Just after Hurricane Katrina, three bloggers -- Lindsay Beyerstein, Kyle Shank, and Bob Brigham -- headed down to Louisiana as guests of the state NAACP. They toured the area, took photographs, and wrote about their experiences. I devoured those posts from Capitol Hill. I wasn't even much of a blogger at the time, but I found that I just didn't have it in me to sit behind my desk and watch it all unfold on TV. So I took a week off, dusted off my sleeping bag, and became the second wave, following up on their good work. I didn't exactly know what I was doing, but I took a bunch of pictures and managed to do an interview with Dr. Ernest Johnson, the compelling head of the state NAACP.

It's now about a year-and-a-half later. And a week from Saturday I'll be heading back to Louisiana for just a few days and will be doing some reporting, blogging, and photography. I have a few things planned. For example, I'll be following up with the NAACP, particularly on housing and the post-hurricane voting landscape. I'm also going to visit the Baker trailer camp, the temporary camp that FEMA set up for evacuees about 10 miles outside of Baton Rouge and about 95 miles northwest of New Orleans. As of December, it was still home to 1,200 people. I'm going to be going to some of the places that I took photographs of in October 2005 and try to recreate the same shots, particularly in the downtown area, Slidell, and the Ninth Ward. (Not the Lower Ninth -- I never managed to get in there.)

Question for everyone -- what else should I see, do, investigate while in Louisiana? Anything you're particularly interested in hearing about from New Orleans and the surrounding area? I'll be posting to MyDD while I'm down there.