New Orleans had a big impact on us for a number of reasons. The city itself has an amazing history and there are many sights to see; the impacts of Hurricane Katrina won’t be forgotten anytime soon; it was the start to a new phase of our bike trip; it was our first use of the Couchsurfing website; we had a extremely busy and productive time getting things done for our trip; and we did some great bike riding.
Hurricane Katrina
We first saw New Orleans in June of 2006, just a few months after Hurricane Katrina hit, and it was still shattered. The ride into town over the interim I-10 highway was traumatic – houses, apartment buildings, whole malls were gone. Some buildings were standing, but the insides were gone, just completely sucked out. Roofs were missing block after block after block, walls were gone, and what was left wasn’t worth much. Though many restaurants and places of business were open in the French Quarter, the city seemed to be running at half-volume. National Guard troops were stationed prominently, patrolling areas; and signs proclaimed “We Tear Down Houses. New Orleans Demolition. $30,000 Grant Money”.
Our new view of New Orleans, not quite 2 years later, was very different. There’s a definite sense of recovery, a sense of moving on. Signs now proclaimed “We’re Coming Back Soon”; “Now Open”, “New Rooms”; “Modular Homes”; “We Just Reopened”. New construction is everywhere, and huge trucks were rumbling and lumbering down the streets. When I’d call trying to find a specific product, many of the stores I called would tell me, “We don’t have that in stock right now. We just reopened and we still don’t have all our inventory”. Katrina also spawned a subculture in bumper stickers and pins: “New Orleans – Proud To Swim Home”; “New Orleans – Proud To Call It Home”; “New Orleans – Proud To Crawl Home”.
That being said, the devastation here is still absolutely astonishing. Many, many, many, houses and buildings are still abandoned, and they still have the infamous X on them telling when they were searched after Katrina and how many dead were found inside, if any. It was very sobering. We stayed in Lakeview District, one of the areas hardest hit by Katrina, so we saw quite a bit of destruction. Interspersed with the abandoned homes and brand new homes were hundreds of empty lots where houses used to stand. The destruction was cleared, but there’s no money and in some cases no heart to rebuild. Many homeowners were woefully underinsured if they were insured at all. Out in the Algiers district we saw one of the infamous FEMA trailer villages – essentially a big parking lot covering most of a city block, in a mostly industrial area, with row after row of trailers, behind a big chain link fence.
French Quarter
Meanwhile the tourist-clogged French Quarter continues in the same spirit of ‘anything goes’. A slogan on a t-shirt in one of the many tourist shops summed up much of the attitude of downtown New Orleans, “I’ll have a café mocha-vodka-valium-latte, to go, please.” Bars offer such delicacies as “Huge Ass Beers”. On Bourbon Street is the same familiar smell of the streets, that low-level mix of urine and vomit, and the street is still loaded with sex bars and alcohol and drunks.
Mixed in with all this are amazing restaurants; beautiful art and antique shops; arts and craft shows in the city squares; dozens of touristy stores selling t-shirts, aprons, hats, bumper stickers, and one of New Orleans local specialties – masks. Stroll down any street and you’ll see lots of buskers, like the black male dance troupe that did choreographed routines of break-dancing, hip hop, and acrobatics, with the request to “toss your money in the basket, thank you, thank you!” At various points during our stay we saw a guy walking on stilts, just by himself, outside the French Quarter, for no apparent reason or event; we saw a guy fully painted and clothed in gold and a few days later a guy fully painted and clothed in silver. Yet another day we saw a guy just sitting in Jackson Square with his face painted like a mask in red and black checkers to match his red and black checkered shirt.
Music is everywhere. The sound of bands drifts out of the bars, and musicians are on a few street corners. The New Orleans jazz festival was in town our first night, and Darryl, our couchsurfing host, took us to Marigny to walk around and listen to the bands (Marigny is considered more of a locals French Quarter). On two different Wednesdays we went to Wednesday Night at the Square in downtown New Orleans, watching the crowd and listening to the bands.
