In the morning I woke stiff and a little chilled, the temperature having dropped overnight. It was 5:30 am and the sun was not up. I packed my car and took off south towards the ocean. I reached the Atlantic at about 7:30, at a town called Fernandina Beach. I parked my car and walked a few miles along the sand. That sense of restrictive oppression that had begun to lift the day before was now nearly gone, and each wave that curled around my legs carried a little more of it away. After my walk I drove south along the coast till I reached Jacksonville, then took Highway 10 inland along the south Georgia border. I drove straight through Florida and spent the night just east of New Orleans.
I pulled into New Orleans early the next morning and began to explore the old part of town. .
The streets smelled of mold and stale alcohol mixed with the scent of the salt marshes to the east. At 9:00 am the city was deserted and I had Bourbon street to myself.
I walked the brick paved alleys till things started to wake up, then tried to drive out of the city.
I could not find the freeway. Street signs were missing, roads were blocked off for repair. I ended up lost deep in the now vacant Ninth Ward. Grass was growing up in cracks between the sidewalk slabs, old paper and trash littered the streets. Every house was boarded up and abandoned for block after block.
For over an hour I drove, trying to find my way out using the position of the sun as a guide. Once back on the freeway I headed straight across the crawfish flats towards Texas, into the teeth of a howling storm"
