Be it ever so humble...

A street shaded by leafy trees. Brick houses with large fenced backyards. A big, green park with a baseball diamond.

t's easy to imagine children playing in this neighborhood while they waited for the hamburgers to come off the grill at a Saturday barbecue.

You can see some of their toys on window sills. A plastic Palomino horse. A collection of Super Hero action figures.

But there are no kids in this neighborhood anymore. No families. No BBQs. And it's depressing as hell to walk down this block and wonder about the people who onced lived here.

The 'Big Easy': On the Top Ten list
of vacation destinations this year

I guess if you flew into town in a jet with the shades drawn and slept in the cab on the way to your hotel downtown, you might think the old New Orleans was back on its feet.

But even Stevie Wonder would sense that this town is not right.

Oh, there's music playing in the clubs (too little jazz, too much rock) and folks walking down Bourbon Street, drinks in hand. But there's something in the air, mixed with the humidity.

It is a question on the mind of even the most oblivious tourist: When?

The South will rise again.

When will New Orleans? And when will the water?

Among the tamer t-shirts in store

And any place I lay my head is home

The New Orleans KOA Campground was 95% occupied by FEMA trailers when we pulled in on June 16.

We guess the campground owner decided last year to turn the park over to the government until the tourists came back.

Curiously, most of the trailers are no longer occupied. And yet, people pitch tents in parking lots?

Driving to New Orleans? Your best approach is from the west

Two days in New Orleans was enough. We had our beignets and cafe au lait, sampled the local brew and then headed east.

When folks think of Katrina damage, New Orleans gets all the press. But it's the entire region--east along the Gulf Coast to Mississippi and Alabama--that suffered this devastation.

Two hours out of Louisiana, we exited I-10 to fill up at one of the three gas stations listed on the freeway sign.

Each had blown away.

Not til we reached Florida did the scenery look pristine again. Pensacola looks quite fit and busy with condo construction.

It's been two years since a hurricane knocked this town down.

The Superdome: Hotel Evacuation

Are the families coming back?

Every once and a while you'll pass a house with a sign out front: "New Orleans is my home and I'm coming back!".

But few folks have returned.

Perhaps ten percent of the homes we passed in East New Orleans had trailers parked in the front yard, with a homeowner waiting for the day to move back into their brick house.

If they didn't like their neighbors next door, no problem. Those folks probably won't be back.

Will McDonalds?

At Cafe Lafete in Exile: 25 cent oyster shooters

Higher ground

In the Garden District on the west side of town, the stately old homes along St. Charles are still standing tall and dignified, not a brick out of place.

Imagine owning a $1.5 million home here and having to abandon it--and all of your objects d'art--because a bitch named Katrina forced an evacuation of the city.