Things started off pretty nicely this morning, I had planned to call a cab but the good folks of Opelika finest said to call in as a distressed motorist. When I got to the garage they had a replacement battery ready to go, but since they don’t worked on Beemers they didn’t know how to work on it, so I showed them how to replace the battery.

Last minute I got a hair up my ass to keep the old battery, it had gone flat and had not tested as good on all cells, but I wanted to keep a spare. Again thanks to the good folks of Opelika, town seems to be falling on hard times but anyone I interacted with was cool.

A quick visit to a battleship and then on to Gulfport, it had been two years since Hurricane Katrina but my expectation was that things were still going to be rough. First top in Gulfport was the SS Hurricane Camille, it was pushed ashore.

A quick pop across the road to the West Side Pier, and then I got my toes into the water on the Gulf side. The West Side Pier was really nice with a pretty sunset. The ride into Gulfport was pretty depressed. A lot of really torn up looking and abandoned buildings that showed no plans to repair. New Orleans got a lot of coverage for its destruction and what I saw a couple of hours later was undoubtedly in bad shape, but parts of the city were coming back. Gulfport looked like no-one was ever going to try and fix.

One onto New Orleans proper, being my first time in that town it was a shame that I was not going to be able to properly enjoy the city. So I parked beside a scooter, grabbed a po-boy and a quick beer. A little walk around the French Quarter and I was ready to hit the road. I need to come back to this city again and do it right.

The ride into New Orleans had some really long causeways that made me question the logic of having the town there when it needs to much faffing around to just make a road work.