Darryl Goodwin
Our host in New Orleans was Darryl Goodwin. I found him by looking up www.warmshowers.org and realized he was also on www.couchsurfing.com, a website I’d heard about but had never explored. Reading his profile, we felt like he’d be a great host, if he’d accept us as guests. He did, and we had an amazing time with him for nearly two weeks. Chelsea and I had an all-night 21-hour bus ride from West Palm Beach to New Orleans. It was pretty grueling, as the buses stopped every couple of hours and we got no sleep, but the drivers were wonderful and the seats were comfortable. We were supposed to change buses only once, early in the trip, but they changed the route, and we had to transfer all our gear twice, once in the middle of the night. That was pretty awful… We got good experience about what we needed for doing this in the future!
We arrived in New Orleans pretty tired and feeling bedraggled, and Darryl very graciously met us at the train station, taking us and all our gear to his home. He had other couchsurfers at the time, two women who were leaving the next day, and he was expecting another one to arrive that night. Because of the crowded house, Darryl gave us his own bedroom! It was heaven to have some privacy after being up all night. After the other couchsurfers left, he moved us to our own room upstairs where we slept on the floor.
We can’t mention Darryl without mentioning his very sweet and well-trained dog Maria. Darryl brings Maria everywhere with him, including on all bike trips, hauling her in a dog trailer behind his bike. In fact, Darryl had returned only shortly before our visit from a 2-week cycling trip around southern Louisiana, hauling Maria with him.
Darryl took us under his wing for the entire time we were with him. He took us on errands, both by car and bike; he took us sightseeing; he helped us with computer issues; he helped us with bike issues; and he helped with numerous small tasks we needed to do.
Bike riding
He made sure we got on our bikes, taking us twice to Lake Pontchartrain for picnics, with sightseeing on the way back. Going out on bike rides with Darryl we discovered that we can’t rely on what he says in terms of how far we’d be going – 6-8 miles often turned into 18 miles. We enjoyed all of it though, and he was always willing to stop and wander through an area, or stop just to look at things. One of our return trips from Lake Pontchartrain took us through an abandoned golf course, severely damaged by Katrina. The golf course and clubhouse have not been rebuilt, and the grounds have gradually turned into a local park with beautiful ponds, riding paths, jogging paths, wildlife, and gorgeous views. It was incredibly beautiful and peaceful.
Our biggest bicycling adventure with Darryl was an overnight trip to the Algiers district from Lakeview district. We packed up our trailers, Darryl loaded Maria into her trailer, and we took off for about an 18-mile ride (each way) through New Orleans, crossing the Mississippi River by ferry. We watched the Natchez on the Mississippi – a functioning paddlewheel boat – and listened to the steam whistle, as the Natchez got ready to leave the shore. We went by a bike shop in downtown New Orleans on errands – looking for Lake cycling sandals, a new bike computer battery, and replacement spokes for our bike wheels. (We got the bike computer battery but nothing else.)
Our return trip turned into more than 18 miles as we wandered through the French Quarter by bicycle. It was Mother’s Day, and Chelsea and I celebrated by having beignets (an order of 3 French donuts with powdered sugar) with café au lait at Café du Monde, one of the most famous of New Orleans eateries. I discovered that I loved beignets, and we had a great time people watching. One thing about New Orleans, it’s never boring! Check out our photo album 5-12-08 New Orleans
On the trip to and from Algiers, we loved riding the ferry. On the ferry, a family started chatting with us, asking about our trip, and we got a chance to ask about their experiences with Katrina. One comment stuck in my mind from the mom – “One of the best things about Katrina was learning how nice people can be. We were so amazed at how many people seemed to care, and how many people offered to help in any way possible”.
We also loved seeing all the action on the river – the tugboats pushing the barges across Mississippi; the variety of boat traffic, the Natchez, the pleasure craft. It was impressive to see what a busy waterway it was.
It was truly great to get our riding going again and get used to our new bikes. We had hardly done any riding with them, and this trip gave us practice hauling the trailers, maneuvering through traffic, dealing with the new shifting system, and getting used to the new positioning on the bike. Of course we had head winds, too. We have long been used to people looking at us, but we really presented quite a sight now – two of us with our Burley trailers and our flags flying, and one of us hauling a great big white dog. As Darryl wrote in our couchsurfing reference, we saw the sights and we were one of the sights. We were truly tickled at how much attention Darryl and Maria got – we just rode behind and listened to the comments.
