It’s Sunday 4 August 2019, 10 years to the day after I boarded a southbound Amtrak train at King Street Station in Seattle after arriving there by bus from Vancouver, British Columbia.
Yesterday, I got a few shots of a BNSF Railway train on the Huey P. Long Bridge, and, today, just three days after I left the homestead south of Lafayette, I will return there today.
First, befere we get to the decent DSLR-camera shots, let’s see a few cell-phone snaps from my morning walk along Bayou Saint John toward NOMA.
That’s nice, though I don’t much feel like I belong here anymore.
NOMA and Bayou Saint John are special places, though, and always will be to me.
Okay, I am now back at the crib, and I have the DSLR camera in my hand; that’s all for cell phone snaps from today.
There is water in the dryer. Why is there water in the dryer?
There was a big flood here since I last was here, one apparently even bigger than the one in May, and that is another reason that I don’t feel safe here.
Well…
At 16:10 CDT, I walked out the door of the crib, and, at 16:11, I started the truck up and left, going to the homestead again indefinitely, possibly for as long as until I have to again mow the grass in New Orleans, check mail, and get a haircut again.
Tomorrow, we go to that crappy city even farther to the west to do a walkthrough for the house there. I really really really really want to go home, back to Children Baldwin Avenue, pretty badly.
Oh, well. To hell with my life.
There is rain here, or, at least, there has been. Sometime over the last 24 hours, possibly earlier this morning, I noticed that a bubba bear from high school is on Twitter. As it turns out, he’s a Trumper. That is so sad. While I was digging through his Twitter account, I found some other people I know, roughly my age, from back home. Their profiles did not reveal political or ideological preferences.
It’s a near certainty that my time in New Orleans will come to an end in January, and I will miss this place plenty.
Anyway, I decided, for reasons that I needed some variety and for reasons that I wanted to explore that part of the world while I still could, to go west today via I-10 instead of via US 90, which is to say, go via Grosse Tete and Henderson instead of via Raceland and Morgan City.
I’m driving up to the Sunshine bridge now. I had to take a detour because the on-ramp from River Road is closed.
As I was driving up, I was trying to think of the last time I had been on the Sunshine Bridge, and I couldn’t think of it. It has been ages for sure. But then I saw a couple of structures on it and, or I saw the nearby fueling station, that Shell place and casino, and realized that I came here with The Mid-City Marine in the summer of 2012, and I think we were here seven years ago yesterday, or seven years ago tomorrow actually. Wow. We were foaming on either side of the river, as I recall. But I don’t know what was the last time before that as it may have been at least a few years before that back when I had life, back when I had a life and had hope. I miss having hope in life.
My goal here was, among other things, to scope out railroad action on the Union Pacific Livonia Subdivision, the old Texas & Pacific Railway and, later, Missouri Pacific Railroad mainline along the western bank of the Mississippi River upriver from New Orleans.
I have always found this line to be relatively boring, and, so, it is appropriate that the best photographs that I got today were of some storm clouds while I was scoping out the track.
We are at South Plaquemine here, really Allemania, looking to the westnorthwest at some storms approaching Plaquemine.
That is a sugarcane field, and grinding season is not terribly far away.
So, a train shows up, but I have to chase it all the way back to North White Castle to get a somewhat okay shot of it.
Okay, cool, but I am not chasing this thing farther south. It’s late, and I need to get to the homestead.
I would also like to see what Plaquemine and Addis look like before it gets dark. I have plenty to say about last week, a week ago Saturday, things that Mom said on our way to and from the crappy city, and the fact that Nonc, and then, and Tante Racista is supposedly around that supposedly nice island or whatever. I guess that I am just too weird to visit.
But I had a cousin get married not terribly far from here to a guy from not terribly far from here, and I remember the wedding well, but particularly all of the things – like foaming – that I did in town before and after the wedding; so, I think about her, them, and all of that when I am around here, and here is a southbound train crossing Bayou Plaquemine and entering the street trough through town.
The time is just before 19:20. This is the first time in many years I take a picture here, and possibly even the first digital photograph that I take here.
Being here and taking these pictures brought back plenty of memories, for sure. That old area where we used to watch trains by the courthouse is now a Veterans Memorial, and it’s hard to just sit there and watch trains anymore, and this is also where I met The Mid-City Marine many moons ago!
Of course, I was there today for only long as I need to be to photograph this train which I intercepted when I was leaving town coming north, when I saw when I came back to downtown that there are a bunch of old Missouri Pacific flatcars in the siting here north of down or just little stories track or whatever this is.
Hey, look at the faded CNW markings on that second hopper car, and that the first car is an MKT hopper car.
I guess all I have left now is to see is Addis before I pick up I-10. I am thirsty and hungry.
Here is the museum in Addis that was a bank.
And, finally, here is a shot of Addis Yard.
Prior to the construction of Livonia Yard, this yard was a major yard for the UP and, especially, the MoPac.
I am pleased with the images that I got today along the old Texas & Pacific Railroad upriver from Donalsonville. And I am sad that I’m probably losing access to that part of the world. I would like to explore White Castle more and take some pictures there. I guess I could go to Donalsonville, too.
That is all.
Jbx
