Back home now, bloody knackered, only another ten hours to stay awake before I can sleep (the only way to overcome the jetlag quickly - go without sleep for 36 hours, go to bed your normal weeknight time, then up for work the next day at 6am - it works but it sucks!)

I did start to bring the diaries up to date at the airport but there wasn't a free wi-fi access point so I gave up! Here's what I did do though, the last couple of days will follow when I've recovered!! Thanks for all your suggestions guys, they all went to make a great break.

Day 11

The day started off well, if a little late, after a fantastic nights sleep - always a nice way to start a Monday morning! After a couple of days of being woken by my alarm clock I finally woke up at 9am. By the time I’d showered and repacked the car I was the last person to check out of the motel. I really should have left earlier as I was on a reasonably tight schedule to get down to New Orleans and have a good look around but my heart wasn’t really in it, maybe because of all the horror stories that I had heard of the aftermath left when Katrina blew through.

I’m not sure why but, when I realised how close I was to Florida, I decided to head over there… just because, I guess. Pensacola was the nearest town, and somewhere I’d never even heard of, so off I set to find out what was there. I hasn’t looked at the map properly, so didn’t realise just how far it actually was and the drive took quite a lot longer than I was expecting. Why is it that the signs off the interstate don‘t actually inform you how far a destination is until you‘ve turned off and driven ten miles across county? It certainly noticeable the way that the scenery changed in such a short distance, after I’d headed into Florida. After a brief look at Pensacola I headed off in the direction of where I should have been all along: New Orleans.

On my previous visits to the US I’d always ended up taking home armfuls of cheap clothes so this time I deliberately packed light. But the pre-planned visit to the designer outlet center in Dallas was a total washout - and I’m not just talking about the weather. Without a plentiful supply of new clothes I’d started to run out of fresh ones and had started to keep an eye out for another shopping mall. Passing Gulfport I spotted another outlet center and quickly spun the car around. It proved to be another total waste of time but I end up talking to a local for twenty minutes about Katrina and, predictably, England.

As I headed on towards Louisiana I started to notice increasing amounts of storm damage. Not anything huge but things such as those huge advertising towers alongside the road having been torn down by the storm and large lines of trees having been totally upended. But I’d been assured, both by the guy at the outlet center and the lady at the Louisiana visitor center, that all the reports were exaggerated and New Orleans itself had been fixed up and was now better than ever.

It had been suggested that I entered the city via the Lake Pontchartain Causeway and I thought, hey why not but, to force my mapping software to take me that route I had to enter a waypoint to the north of the causeway. Looking at the map I noticed that the Fairview-Riverside State Park was the perfect place to detour via and, as I was passing, it made sense to pop in to ask about camping. “Yes, sir, we have camping plots, $12 a night, hot showers and a good nights sleep guaranteed” - I couldn’t lose - and paid up there and then.

Having put up the tent I decided to face my demons and head into New Orleans to see if it was any better than the image that I’d picked up somewhere.

As I drove onto the causeway I couldn’t see the other side and thought to myself, oh my god those guys were lying to me, it HAS sunk into the sea, but looking over at my laptop explained the situation, “Continue on Causeway Boulevard South for 24 miles” Holy hell… that’s pretty much the same distance as crossing from England to France! It has to be said, after the novelty wore off, it was actually quite a tedious drive, even if the surroundings were pretty impressive. I wonder how many people manage fall asleep on that stretch of road, I know I almost did!

The road system on the other side of the lake was like a bowl of spaghetti, and forced me to wake up fast, but I managed to find myself passing the infamous Superdome and heading into the French Quarter. Streets & Trips took this moment to throw a wobbly, first crashing, then being unable to pick up any of the GPS satellites due to the high buildings, so it was purely good luck that saw me driving straight into Bourbon Street. Either that or bad luck. Cos it was full of nutters who seemed intent on kicking in the side of my car or, even better, the underside of the car… at least that is the only reason that I could come up with for them all trying to get me to drive over them.

After six or eight blocks of madness I got a bit bored and headed down towards the waterfront where the lady in the welcome center had suggested I would find a lot of parking. There was indeed lots of, erm, lots. It’s just my luck that the entry barrier on the one I turned into was broken and unable to give me a ticket. Remembering that the LDW insurance on the car didn’t cover tyre damage I did what the big sign said and didn’t ‘back up’ over the spikes and proceeded straight to the exit to explain the situation. The two muppets stood in the booth wanted to charge me $6 just for having driven through and, when I said I wasn’t going to pay for doing that, one of them pretty much threatened to get the boys down to sort me out! Eventually we reached an understanding that, in return for a hand written ticket, she would get the queue behind me to ‘back up’ and I would indeed park there for the duration of my stay. Unbelievable.

If my image of the city being full of nutters wasn’t confirmed by what I’d witnessed so far then it certainly was when I actually got out to explore on foot. If it wasn’t mad old women coming up to me, shaking my hand and telling me ‘god bless you’, then it was drunken guitar players taking offence when I declined their offer to donate to their personal pension fund. After an hour I was done and headed off for a drive down St Charles Avenue where I’d been told I would find lines of impressive houses.

After a few blocks I realised that, yes, they were very nice but that I’d seen plenty of nice houses in my lifetime and so I headed towards the Garden District to look there. As I turned off St Charles Avenue my jaw must have hit the floor, the entire scenery changed, it was like stepping into a war zone. People were living by the side of the road, in the rubble of their entirely collapsed houses or, if they were lucky enough to have a house, they had entire walls or even roofs missing or covered by blue tarpaulins. Street after street totally destroyed, it felt like I was laughing at them driving through gawping out of a flash car. My camera had actually stopped working earlier that day but, even if it had been working, I’d have been too ashamed to take any photos. I will never understand how probably the worlds richest country can leave those guys living like that after so long.

I had planned to return for a second look in the morning but, with this bad taste in my mouth, I decided I’d had enough of New Orleans and got the hell out of there. As I left I noticed a whole load of signs with encouraging messages like ‘Thou shall not kill’ and ‘Take it out on the government, not each other’ - I felt like crying for those people who’d been abandoned. I was glad to get back to the campsite and turn in for an early night.