The road conditions in New Orleans were astonishingly awful. The roads look like they are just disintegrating. I was sure it must be as a result of Katrina, but I was assured repeatedly that it’s just Louisiana. It seems that the soil and water levels here don’t lend themselves to stable roadways, and then there’s the matter of the corruption at the state and local levels – whenever a tax is instituted for road repair, it’s always approved, but the money somehow never makes its way to actual road repair. Riding with Darryl, who’s a wild man mountain biker at heart, we rode on all kinds of surfaces we never would have – grass, gravel, horrible pot-holed roads, muddy grass, sand – we figured we’re getting prepared for south of the border, off the beaten path riding conditions.
We saw the Mississippi River several times by car, and Darryl took us to see Magazine St and the Garden District, along with a variety of other areas that we had to drive through while doing our errands. Several times he dropped us off in the French Quarter while he did errands so Chelsea and I just wandered around for an hour or so, looking at things, checking out the shops, and listening to the music through the doors.
Errands
My derailleur badly needed adjusting and one of the most memorable errands we did was going to Plan B, a local do-it-yourself bike repair shop, on the day set aside for women and transvestites only. A sign outside the door clearly states the rules, “Sorry dude, Tuesdays are for Women and Trans Gendered folk Only. Thanks!” A young woman was the mechanic in charge for the day, and while we were there, she stuck to the rules. Any guys who came with their women were consigned to waiting outside the door. That applied to Darryl too…when we finished, we found him patiently waiting on the sparse patch of grass right outside the door, chatting with another waiting husband or boyfriend.
We did a few other memorable errands. The wonderful back-rack bag that the REI guys in Santa Monica gave us needed Velcro. It had been manufactured with the same piece of Velcro on each side, so it wouldn’t attach properly, and we had had to rig a way of getting it on and off. The snap on my handlebar bag finally broke, too…it was on the way out for over a year. Darryl found us a shoe repair shop down on Magazine St. and we dropped them off for overnight repair. As I waited my turn in line when we returned to pick them up, a woman next to me turned to me. “Aren’t they beautiful!” she exclaimed, showing me a pair of strappy high-heeled sandals that had just been repaired – “I found them in the wreckage of my house after Katrina!”
In our search for bike lights that are decent, we found Bayou Bicycles – just opened again after Katrina. We loved the store – it was airy, clean, with a great selection of gear and bicycles, and knowledgeable friendly staff. We finally got a set of Planet Bike lights, front and rear. Chelsea uses the rear light, and I use the front light, since that’s almost always how we ride. I also have a weaker rear light and Chelsea has a weaker front light, so we’re each set up to ride at night. When we went to pay, Jeremy, the awesome guy who had been helping us, donated a box of 3 spare 16” tubes. It was a very welcome gift, since we had no spares. If you’re in New Orleans, be sure to check out Bayou Bicycles. You can also see their in-store offerings by checking their website at www.bayoubicycles.com. (Note: we really love the Planet Bike lights. We only wish we’d had them in Anastasia State Park in St Augustine Florida, and in Southern California.)
Another discovery we made was Massey’s in New Orleans. We do all our research online because we have so little access to any outfitters or outdoor stores. We normally order online because we don’t have access to the stores, but it’s so hard to know if what we’re ordering will fit, or to see if what we’re ordering is really what we want. Therefore when we find a store that has what we want, or gear similar to what we’ve been looking at, and we can really LOOK at it and touch it and see how it works, we’re like kids in a candy store.
Chelsea and I bought the toe strap kind of Chaco sandals in Seattle at REI last October, but after several months of use we realized they weren’t working at all for us, so we returned them. Chelsea still had hers, but my Keen sandals had died, so I was relying on a pair of Wal-Mart flip flops that I use as shower shoes. Massey’s carries Chaco sandals, and I got a chance to try on another style – the same thing without toe straps. I did end up getting the sandals, and I have absolutely loved them. We also got a chance to see a wide variety of things we’ve been thinking about, like the Katadyn Hiker Pro water filter, bear canisters, and some Patagonia clothing. Check out Massey’s if you’re in the area, and check out their online store www.masseysoutfitters.com.
