Yesterday Shirley, Shirley's sister, Sue, and I drove from Covington, LA, here to Lake Charles, LA. The devastation we have seen during our trip south has been awesome. You can't believe how much worse things look first-hand from the impressions you get from television.

On Friday we drove through the Lower Ninth Ward and through St. Bernard Parish. Unbelievable! After all these months there is debris everywhere, houses collapsed or heavily damaged, huge trees lying on the ground, whole areas seemingly untouched since Katrina blew through. We drove past the school where Shirley's sister, Loretta, taught for years. She pointed out how it was then because now it is a pile of rubble.

Here in Lake Charles where Rita struck the hardest conditions are better, but evidence of the storm is everywhere.

It is horrific, horrific. And we have seen only a small fraction of the horror--and that eight months past the event.

At one point Sue asked who would want to live in such a god-forsaken place, especially after god left such a mess in his wake. As it turns out, lots of people must want to live here because property values are soaring and the traffic is something to behold. There is a lot of construction in the areas north of New Orleans, especially on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain in Covington and Slidell.

Yesterday was Sue's birthday. Shirley dropped the two of us at a new and luxurious casino where we gambled for a while (lost everything), then had a grand dinner in a fabulous restaurant next door (charged everything). It was a nice way to spend this birthday. We both reminisced about this day 20 years ago when we saw "Cats" in London followed by a birthday dinner, also at a nice restaurant. The other birthdays are mostly a fog--except of course for the big 60 bash when Sue was so ill.

Now we are about to check out of this hotel and head south again. More later.