Wesley's got it right.

Sorry I never touched base with Bobert. Luray is right on my route between NO and NJ, but it's an awkward place to make a stop because it's nowhere near the halfway mark ~ much closer to the northern end of the trip than to New Orleans.

I'm off on a second trip early tomorrow morning, driving down, working on the house for about a week, then flying back and leaving my car in New Orleans. (That way we'll have one car at each of our two "home" locations.)

(Maybe I can make a quick daytime visit to Bobert tomorrow afternoon ~ maybe. If not, I will have missed my chance; can't make a stopoverat his placewhen flying!)

Peggy and I will then take turns traveling south to continue working and to keep an ear to the ground regarding such issues as when electricity and gas will be restored to our area, etc. One of us has to stay with Mom at all times, of course, and we'll definitely spend at least a little bit of time with both of us in New Jersey, but it looks like we'll have to do a lot of traveling, and that we need to maintain a nearly-constant one-at-a-time presence in New Orleans if we hope to rebuild and move back as quickly as we want to.

Since our main floor is pretty much unaffected, we should be able to move back home sooner and more easily than most. It still promises to be a daunting task, if only because the city as a whole, the entire community, is so drastically impacted. It's certainly a strange place to be right now, populated largely by insurance adjusters, federal employees, and National Guardsmen ~ no tourists, and not even very many locals. Plus which, the entire landscape is dead and gray and there is a pervasive scent of mold everywhere. Weird.

People are still carousing and having fun, better than anywhere else on the planet, despite everything. I saw an article in this morning's local NJ paper about a Halloween parade in the French Quarter this past weekend. I'm sure that there will be more festivities tonight, on the actual date of 10/31.

More later. Just got up and running on DSL, but tonight I have to pack and prepare to travel, and of course while in New Orleans for the next week or so, I won't be reading and posting online messages ~ I'll be performing heavy labor at a job site with no utilities (i.e., no internet access, among many other things). I'll be flying back here on Tuesday 11/8 ~ at which time and for the following week or two I should be able to catch up a bit on my on-line psuedo-life.

Pops