Still alive in Covington

I know that you have eagerly been awaiting news from me. Because there are 220 people here wi-fi is hard to come by and I had to give a real hang dog look to get the "secret" password.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. After we checked out of the hotel we dropped off all the luggage and picked up Deano. For some reason Gary and Michael didn't want to go into town with 4 woman and one big man with a tatoos on his head and arms. We ended driving across Lake Poncatrain (24 miles long) into downtown and to the French Quarter. I wasn't impressed with the smell really but the food was great! We ended up ordering appetizers of all kinds of things and sharing. We had alligator sausage! Really, really good. Raw oyster, fried oysters, fried shrimp, catfish and jambalya. Deano didn't eat with us because he is allergic to all fish and seafood. He would have blown up like a big balloon and died so he had beer.

After that we found a visitor center and they directed us to the St. Bernard parish where it was hit really had after the levee broke. The devistation was incredible. Some many hoomes still left vacant. You could see where the water and debris had come through and everything was just piled up from floor to ceiling. There was such a somber mood in the truck and tears were shed. We continued down the street and long behold...we found a parade! It was St Bernard's annual Italian - Irish parade to celebrate St. Patrick's day. They had 43 floats and threw whole cabbages, potatoes, onions, carrots, ramen, lemons, beads, candy and underwear into the crowd. People had big bags and were just stuffing the food into them to take home and cook and share with neighbors. I caught a couple of cabbages but after awhile I stopped going for the potates. Those puppies hurt! When were first got there we were picking up strings of beads everywhere. Towards the end of the parade we're looking going "no that's just a plain strand, I want fancy ones". We came home with approx 600 strands of beads. Deano got a t-shirt and underwear! We talked with the locals and just laughed and had fun. They talked to us about Katrina and the aftermath. They were fabulous and gave us all hugs when we left. It was truly a highlight of all times.

Today we went to Doris's house in Lacombe. We did dry walling on the ceiling. The girls were awsome with the nail guns! Valerie was a real "Machine Gun Sally" and Rachel was a true brut with her gun. I couldn't even pull the trigger on her gun. We are going to be there until Thursday.

It's now lights out time so I have to sign off. Time for this is hard to come by but I will try when ever available. Thanks for the prayers!