Archive for the ‘Outside New Orleans’ Category

Both Cemeteries (No. 1 & No. 2) were were originally part of City of Lafayette, a suburb of New Orleans that was absorbed into the greater city. No.1 is in the Garden District, toured daily by many groups of tourists, and has had a dozen movies shot inside its gates.

No. 2 is in Central City- literally down the street and a world away. Now all but abandoned and overgrown with weeds now, it was opened in 1851 when No.1 was deemed to be at capacity. One of the most dangerous housing projects in U.S. stood only 2 blocks away and made this cemetery and its neighbors, St. Josephs 1&2 impossible to visit without putting your life in serious danger.

The projects are gone now, and the neighborhood beginning to stabilize, Post-Katrina, so spring is coming in many forms to Central City.

(originally posted here)

When we were on our road trip around the coast of Louisiana, we stopped into Rayne, a teeny tiny town that happened to lead to Hawk’s, a locally famous crawfish place in the middle of nowhere.

Along this country road was this cemetery- it, like everything else around, was pretty small, but as we passed by I wondered why there was a carport in the middle of the thing. Since it was still light when we came back through, we stopped for a bit.

Despite having only a few dozen graves, there were some really interesting things. They like their statues in Rayne, they do. Lots of them about. And several had quotes and such on them, something that doesn’t seem to happen much in New Orleans.

And there was certainly a sense of style. Take Gertrude Hamilton Johnston’s marker, complete with dog etchings:

A slideshow gallery follows after the jump with more, including the carport that originally caught our eye.

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