Other tasks
Besides all our other errands, Darryl got us to a fishing store where we got 250 lb test line for our survival and camping needs, and he helped us amazingly with our computer issues. He got wireless set up again on our laptop, he fixed our Verizon Wireless card settings for us, he got our laptop start-up to improve in speed by about 200%, got us updated with all the Windows updates, got Skype on our laptop, and he even got our audio card fixed. Our laptop hasn’t worked this well in 3 years!
He’s helped us a lot with the bikes, too. He helped with getting them together after shipping (although Chelsea is really good at that!) and he helped us by lubricating our bike locks, telling us what to use for lubricating the chain, and took us out to find the chain lubricant. One of our favorite results from Darryl is a simple thing, but really useful. Chelsea and I each have a bike lock with a corresponding key, and of course they both look absolutely identical. I have wanted for some time now to mark the keys and locks so we can match the right key to the right lock immediately. We tossed over a number of ideas, and Darryl came up with the winning solution. He drilled one hole in one key, then matched it up with the right lock, and drilled three grooves on each side of the plastic on one lock, leaving the other set untouched. That little task has saved us from untold minutes (hours!) of annoyance.
Chelsea was able to put our tent up in Darryl’s garage and seal the seams on the tent and the rainfly, something we’d been wanting to do for some time. It didn’t dry thoroughly enough, so now it has a ripping sound when we unfold the tent. 🙂 We’ll let you know if it works anyway. The seams were originally factory-sealed, but we had a few leaks in one rainstorm, so we wanted to do our sealing as a precaution.
Cell phone idea
Since we have trouble with cell phone signal a lot, but we can get Internet access at homes or wi-fi spots, I’m always looking for solutions for phone messages. One thing I found – there’s a service that puts cell phone messages into email messages. It’s currently $.35 a message; or $9.95/month for 40 messages; or $29.95/month for unlimited messages. Check it out – phone messages come through as text messages to your phone or as email, and you can still listen to the original voice mail anytime you want. If it comes through as email, you can listen to the voice mail just by clicking a link in the email. http://www.phonetag.com/products.html. Pretty cool, huh?
Contacts and eyeglasses
One last biggie that Darryl did for us – I needed new contacts but I needed an eye appointment before I could order the contacts. I’d also broken my expensive Silhouette progressive eyeglasses with titanium frames (got them in 2004), and I’d scratched the daylights out of my reading/computer bifocals on our 2006 trip across country. So, I was in a royal mess with my eyes. Darryl came up with the idea of calling his former eye doctor. Since so many people have left New Orleans and not returned, many stores and professionals are quite literally rebuilding their customer base. When I called for the appointment, I was given a set price that was a lot more than I had been paying at Costco, both in South Florida and in Central California, and it included services that I didn’t need (like a year’s follow-up). It never hurts to ask, so I gave them the price I’d been paying, and after a short hesitation, they agreed.
I had a wonderful experience with them. The price was right, there was no waiting when I got there, the exam was quick, the doctor was pleasant. Better yet, I got carefully fitted for a simple pair of reading glasses (after much discussion of my options!), and they got it ready overnight for me.
I ordered the contacts online and had them shipped to our couchsurfing host in Franklin LA, and picked up my reading glasses on the way out of town. Even better, Darryl took some kind of special glue and glued my frames to the lens on my Silhouette distance glasses. It’s not an elegant look :), but it works perfectly fine, and I only need to use them in campgrounds walking back from the bathroom after taking out my contacts. So all in one day I got several obnoxious problems solved very successfully. (Note: I am delighted with my reading glasses…it has been awesome to be able to read easily at night.)
We worked non-stop from the time we got to New Orleans, except for a few hours one Sunday afternoon/evening, but we got an unbelievable amount of stuff done, and when we weren’t working, we had Darryl getting us up and out to go do things. We were reaaaaally tired. We wanted some time to just relax and sleep before we went!
Finally, after 11 days in New Orleans, Darryl took us on to our first stop, Norco, and introduced us to our next couchsurfing host, Judith. It had been a tumultuous time for us, and we were SO glad we had Darryl as our host. What a difference he made! Despite the fact that we spent nearly two weeks in New Orleans, it still felt like a whirlwind tour. New Orleans is definitely on our list of places where we’d like to go back and spend more time. Be sure to go back and check out our half dozen photo albums on New Orleans.