New Orleans, San Bernardo Scenic Byway

San Bernardo Scenic Byway, a local road, a little off the beaten path, was too intriguing for us to ignore.
St Bernard, the town and the Parish, are located along the road, east of New Orleans. There were great views of the city.

Sections of Interstate 10 have been rebuilt due to damage from Katrina, and is still being worked on.


Some of this blog may seem like "deja vue" to you since the road follows the Mississippi River, so some of the places we saw from the riverboat were on this road. We got to see them up close and personal!
Although we passed Jackson Barracks on this road and the river, we were not able to visit the museum on site, since they were remodeling it, and we were told to come back in September to see it. John asked if we could take pictures and the answer was no. PGT Beauregard, Andrew Jackson, Robert E. Lee were all trained at this site. ( We did get pictures from the riverboat.)

This area was in the 9th ward, and little town of Arabi did get hit hard with Katrina.
The levees here allowed water to flood the area.

Some have been restored,


others have not.


It was an eye opener to see the area, outside of the city especially, that was hit by Katrina. It seemed that it was taking longer for the rural areas to rebuild.

An old jail, built in 1911 is being remodeled as a museum

The LeBeau Plantation, completed in 1954 sadly is in a state of disrepair, and is one of the last great plantation homes in the metro area.

This was Parish first high school, then an elementary school and then a community center. It has not been reopened since Katrina.



We saw the Domino Sugar Refinery from the river, and were able to see it closer.
It is one of the areas largest employers.

The Cavaroc house, on the refinery property, has an extraordinary alley of date palms streching toward the Mississippi River.

We visited Chalmette National Historic Park, the site of the battle of New Orleans, the greatest American land victory of the War of 1812. The battle was fought on the Chalmette Plantation on January 9,1815. With the odds against Major General Andrew jackson, he led his men to victory and preserved the US claim to the Lousiana purchase.

The obelisk honors the men.

The Beauregard house was built after the war in 1832.



A national cemetery is adjacent to the Park.




Over one third of those buried here are unknown! This one is the only unknown (out of four buried here) from War of 1812. It is known that he died on the way back to TN.


A few miles down the road, the De La Ronde ruins are located in the middle of the road, with a direction on each side!
Built in 1805, it was used as temporary headquarters and a makeshift hospital during the war.


An alley of oaks was planted in 1821. We heard the reason for these alleys is to tunnel the cool breeze from the river up to the house.

Further along there is also a canopy of oak trees over the scenic road. And they all survived Katrina and other previous storms throughout the almost 200 years they have been growing.... imagine what they have seen!!

We continued down the road, through a fishing village,
until the road ended,
where there is a memorial to those in the community who lost their lives in Katrina.

The fishing industry was first hit with Katrina, then with the BP oil spill. An article we read in the paper told of a six generation family of fishermen, struggling to keep a family business open after years of hard work. Some have not returned

while others have.





This is a house is in the process of being hoisted up with pulleys onto posts.

We watched some of the activity of boats coming in with what we were told were mostly oysters at this time of year.

The piles of sand along the road are being used to rebuild the crab beds that were destroyed.

Such a hard life to begin with, and then disasters make it even harder!

We enjoyed getting out of the city and into the country again. It was truly a beautiful drive and I could understand why the people worked so hard to stay.