Day 20: May 6, 2018 The Other End Comment via blog

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I spent the night in Port Allen on the west side of the Mississippi from Baton Rouge. I crossed over and soon found myself on Jefferson Highway. That's REGULAR Jefferson Highway, not OLD Jefferson Highway. The name disappeared for awhile when the street merged with another but it soon reappeared in a big way.

I came back to the river near the town of Geismar and basically hugged it all the way to New Orleans. The river and road have both moved around a little over the years and the riverside probably doesn't look like it did in the 1910s. Today it's lined with nice big grass covered levees and actually looks rather attractive. The first bridge pictured is the Sunshine Bridge which carries LA-70. The second is the Veterans Memorial Bridge which carries LA-3213. The area is basically industrial looking with refineries and oil and grain handling equipment. Some of the rigs look pretty good, though.

I sure wasn't expecting a plantation big house among those storage tanks and silos but there it was. San Francisco Plantation offers tours but I didn't take one. There are signs posted in front of the place warning against stopping on the pavement so all of the blurs in the photos are legally mandated.

Just beyond Muntz, Spillway Road was closed for "flood control". Getting around it wasn't too tough but I skipped another two and a half miles of my planned route.

This is Kenner where the "first world championship heavyweight prize fight held in the United States" took place. Before that, it was where René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle landed when he was out claiming and naming. Here he claimed a huge bunch of land for France and he named it Louisiana for France's king. All of that was quite a surprise to me. I'd stopped merely to get a look at the river on the other side of those levees. The submerged trees make me think it must be somewhat bigger than normal. Kenner is near an airport and very much on the Jefferson Highway.

From Kenner, I kept following the GPS instructions until I was driving down Canal Street and turning onto Saint Charles. You'd think that I'd have researched what corner the marker is on but I didn't. I knew it was at the next intersection but nothing more. I was lucky to spot it and get a shot between cars. First contact. I've driven 3,943 miles to get to this point so you're going to get three more pictures. The first is just a picture I was able to take while standing still. I found a parking spot a few blocks away (free on Sundays:-) and walked back. The next is a photo from the rear showing the palm trees I've been driving from the pines to for seventeen days. The last is the selfie I Tweeted and posted to Facebook to announce my arrival.

Now to celebrate. An internet search turned up an unpretentious sounding bar just a couple of blocks away. From the outside, Chuck's Sports Bar looks even less pretentious than it sounds and the inside is even less pretentious than that. Among the four taps was a beer from New Orleans Lager and Ale Brewing Company, so that's what I had. Before leaving I asked about the big pipes in the front and the bartender explained that it was their water connection. Plumbing has to be added to these old buildings by whatever works. He then went outside with me to point out a couple aspects of the building and its National Register plaque.

It was time to check into my motel, then hook up with my son for a poor boy and a couple of beers. Only now, as I'm writing this and sorting pictures, did I realize that, over two days, I did not get a single picture of my son or his family. Now that's embarrassing.

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