Oh! The things you'll see!

Ah!  New Orleans!

On the Littlest Ninja again.  You would think after about 60 hours on a motorcycle in six days, I'd want to give it a rest, but no.  Like a centaur, it's how I get around.  Whalehead King without wheels is like a fish without water.  I ran an errand out in suburban Metarie to see what's out there.  I saw a lot of strip malls and chain stores and the Lakeside Mall.  Convenient enough, I suppose, but not really what I'll be looking for on a regular basis. After that I was back in the Crescent City proper.

New Orleans is basically self contained.  Surrounded by swampland, it has had to house all industry and activity within it's boundaries until fairly recently.  From what I understand the real expansion of it's suburbs and exurbs happened in the 1960s and 70s.  Traversing the city, I'm amazed by what is planted in the most improbable places without warning or discernible reason.  I've been on bivouac through neighborhoods one street at a time, doubling back, circling blocks, tracing the weft and woof of the urban tapestry.

I'm going to talk about Faubourg Marigny specifically today, but the same observations hold true elsewhere.  I'd be traveling down a street lined with colorfully painted or run down shotgun shacks, or a combination of both, and then be surrounded by corrugated metal machine shops.  There are little grocery stores and bars tucked willy nilly where I least expect to find them.  There are commercial districts, but the mix between commercial and residential zoning is hodgepodge and fuzzy.  So much the better from my point of view.  I like my city both shaken and stirred and alive with commerce and social opportunities.

Stores and restaurants can be hidden.  They are neighborhood oases that can't be bothered to advertise.  No need.  What signage exists can be home made and hand lettered, little larger than a legal pad nailed next to a front door.  There are few plate glass windows to catch a passing eye.  Some places look closed but they are, in fact, bustling lunch counters offering hot plates and po' boys and light hardware or cleaning supplies.  The essentials for daily living are always within reach the closer one gets to the central city.

In Faubourg Marigny, purring down Dauphine Street, I ran across a local institution: the Hubig's Pies bakery.  There was no warning, just a battered, neon sign hung over the sidewalk to the left.  At the corner of Franklin Street a little further down, at 2529 Dauphine, was the Lost Love Lounge, a forbidding looking place with dark windows and an open, battered door and nothing more than it's evocative name to recommend it.  Dauphine is a narrow and leafy street, picturesque and charming, so charming it made me think of checking out apartments in this part of town.

Here, in the middle of tidy houses and narrow streets, was a commercial bakery that's been around for almost a century and a bar (more than one, but none with such a great name) and other sundry businesses and a coffee shop.

Turn a corner in New Orleans and you'll never know what you'll find.  I don't know the firm boundaries of all the neighborhoods yet but I traversed Treme and went the length of Claiborne Street, South and North.  I discovered hidden nooks of activity on Freret Street and at the intersection of Calhoun Street and South Claiborne.  A visit to Ted's Frostop Burgers for a sit down meal and a root beer is on my agenda.  The same for the Parkway Bakery and Tavern, but not on a Tuesday.  There are a baker's dozen of other places I saw today that I plan to enjoy and even more than that that I can't remember.

Ah! New Orleans!  I doubt the charm will ever wear off.

A New Orleans moment

I don't watch a lot of television (any, really) but I do know about HBO's Treme series.  It was advertised on little cards in every rinky dink motel I stayed in on my trip from Boston to the Crescent City.  The motels invariably crowed on their signs, "Air conditioning.  Free HBO."  Thinking about it after the fact, I should have seen if Treme was on those nights.  I could have turned on the air conditioning too.

One of the series' writers is on record as saying, "New Orleans manufactures moments."  I had read this awhile ago and it stuck with me because it struck me as true.  I had one of those moments today.

After six days on the road, cradling clutch and throttle, I indulged in some much needed sleep today and after reading the Times-Picayune front to back over coffee at Mojo on Magazine Street, I spent the morning and early afternoon exploring.  It was in the Bywater neighborhood, south of St. Claude Avenue that I thought, "Man, I love this city.  It's so beautiful and full of surprises.  It's a feast for my soul."  There were more surprises ahead.

I headed north and found a different world altogether.  At first I couldn't decide if I was seeing the effects of Hurricane Katrina or the effects of urban blight in a poor part of town.  It was Katrina.  Five years afterward, the damage is still there, the wounds not scarred over, just scabby and painful to witness.  Whole blocks offer sights that will break your heart.  The disaster extends farther than I realized and lingers longer than a nation with a short attention span knows.

