A general atmosphere of dereliction seems to be the Chalmette Battlefield’s way of confessing that it merits only a cursory visit; and I did not give it more. A cracked pavement circles an irregularly mowed field, with faded placards indicating the positions and movements of troops during the battle; atop a rampart sat a few […]
Category Archives: Travels
In the Military Burying Ground.
25-May-14read what he said I stopped off at the Chalmette battlefield, where took place the event typically called the Battle of New Orleans – in which General Andrew Jackson repulsed an invading British army as the last act of the War of 1812. Jackson was defending New Orleans – hence the traditional name of the battle – but it […]
Through Chalmette.
25-May-14I was curious to see Chalmette. I remember one time I was speaking with a woman in New York who said she was from New Orleans. “New Orleans!” I said. “What part?” She paused a bit and then said, “Just outside New Orleans, actually. You probably wouldn’t know it.” “I might,” I said. “I know […]
Abandoned Church, St. Bernard Parish.
25-May-14In the Parish.
24-May-14I wasn’t eaten that night by an alligator, as it turns out; I woke up entire, and immediately hopped on my bike to do a little morning tour of the park. There were all kinds of wading birds everywhere; they flew off as soon as I was within a hundred feet or so. I found […]
Into the Dagobah System.
20-May-14I stayed that night at St. Bernard State Park, where I paid twenty dollars for the right to camp legally. The very nice woman at the gate, who looked kindly on the idea of biking up the river and seemed eager to please, thought long and hard about which campsite to give me. She had […]
Fiddler Crab Holes.
20-May-14Throughout Louisiana, the roads are at least slightly embanked to deal with flooding, and the river of course is heavily leveed, and the material for the banks and levees typically comes from nearby – generally the ground adjacent to the road or levee. So you are always travelling next to a ditch. The drier ditches […]
The Mississippi River at New Orleans.
20-May-14Bible, King Louisiana Version.
20-May-14This is actually a pretty good transcription of the way people talk in Louisiana, where there is no distinction between “fine” and “find.” But I’ll note the full transcription should be “Who fahn may, fahn lahf.”
The eastbank of the river is not heavily developed in Plaquemines Parish, but periodically along the river you will see chain-link fence behind which sit large industrial complexes; I saw a grain elevator that smelled like Honey Nut Cheerios, pouring grain directly into a tanker ship: no packaging, just grain dumped straight onto seabound steel. […]