Tour and Wet Day

Yesterday was the tour which was very interesting. We were supposed to see the home where Jefferson Davis passed away and Archie Mannings home. We saw neither but did see some neat stuff. Our guide was really into cemeteries so we saw a bunch. We saw the "condos" (above ground burial vaults) for the founder of Popeyes Chicken an the founder of Ruth's Chris steak houses.

We saw one of the levees that was breached and how it was patched. We also saw the new zillion dollar drainage water pumping stations. Pretty impressive. We went through one of the blighted areas and saw some vacant lots where houses were lost and saw some of the houses with the marks to show they had been searched and the number of bodies found inside.they have new regulations requiring all new homes to be built at least 2 feet of the ground. For the residents who tried to salvage their homes, there were federal funds available to have the existing structure built on the ground to be raised from 2 to 10 feet off the ground and we saw several that had done so.

We also saw the area where houses were built by Harry Connick, Jr for musicians only and their families in an effort to get the musicians back , and it worked. The houses were like habitat for humanity houses and there were many. Harry Connick , Jr also had a music museum and recording studio and music facility built where any child from 8-18 can go for music lessons free of charge. Fats Domino lost his home and a rock n roll guy we think from Led Zeppelin who is friends with Fats built him a new home across the river. By the way, we learned that all of the flooding came from the levees failing along Lake Pontchartrain and not from the Gulf or the Mississippi River.

Today we headed out to catch the trolley to go to Riverwalk. It was about a 6 block walk . About 2 blocks into the walk, we found out that summer rains come out of nowhere much faster than in Florida. We both looked like drowned river rats. We decided to go into Harrah's casino to get out of the rain and use their facilities to try to dry off a bit. While we were there, Joy decided she wanted to "gamble" . I gave her a dollar and she went to a 2 cent slot machine. After a few minutes, she had amassed a fortune of $1.04. She got cocky, increased her bets and in seconds her fortune was gone. So much for our gambling.