Plenty of gators to go around

Alligator Museum on Magazine Street

When we left Topanga, we were sad to leave behind the alligator sculpture at our gate. But now that we're here in New Orleans, we've found plenty of gators to keep us company.

It seems like you're never very far from a gator.

Or someone thinking about a gator

This house in the Bywater is covered with murals  and models of sea and amphibious life, one of which is an amazing alligator.

Another house, which is rumored to be the home of a real Voudou priestess, has a double-headed alligator bench in front.

But yesterday evening, I was walking Jack when we came upon this sight, on Alvar Street. It was a kind of pedicab, maybe, with a trailer on it; on the trailer was an alligator clenching a crushed Coca-cola can in its teeth.

It was parked beside an open gate to a garden, cluttered with canopies, lawn furniture and fantastic objects, the fence strewn, as are many in this neighborhood, with Mardi Gras beads. There was a woman inside, I said hello and asked her about the gator.

"Oh, I picked that up somewhere," she said. "The gator's a movie prop." She said they call her Ms Pearl, and that her place is known as Kamp Katrina. "That's Kamp with a K," she said. "I have people staying here from all over the world, artists and musicians. They made a documentary about this place. You know, the water stopped up there at the red light (at Alvar and St. Claude). We had everybody camping in here. You can look it up."