Sounds like Fashion shows, no it is our road trip made in two days with 3 kids, and one saying “Its too long..” guess who it was. It was a long two day drive, we are so used to the 4-5 hour drives with beaches in between. Not we have to admit that we are moving north and no more beaches.
On Thursday morning, we all got up early and packed all our stuff and headed to the famous Cafe Du Mont for their Beignets. We walked the 10 blocks there, the kids wanted to drive and we had to explain to them that parking is not cheap in the French Quarter and chances of finding a parking spot might be difficult, with the narrow streets and all. Off we went for Beignets which we loved and on the walk back we walked on a different road back to the hotel. These street were mostly residential so that was nice to see something new and get more ideas for our house!
After checking out of the hotel, we went down to the 9th ward where the flood waters from Katrina hit. It was a sight to see, hard to imagine what those people went through. There were many homes that were bordered up and some barely standing. Right where the levee broke, there were barley any homes left only cement pads. The only homes standing were the brick homes, I guess the wood homes didn’t survive the waters.
It is so hard to imagine what these people had to go through. The anguish of loosing all their possessions and being displaced! When I was flooded out of our basement in 1993, I felt so lost, I didn’t loose much but I lost my space and it was uncomfortable. I couldn’t bring myself to help with the cleanup and rebuilding. I guess that is how the people of New Orleans felt. There are so many empty lots with the pads left. I guess it is hard for people to move back with the memories of what they went through. We saw a few homes that were being fixed up by groups of people. One group of women and another group of younger people. There are so many houses and only so few people rebuilding.
We drove through the garden district and saw where the “American houses” were built, the garden district. The tour guide said that this is where the area where the Americans settled when they moved to New Orleans, it is just down the street from the downtown. Huge mansions and narrower streets.
After New Orleans, we headed towards Houston. After driving for a few hours, before leaving the state of Louisiana, we stopped for lunch in Breaux Bridge. I didn’t feel like fast food and realized that I hadn’t had Jambalaya so that is what I had for lunch. So, so yummy!! Kyle had a crawfish meal, a sampling of different dishes of crawfish.
The drive to Houston was unique, it seemed like we were driving on a bridge forever. The land seemed like it was just swamp.
Well we made it into Houston at around 7pm to my dad’s friends place. Uncle Henry and his wife we kind enough to let us stay with him for the night. It was great. I hadn’t seen him since I was a little girl in Singapore. It was great getting to hear stories about my dad while he grew up in Malaysia, the nick names and the adventures.
After breakfast we hung around and shared more stories before leaving for Dallas. As we were figuring where my friend Nancy lived, we realized that it is actually Frisco, North Dallas, so it would takes us around 6 hours to get there. Looked like it was going to be a long drive. The drive was very monotonous. Vast open spaces. It was kinda cool though, through the mobile home park searches, I have come across different towns and it was cool to find out where these towns were.
When we finally got to Frisco, we just settled in, just like home. It was so exciting to see each other again, looking forward to spending more time with our friends and catching up.