The tiny town of Foley, Alabama, takes you back to the early 1950s. The houses are brick, with loads of hydrangeas, roses and other flowers. The main street maintains the beveled glass on entrance doors and there, at the crossroads, is a Rexall's drug store. Inside, we found a genuine soda counter with wire-backed chairs and coffee for 10 cents a cup – if you pour it yourself!
A toy train endlessly circumnavigates the drugstore at the 10-foot high level and you can find all manner of early medical supplies. We particularly likes the “Anti-Monkey Butt Powder” that is advertized as a “sweat absorber and friction fighter”. There are airplaned made from Coke cans hanging from the ceiling.
Earlier in the day, we'd made out way to the edge of Mobile Bay where we watched the sailboats and fisherman casting their nets to catch bait fish at the town pier. It all is quite quaint and bucolic. The town of Fairhope has built waterfront birdhouses for purple martins that migrate from South America and who seem to be will to occupy these bird condos for breeding purposes and for raising their young before heading south in the fall. The martins do a prodigious job of vacuuming mosquitoes from the waterfront area so they are welcome guests.
We came to New Orleans, expecting the worst. It has been just shy of four years since Hurricane Katrina visited her wrath on this city and the entire northern Gulf of Mexico coast. We're watched the rebuilding – or lack – on TV and we were anxious to see it for ourselves.
Reports of the death of the city are premature, we're happy to report. Oh, there still remains devastation on portions of the 9th ward. And down in St. Bernard Parish, where we are camping, there is massive destruction still visible in shopping centers that have been abandoned. But the city of New Orleans was hopping when we drove in on Saturday. There was a Zydeco music festival, along with a Creole Tomato festival in the French Quarter. The hanging ferns from the lacy wrought iron balconies are there, the tourists in the thousands are there. The rhythm of the city is evident. People actually walk with a sway and a swing of their hips, keeping time to the music of the trombone player or the banjo picker.
We had a great time visiting the cathedral in the heart of the city. We wandered in the back streets before driving through the Ninth Ward to view some of the dead houses. We were heartened to see so much renovation evident, though. As we drove back to our campground, we came upon a cemetery across from the Mississippi River (which is higher than the surrounding land). The cemeteries in this low-lying part of the world are above ground. Coffins are placed inside a concrete sarcophagus and those are even stacked up to three high to take care of families. But this cemetery was suffering from the sarcophagus being washed away and toppled. Many of the concrete boxes were empty. Quite biblical, of course (“And they came to the tomb and found it empty.”).
Our campground on the south side of the Big Muddy is quite spectacular. Very few people are here. But we are surrounded by dozens (maybe hundreds, perhaps even thousands) of rabbits who seem to enjoy coming out in the dusk to munch on the green grass. The cat is oblivious to these same-size creatures. We have a symphony each evening of cicadas...millions of them. Their song is astonishingly loud but they settle down with darkness.
The huge swimming pool at the park was occupied by nine people when we went for a swim this afternoon. It was quite moving, actually, to watch two 8-to-10-year-old white girls swim and interact with colorblind eyes with a pair of black twin boys. It gives hope that this generation is growing up oblivious to the color of people's skin.
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