NOLA!

Biloxi to New Orleans 93.2 miles

Today was full of excitement and very bumpy roads. We started off our first planned 90 mile+ day knowing that it would be long and difficult. We had a delicious breakfast and left the church. Summer and I joined a bunch of other riders and set out for New Orleans and a week of building. First lunch was at a gas station in Bay St Louis. Afterwards, we set out with Galen, Josh E, Sonja, and Alyssa. We hit the border, took lots of pictures with the Louisiana state sign (still no Mississippi sign!) Apparently, Corey stashed some water guns and other swag at the border, but my group never saw them :( after the border we ran into a ginormous bridge that seemed to be almost vertical. We struggled and worked and made our way to the top. We stopped for some pictures, which didn't really do justice to the height and craziness of these bridges. We sped down just in tome to see Corey stopped in front of a firehouse. Fake out! It was really just a water stop and we still had six miles till second lunch. Which was the side of the road...Mosquitos...ouch! They don't bother you until you slow down but, boy, when you stop they go crazy! I have so many bug bites! We continued on to a gas station where we got ice cream bars and then entered the city. It was a crazy ride into the city. We rode through the lower ninth ward, where much of the flood damage from Katrina occurred. I was tool busy trying to avoid all of the bumps, wholes, and grates to study my surroundings, but the differences in each house made me really sad. There were shiny new houses next to fallen-in condemned shacks. Some houses still have the "x"'s painted on them by the Army corps of engineers six years ago. In many ways it is a ghost town, full of empty houses but there are so many people there. Rebuilding is happening, but at a snails pace. We got through that part of town with a small reroute (20 B&B'ers huddled on a strip of sidewalk under I-10)  but we all made it safe. We arrived in Arabi, just across the canal from NOLA proper and the site of Camp Hope, our hosts for the next week. We have 14 showers...for girls! No lines all week! They are set up to handle large numbers of volunteers working in NOLA and St.Bernard Parish, mostly volunteers working in the housing field. We just so happen to be the only large group here this week. There is a single volunteer who came here on her own or three weeks and a church that has had at least one volunteer down here for the last three years. But we are the large group of the week. Two alumni, Colin and Nate stopped by with a trash bag full of crawfish. I promised I would try some of every thing this summer, so I tried the crawfish...although my first attempt ended with me throwing my crawfish back in the pile and screaming a little as I quickly backed away. I swear that it looked like it moved! Josh A helped me with the first, but I managed the second and third on my own. They were ok, but I'm happy that I gave it a try. We finished up the night with a tour of downtown NOLA at night courtesy of Colin and Nate. We watched an amazing jazz band for a couple of hours, then went to Cafe du Monde for beignets. It was a long hard day, but we are really excited for our day off tomorrow!