I am not making these street names up.  New Orleans street names are things of pure poetry.  I was in an area where all the homes were abandoned, boarded up, collapsing, destitute, depressing, overgrown with weeds and fetid with mold.  On the corner of Humanity and Metropolitan Streets, one house has been refurbished to the point of not only being livable; it looks new.  On the front porch two boys, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, were playing trumpets.  All around was wreckage but these two boys were blaring out infectiously joyful jazz scales.  I stopped the motorcycle to listen and they became self-conscious and stopped.  I flashed a thumbs-up and continued on my way.  As soon I was down Humanity Street a bit, out of sight but not out of earshot, they started up again, really letting their horns wail.

Call me soft-hearted or soft-headed but I had a lump in my throat when they started playing again and I can't really explain to you why.  I don't know what this episode means but I imagine it is the first of many New Orleans moments that will unfold as I live here.  New Orleans casts a spell.  It inspires great love.  I am hardly familiar with the city or the culture yet but I've caught that same bug that infects so many other people upon contact with this place.

Boston is a city that inspires fierce loyalty, mostly when compared to New York.  It is plump with historical accomplishments and intellectuals to build off them.  Every Bostonian will be happy to point out what an enlightened and progressive city it is, a world leader in technology and learning and regulation.  New Orleans is content to be itself and flourish in its eccentricity, a world apart from anywhere else on earth.  I can't yet say what the defining characteristics of a New Orleans citizen are.  All I know so far is that they know how to enjoy twenty-four hours and then another twenty-four.  There are many worse things for idle hands to be doing.

Where Humanity and Metropolitan intersect, I got a taste of New Orleans, something indescribable and mysterious, the riddle of the city distilled into a poignant, enigmatic moment.  I am going to love it here.  I don't worry for my soul but I'm concerned about my sanity.  Too much New Orleans might score the flinty New England nature off my psyche.  I didn't decide to move here to be reborn, but I am falling under an enchantment.  May every day be as humbling, bittersweet, and enlightening.

229 miles later: The deed is done.

Mobile, Alabama is a working city.  Eschewing the highway the whole way, I took Route 90 through Mobile and journey's end.  The road wound through Mobile's industrial area, a place of many mysterious odors.   I couldn't place many of them but I would describe most as "chemical."

There are three tall buildings in Mobile.  One of them is nondescript, but the other two are topped with airy, buttressed domes and spires.  The tallest of the three is a masterpiece of modern deco.   It dominates the skyline.  Wikipedia doesn't say what this building is called, unfortunately, because I'd like to know more about it.  I'm used to admiring skyscrapers but this one was a stand out example of architectural excellence, especially in its setting.  It was breathtaking, imposing and inspiring.

I thought Chattanooga was a burly, masculine city.  Mobile is a city of callouses and sweat and curse words spit through clenched jaws as men's bodies strain to make some piece of machinery work as designed.  This is a place I would like to visit again.  My route took me through it's grittiest territory down by the port and through genteel, antebellum, leafy neighborhoods.  What a town.

Biloxi, Mississippi, on the other hand, is a casino city.  They dominate the waterfront.  I rode along the beaches for miles and miles, the Gulf of Mexico on my left and various cityscapes on my right.  I spent ten years living in New London, Conn. between Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos.  Biloxi's remind me more of Foxwoods without the scale.  I'm no gambler, so this city didn't appeal to me.

I went through downtown Gulfport and there wasn't much to see.  Perhaps Katrina decimated it because it was very small and full of empty lots.  I don't know, but it was Dullsville.

In Pass Christian I stopped for a bottle of water at a shrimp boat dock and watched the fishermen doing whatever they were doing on their boats.  A truck was parked in the lot selling fresh fried shrimp.  It was noon so I figured, why not?  I ate a dozen fresh Gulf shrimp out of a piece of foil.  Delicious.

I missed my turn and ended up at a NASA rocket testing facility at the end of the road.  The guards at the gate gave me a shortcut to get back to my route.  Nice guys, even before they noticed my license plate.  After they verified that I am in fact from Massachusetts, they drew me a map on a piece of scrap paper.

The NASA guys' shortcut brought me through empty pine forest.  There wasn't a sign of civilization for miles except for the well maintained road.  Truth be told, I haven't hit a bad road since I left Boston.  New Orleans also has its share of potholes, though.  A bumpy ride in the beginning and at the end with smooth sailing for 2000 miles in between.

From Mississippi, I entered St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana.  From here until way into New Orleans, the road cut through swamp, flat and fecund.  The houses are all on tall stilts.  New Orleans is bigger than most people realize.  It's shaped sort of like a fish tail.  I entered through the upper fin and passed through the 23,000 acre Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge which is within city limits.

I'm in New Orleans three days early.  No reason to complain about that.  The place where I'm staying made room for me.  Making my way there, I relied on instinct.  I knew the address and I've daydreamed over my map of the city enough to have a rough idea where things are even if I don't remember all the street names.  From the Chef Menteur Highway I leaned left from time to time until I landed at an intersection I remembered walking on my last visit.  After that, I was home free.

