day 3: the big easy--tours and a pep rally

Day 3: 1 January 2009: Happy New Year!

Like I said in my last post, there is a lot of history in New Orleans. History can be made at any time, whether it was 300 years ago, 3 years ago, or 3 days ago. On our third day there we took a combo Katrina/city tour. We had a great tour guide who talked and talked the whole time and taught us a lot about the history of the area. I loved getting out to see the rest of the city away from the French Quarters, but I was blown away by the part of the tour which took us to see parts of New Orleans that were devestated by Hurricane Katrina in Sept. 2005.

Photo 1 is a satellite picture of Hurricane Katrina, just before the eye of the storm reached land. There were many indicators around town about how people felt about what happened, esp. with the levees.

Our tour took us through the Ninth Ward, which was one of the hardest hit places.

Abandoned buildings were everywhere, with windows either knocked out or boarded up. We drove by Fats Domino's house. He was born, raised, and still lives here in New Orleans...and not in one of the big fancy houses, but in this humble home in the Ninth Ward.

And then we drove to the lower Ninth Ward. This was the hardest hit place that did the most damage, as you can see. There are open fields everywhere, where used to be homes, one right next to the other. It was chilling to see all that was left were foundations, perhaps a porch here and there. It really made me stop and think about the families who lost everything; maybe even each other. These pictures don't even begin to really tell what it looks like there, but it's the best we could do while taking them from a tour bus.

Brad Pitt has created a foundation that is helping to rebuild homes in the lower Ninth Ward. He got a bunch of architects together, and they came up with plans to build better homes to withstand flooding. Some of them are pretty funky looking, and there are only a few homes up already, but they are looking to replace 300 homes in this neighborhood. He was recently featured in an article in Architectural Digest for what he is doing in New Orleans.

In other areas, some homes have already been rebuilt, up on concrete blocks as you can see. And one thing I learned about N.O. is that they love color, as seen in the homes above.

We left the lower Ninth Ward and continued on our tour of the city. This is Esplanade Avenue, which is known for the beautiful old oak trees, and for their Bed & Breakfast's. On this avenue is St. Louis Cemetery #3.

We stopped here to get out for just a few minutes and look around the cemetery.

One of my favorite pictures is the second one above, which shows all the statues on top of the tombs. This was taken from our bus, so I got a great angle of them.

Some of the places we drove past I didn't get any pictures of, like City Park (which has the most amazing playground for kids) and Lake Pontchartrain. We passed one of the streetcars as we turned onto St. Charles Avenue.

On St. Charles Avenue we passed Tulane and Loyola Universities, Audobon Park, and drove through the scenic Garden District, where there are plenty of big, beautiful mansions. This one above is nicknamed, the "wedding cake house." And with that, our tour ended, but we had a great time and learned a ton.

All over town are these painted streetcars--I loved them!

After our tour and some food, we went to the National WWII Museum.

Unfortunately, we only had about an hour and a half to go through the place, where we could have easily spent at least another hour. It was neat to see the suspended airplanes, as well as tanks and boats used in the war.

This flag was a highlight as well. It was raised and flying on the USS St. Louis at Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, when we were being attacked by the Japanese. Apparently they only bring it out for a short time each year to commemorate the attack on Pearl Harbor, so it was neat to see.

Our next stop was the Utah pep rally held at the Marriott on Canal St. It was fun to be with so many Utah fans at one time. The band played "Utah Man," the football team was there, and the crowd went wild when Coach Kyle Whittingham spoke.

Because we were at the back of the hall, we were in perfect position when the football team left. I snapped a few pictures, but mostly just high-fived the players. l to r: Brian Johnson, QB; (King) Louie Sakoda, our king kicker ("Louuuuuuuie!"); and Kyle Whittingham, coach.

It was another fun day, ended by a great dinner (which I'll get into the food on my next blog), and more walking around French Quarters. While there were mostly Utah fans the first night we were there, by this night there were plenty of Alabama fans filtering in as well. You could definitely feel the excitement for the big game the next day!!