Labor Day in D-Town

I had decided before going to bed last night that I would sleep late this morning, and indeed I did. Realdo called (and my cellphone actually rang!!) in the morning to say that the French Consulate was trying to get reorganized in Baton Rouge rather than Lafayette, and that they were now trying to find a place to stay there. The Wife's sister, whose house in New Orleans is on the corner of Willow and Calhoun near Tulane, is now in Baton Rouge. She is a real estate agent with Keller Williams and is now working on finding people housing in B.R. She'll be moving into her mom's old house on Harrell's Ferry Road for the time being. Anyway, I put her in touch with them and vice-versa, so perhaps she can help. From what I hear, Baton Rouge is basically a boom town right now and everything is a bit scarce, especially housing. We shall see.

So today I didn't ride at all, and by the middle of the day I was already regretting it, but I suppose I needed a day off the bike, especially since my legs felt so dead yesterday. One thing I have noticed about riding here. Sweat evaporates! After riding pretty hard for over three hours yesterday, I was quite surprised to find that there was no sweat on the inside of my Oakleys. Usually by the end of a typical Giro ride in N.O., I have to use the last bit of water in my bottle to rinse off the inside of my glasses so I can see well enough to ride home. I think the relative humidity today was around 20%.

The good news on the home front is that they have gotten the drainage pumps working again and the break in the floodwall patched up, so I think I can say that the recovery process is finally beginning. Believe me, there will be some unbelievable stories coming from this hurricane. The psychiatrists who are working in the trenches are already starting to show some signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome and two city policemen have committed suicide. Tulane Psychiatry is trying to help with that. It will be a long road, but I think we will get our city back eventually, and the support of the nation has been impressive. New Orleans is one of the most unique cities in the country and many people have visited it, and there seems to be a strong desire to rebuild it.

The Wife has been working much of the day contacting the people in the department and getting ready to set up a conference call. I have a few things to do tomorrow and think I will be able to be useful via internet and telephone wherever we end up. I registered with FEMA today, but apparently since I don't have any actual major expenses at this point there's not much they are willing to do other than to refer me to the Red Cross and that sort of thing. I'll give another call to my insurance company regarding things like relocation expenses to see if we can get any assistance there to ease the strain a bit. At the moment, at least I am not too worried about paying my electric or water bills too promptly!

Tomorrow, I'll ride. I think I'm going to have to break down and buy a floor pump and perhaps even a tire or two. My training wheels, which are all I have, are equipped with hand-me-down tires with lots of cuts and slashes, and although luckily I had a couple of patched tubes in my race kit that I took with me, I've already had two flats since I got here.

Courtney sent an email this afternoon. Her house in New Orleans was probably pretty well flooded and they relocated to Baton Rouge. She drove over to river road today for a training ride and when she returned found that someone had broken into her car, gotten into the trunk and stolen her purse, including her ID, credit cards, etc. Just to twist the knife.