New Orleans Mile 4355.4

The view from our “villa” on Dataw Island

We woke up at Dataw Island SC and got to New Orleans 695.3 miles and 14 hours later. In between, we drove through rural Georgia on back roads, mostly on two-lane state highways, then through the northern Florida panhandle, southern Alabama, southern Mississippi, and the south-eastern corner of Louisiana, the last three in the dark on Interstate 10.  Almost all the following pictures were taken by Michele from the car.









Next to a very ornate County Civic Center, was a plain County Jail where family members, presumably, waited to visit inmates on a Saturday afternoon. Driving by at 25 miles per hour, in air-conditioned isolation, it seemed especially sad. 
This was the only Civil War statue we saw during the trip, so far, and we only drove by one Confederate flag. 
We stopped at the world’s largest Peanut Statue to have a lunch of barbecued chicken, Carolina style, and coleslaw.

Passing through both Tennessee and Georgia on back roads, we passed a church about every five miles – maybe less – and searching the radio, in the neighborhood of 88.5, we got either NPR, Gospel Music, or a sermon. Every sermon, without exception, was anti-government. Some were rabidly anti-government and some were mild but the constant message was “trust and rely on God, not the government”.


For some reason, completely unfathomable to me, every time I type in the caption and hit update, both the picture and the caption disappear. The caption should read something like Crossing the Perdido River and crossing from Florida to Alabama. 

Same caption problem. Crossing from Alabama into Mississippi in the dark with a camera that insists on focusing on the windshield.

And finally, we cross into Louisiana having crossed the entire State of Mississippi in the dark. Driving into New Orleans, we are in the first big city on our trip. We are staying with Gina and Courtney in a four-story home in the French Quarter. On Sunday morning, Michele sleeps in. 

7 thoughts on “New Orleans Mile 4355.4

  1. I think I recognize an intersection up in one of the pictures…looks like so many in Alabama. Am so enjoying your journey and seeing all these green and beautiful (and not so beautiful) parts of the Great South.

  2. Did driving to New Orleans make you feel better about the country since everyone down there seems so anti-government? Or is it the proliferation of churches?

    1. The churches are not as bad as the constant Christian radio telling people to trust god, not the Government.

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