Probably one of the most remarkable things I've ever done in my life was driving down to New Orleans with nothing more than an printed e-mail and atlas from some woman in Washington State directing us to a farm in Raceland, Louisiana to rescue four-legged victims of Hurricane Katrina.
I was married at the time and we decided to drive from Lake Tahoe (where we lived at the time) to Louisiana via Cincinnati (to drop off our dog), and worked for a week of eighteen-hour days in hundred-degree weather with humidity to match, helping with a hugely successful rescue effort by an organization out of Sultan (of all places) - all hosted by a family on their hundred acre farm amongst the sugar cane fields the low-lying bottoms of Bayou Lafourche.
But that was five years ago and the images will be forever embedded in my mind of ravaged Louisiana and St. Bernard Parish (where we went on rescue): Crossing Lake Pontchartrain and immediately seeing all the blue tarps covering all the roofs; or the few decaying dogs we found outside some of the homes waiting for their owners to return; or the family returning to their home for the first time since the storm struck to find everything destroyed, and asking us (the rescuers from Posados) if we needed anything.
I will always have a spot in my heart for New Orleans.
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