New Orleans road trip - Day 14 - New Orleans

Had another relaxing day today. No alarm set, no shuttle caught, leisurely breakfast and coffee. Greg and Aimee took off and did some shopping. I took the bike off the rack for the first time and

rode along the top of the levee. The river is over its banks and lapping at the trees and grass.

The river is to the left in this photograph and the houses to the right are well below that level. That subdivision is called Oak Highlands but there is nothing "high" about it. Much of New Orleans is in a basin, below sea level, pumps work 24/7 to pump the water out into the river (or on the other side of the city, the lake, that is actually an estuary) at the same rate as the water going over Niagara Falls.

Every now and then there are views of the river and the commercial traffic on it. Roads go up and over the levee to reach the marine businesses on the river banks.

I thought I saw a Golden Eagle while biking but on looking it up it was probably an immature bald eagle as goldens are rare on the southern Mississippi.

Five of these birds were in the grass beside the levee

They are immature White Ibis.

At the rivers edge; egrets and plastic bottles.

After my legs turned back from jelly (I hadn't been on my bike for a while) I sat outside in the sun and did some finishing on a rug. We went to Charles Seafood for supper, the place we went on our first night, and again indulged in a shrimp feast. We had the Royal red shrimp again and I have just looked them up on the Internet. They are naturally a bit pink in colour and live much deeper than regular shrimp making them more difficult to harvest with a limited number of boats licensed to fish for them. They are bigger, sweeter, more delicate and have a shorter cooking time. I had never heard of them before this trip but have to say that they taste like a cross between a shrimp and a lobster.
We leave New Orleans tomorrow and travel, on American Thanksgiving, to Biloxi, Mississippi.