Grandma's recess: It was an easy trip to the "Big Easy"

Alabama Welcome Center (near Huntsville)

It was another day on the highways and byways of America by me and Joan.

We left Nashville at 8:30 a.m. and crossed the rest of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana arriving in Slidell about 4:30 p.m.

After checking into the hotel we headed downtown to get our bearings for tomorrow’s trip to the Port, but I also wanted to see the Nazarene Church that I worked at during the Hurricane Katrina cleanup back in 2005 and 2006.

The outside of the church looks much as I remember it when I last saw it. There is considerably more landscaping and the interior of the church looks like it was set up for a wedding dinner.

The beautiful near 3-land bridge over Lake Ponchatrain

We took some photos and then headed back to Slidell for dinner.

One thing about a massive natural disaster like Katrina is that everything had to be rebuilt or completely remodeled. Everything down here seems brand spanking new. A bit of an exaggeration, but the hotels and restaurants all look new.

The bridge over Lake Ponchatrain has been considerably improved since we used it in the months after the hurricane. Instead of a patched together two-lane road the bridge is now a beautiful six-lane highway (3 lanes in each direction).

Me in front of the restored church

Many of the neighborhoods have been worked on, but you can see occasional signs of homes and businesses that are still boarded up.

There were many wonderful memories of a very difficult time for the folks in this part of the country. I made many good friends during my work here. We are going to try and go to a morning services at the Nazarene Church tomorrow morning before heading to the Port.

I haven’t had Australian food for a while so we headed to the local Outback Restaurant to fill up on some Australian cuisine.

Below I'm going to post a few photos of the church during my visits in 2005 and 2006.

Me still at the restored front door of the church yesterday

The truck you see in the picture is the one I drove down to New Orleans five times over six months carrying equipment and supplies to the church. If you look closely you can see the waterline about 6-feet up on the church and house walls in the neighborhood.

For some reason I was having difficulty adding more photos to this so there is a separate post below with more photos from the earlier relief work. Simply scroll down.