Cafe. Gary had the angus beef in the pretzel bun while I had the chicken salad wrap. Both of us had the best potato salad we’ve ever had.

But the best part? We had $15 ‘Magnolia Bucks’ left over for the bakery where we bought 4 blueberry scones and 2 monster cookies. Mine was the almond-flavored cranberry and macadamia nut, 5” diameter, 1” thick cookie. I figure the volume of this was 19.6” of solid goodness. Oh, my.

Luckily we hadn’t used up our day’s worth of calorie on the almond rolls.

Almond rolls, historical fort, marvelous dinner and treats and we haven’t even gotten half way to Beauvoir and it’s time for our daily walk - through Pass Christian, one of the towns heavily hit by Katrina. Here we saw some of the hurricane’s damage. A mail box with no home in back of it.

A front sidewalk leading up to some steps.

Finally a car that we think must have been shoved aside. It’s covered by bushes and overgrowth - probably forgotten along with the other cars near it.

And, of course lots of empty lots for sale.

But we also saw home like this.

We walked back along the beach and saw this beautiful sunset over the pier in Pass Christian.

Ah, time to head back to New Orleans without hitting our goal. But that’s OK, we had a wonderful day.