Rollin’ on The Bayou: Hot, Strange, Sad, and Beautiful
June 12th, 2007 : posted by GarrettRollin’ on the Bayou. Interstate 10. Windows down. Rollin’.
What a great two days with an amazing group of SCA interns. Waveland Mississippi received a round house kick from Katrina, but groups like SCA, Bridge and The Corps Network restore hope. The constant reminders of The Storm still echo but the healing continues.
My two days with the Waveland team complete, time now to head back to New Orleans and catch an early plane to Corpus Christi and Padre Island National Seashore. It’s a relatively short drive West on I-10 back to New Orleans. I should get back to The Big Easy and find a place to stay, but I can’t drive anywhere without stopping to take photographs. Especially on my first week in the Bayou. Especially at sunset.
Something about this exit and this part of the Bayou made it impossible for me to drive any further. The off-ramp goes nowhere. Swallowed by the Bayou and Katrina, the road that was, is not. Another marooned paddle boat, common sight to me at this point. Not so common–a burned out SUV followed by a burned out bus of considerable size. For some reason the car is stopped and I am already taking photos. Weird.
Swinging to my left I startled two skulking birds. They discard their carrion and lift off across the swamp. Turning back around, an abandoned dog rolls out from under the SUV and saunters my way. Stray dogs, vultures, and shelled out SUVs? At this point if the ghost of Louis Armstrong came around the corner I would probably just say hello and continue on. This has got to be the strangest on/off ramp to nowhere that I have ever seen.
As much as I’d love to, I can’t hang out and wait for Lewie, I got a plane to catch.
Rollin’.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Like the photo’s and story, Pat O Sully and I visited the ninth ward two weeks ago on our way through town and were taken aback. The only word I could use to describe what we saw was surreal. Anyway, like your insight, keep it up. Later!!
Zeb
July 1st, 2007 at 12:40 pm
I don’t know why I am writing anything here. I am overwhelmed at the emotions all of the above produced.
I am an old woman who wished to be a forest ranger when I was 20 yrs old and there was no such thing for girls in the 1930s. The thrill I feel now vicariously with your stories. Really alive and sweaty experiences so beautifully stated fills me with joy but envy that I wasn’t then and can’t now be part of this opportunity. I am not angry but happy the SCA puts all your experience on the net so I can forget my crippled legs of now and feel the emotional freedom of your blogs.
I’m thrilled that I can help support some of you but, believe me, it’s not the same feeling I’d have had 70 years ago when no one had thought of such for a free spirit such as mine. God bless you all.
July 1st, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I just wrote the above and don’t know what you want me to say now.
Truly to you Dale Penny and the rest of the leaders in the whole system. You deserve my greatest appreciation for making this possible for me. It takes away my feeling 85 and brings me back to the “me, when I used to dream.
I truly can say, because of this wonderful media gesture, I don’t feel I have missed out entirely in what I would have called. Really Living. Thank You.
Anna May
November 19th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Thank you for the update of the Bayou country; what a beautiful
sunset (and dog), what a tragic ongoing scenario which you have
depicted so well with great photos, and especially your sense of
humor which is soooo restorative in any helping endeavor on our planet earth! I read one of the replies about an elderly lady that wishes
opportunities like SCA would have been available to her “free spirit”
self years ago in the 1930’s. I am now 61 and some opportunities were
open, some not; but this is my first time “chatting” on the web, so to
speak, I am still a beginner with the Computer, but I have been
inspired to get involved somehow, with conservation and the great
out of doors. I still have a few good years in me and now I just need
to decide how to do it. Thanks all of you, for the inspiration. God’s Peace