A visit to the north shore. One longgggggg bridge. The excitement builds. A word about potholes.

A wonderfully sunny day in the Big Easy yesterday and I took advantage of it. I got in a good hour and a half walk early in the morning that stretched past Tulane and Loyola universities on St. Charles to Carrolton Ave. up to Clairbourne Ave and then back towards downtown.

At Tulane the spring break family tours for potential new students was underway. I passed at least eight groups of 12 to 15 students and parents when I went through the campus on my way to Carrolton.

Lake Pontchartrain and the New Orleans City Park are on the north side of New Orleans and the park itself is one of the largest and most visited in the country. Founded in 1853, at 1300 acres, the park itself is 50% larger than Central Park in New York just to give you an idea of its size. It's the home of the New Orleans Museum of Art, 600 year old live oaks, a golf course (there were 3 before Katrina), a botanical garden, amusement parks, stables and a couple stadiums.

 Here's some of the hundreds of live oaks in the park.

The entrance to the New Orleans Museum of Art (free and open 7 days a week).

 The park is built on Bayou Metairie and the former Allard Plantation. It was mostly swampland and still contains many lakes and canals.

Just to the north of the park is Lake Pontchartrain. Covering 600 sq. miles, it averages only 10 to 15 feet deep. That's kind of ironic given this sign.

 
It's the home of the Causeway the longest continuous bridge over water in the world, some 23 plus miles. You can see it in the distance.

I never cease to be amazed as to the amount of information on Wikipedia. On my way to the lake I passed a historic site (Fort St. John/Spanish Fort) and stopped back by on my way downtown. The sign just gave a bit of history about the fort, originally Spanish then French and finally American that guarded the entrance to New Orleans from the Lake. But Wiki states that the site was also a large amusement site that had a " casino, a resort hotel, dancing pavilions, an alligator pond, and in its later decades amusement rides such as the "Scenic railway", a roller coaster. A steam railway, and later an electric streetcar system".

It's just a stone wall now and for the less curious, just the remains of a fort.

The excitement builds here as the Reeds spent the night in Orange, Texas on their way to visit. They'll arrive sometime around noon and we'll be looking to celebrate St. Paddy's with some green beer and oysters somewhere.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!" As the cajuns say, y'all.  More tonight.

Oh, right. Potholes. You ain't seen nothin like the potholes here. I swear some could swallow my Toyota. I thought about taking pictures, but I'm not sure they will do justice. I think I'll get Bob and Carolyn to pose in some of them just to give you scale.