It is good to be in New Orleans.

From Atmore, I traveled 64 miles to Mobile (98 since my last gasoline purchase); I filled the tank with 1.44 gallons for $4.10 ($2.84/gal).  In Pass Christian I had gone 89 miles so I bought 1.67 gallons for $4.67 ($2.77/gal).  In New Orleans, at the Corner of Broad and Canal Streets, the odometer read 78 miles; I topped off with 1.05 gallons for $2.84 ($2.69/gal).  I'll have to tally up how much gasoline I bought and what my average milage was.

The real work begins tomorrow: looking for work and for an apartment.  The official move date is a few days over a month away, but there's no time like the present.  I just did the math and I traveled 2054 miles, mostly on the back roads.  My lady companion keeps telling me the distance is 1360 miles according to AAA.  It is that far on the highway and we'll be traversing that distance in June with all our belongings in tow.  The extra 600-odd miles I logged on my zig zagging route were worth it.  It is good to be in New Orleans but I made a journey I'll never forget.

362 miles more: Close to Sunshine

It's a good thing I'm not in a rush.  I left Fort Payne, after taking pictures of the Alabama museum (the band, not the state) at 7:30 this morning.  At 5:30 this afternoon, I pulled into the town of Atmore, a stones throw from the Florida border.  This is my trip's penultimate day.

The timber industry is alive and well in Alabama.  I traveled through pine country for the most part and logging trucks were the most common vehicles on the road.  I passed one stack of tree trunks shorn of their branches that were piled into a spiral bigger than Boston City Hall.  The landscape is filled with evidence of forest management, both wild and tame.  I passed acres that had obviously been harvested and stands of trees that had obviously been planted in rows though they were a decade or so old.

Alabama is very pretty, like everywhere I've been, each place in its own way.  There were fewer houses than anywhere else along my route.  I passed through Montgomery, the capital, but otherwise I was in out of the way places and I was surprised not only by all the wood harvesting but by the factories I passed.  Some were textile mills and some were lumber yards, others I have no idea what they were; vast, corrugated metal buildings with cryptic names, some of them Chinese-seeming, are plopped in the middle of nowhere.

Barbecue restaurants are popular and convenience stores stock bags of locally boiled green peanuts next to the cash register.  The farther I go, the more people want to know where I'm from.  They say I have an accent.  I tell them I'm from Boston and the farther I go, the more flabbergasted the reactions.  "That's a long trip."  Yes.  "Welcome to the South."  Thank you.

Here are the counties I passed through:  I started in DeKalb and after that I passed through Etowah, Calhoun, Talladega, Coosa, Elmore, Montgomery, Butler, Conecuh, and I'm now in Escambia.  Here are some towns I saw:  Rainbow City, Talladega, Sylacauga, Weoka, Wetumpka, Sandy Ridge Georgiana. Evergreen, Castleberry, Brewton, Flowmaton, and Atmore.  Evocative names.  Beautiful places.  I wish I had time to explore them more and know them better.

Here's how I did for gasoline:  From Fort Payne, I traveled another 39 miles to Leesburg (84 miles total since the last fill up); I bought 1.45 gallons for $3.96 ($2.92/gal.  I pressed the premium button by mistake).  I traveled 104 miles to Rockford and purchased 1.26 gallons for $3.50 ($2.74/gal.  I had to pre-pay and three-fifty seemed a reasonable estimate).  99 miles later in Greenville I bought 2.19 gallons for $6.34 ($2.89/gal).  In Flowmaton, the odometer read 99 miles and I filled up with 1.34 gallons for $3.90 ($2.89/gal again).  I am now in Atmore and the odometer reads 34 additional miles.

Atmore is a nice little town.  Like many hereabouts, the train runs right along Main Street.  This is the first town where the commercial architecture reminds me of New Orleans.  The two story buildings like the bank and the hair salon have roofed balconies on the second floor and it is all supported by wrought iron gimcrackery.  Atmore is the county seat and I've learned that when a town has a county courthouse you can expect some life in it.  Towns left to their own devices tend to be shells of their former selves, a collection of empty storefronts built in the 1920s.  Atmore has a few restaurants, a coffee shop, a vintage movie theater (The Strand; Iron Man 2 opens tomorrow) and a few businesses beyond Dollar General and a gas station.

I'm about 200 miles from New Orleans, a straight shot along the Gulf Coast.  I may linger in Biloxi but if the past is any guide, moving from Point A to journey's end should take most of the day even without much dilly-dallying.

Boycotting BP

I just did the math.  Since leaving Boston, Massachusetts and arriving in Fort Payne, Alabama I've travelled 1463 miles over four days and fifteen pit stops.  None of those miles were powered by a single drop of BP gasoline.

Again, a tip of the fedora to the New Orleans Ladder for this image.