Week Three – How to keep yourself entertained on a 10 hour drive – 1. Take pictures of breast shaped rocks, 2. Have imaginary drag races with 18 wheeler lorries, 3. Lose track of how fast you’re going and get pulled over by a State Trooper.

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New Orleans, Austin, El Paso and Santa Fe.


Day 14 - Monday
30.03.09

Morning arrived in New Orleans; too late for free pancakes but just early enough to go and experience some culture. Gaz who we has sat chatting to the night before had learnt of a specific place in New Orleans that suffered from the most devastation when hit by hurricane Katrina and the signs of devastation are still there today 4 years later. We definitely wanted to experience a small piece of this history so we drove off with Gaz in tow to the lower 9th ward.
It wasn’t much of a drive away but when we hit that specific area the contrast between that and just outside was massive. For the most part of it there were just footprints of houses left surrounded by the long overgrown grass. The further you drove however the more abandoned houses you saw that were still there left behind. We got out and took pictures - very weird how this devastation had become a tourist attraction but then the locals were charging $50 for a guided tour so we carried on.
There were loads of abandoned houses with rooves caved in, smashed windows and rotting wood - one of the houses branded the graffiti “this used to be our home.” This was all completely contrasted by the few houses dotted around that were being repaired by their owners. Sometimes only next door to where the abandoned houses sat. Presumably they either wanted to get on with their lives there or they didn’t have the money to move out of the area. Very sad if it were the latter of the two, as I learnt New Orleans is one of the most disastrously built cities in the world as it is below sea level and if the levy were to break in similar conditions to Katrina (which is completely possible) then the whole place would flood again! We did see the part of the levy that burst, just a concrete wall now - I can’t imagine what the place would have looked like 4 years ago.
There were more signs of development in the form of the “Brad Pitt” houses, where apparently Brad Pitt himself put money forward and motivated officials to help build environment and flood-friendly new houses. Great idea if it weren’t for the fact they had to be “different” and so have ended up building very unusually shaped artsy / trendy boxes on stilts. They just looked a bit crap really.

We headed back to the hostel, chilled out till the evening where we sat around meeting new people, drinking and playing Shithead. We met Daisy and Claudia; two American girls aged only 18 in New Orleans checking out a school to go to college. They were cool but very young, this was proved later by Daisy when she went to bed after having drank not a great deal at all but then woke us all up to the sounds of her vomiting - aw, 18 year olds, bless.
We also met Tamara from Australia, travelling around on her own till San Diego. It was cool; we sat chatting about the differences in how we say things (again!) till Gem, Gaz and I went off to Bourbon St to see what the night had to offer us.
It was also at this point in the night that I realised I had been calling Gaz Gareth when his name is actually Graham. I knew his name was Graham but me and Gem change people’s names soooo often as a joke that I had subconsciously and completely confused myself, which I know isn’t hard but I still made a twat of myself!
Bourbon St wasn’t heaving like we’ve heard it has been but it was busy enough - it didn’t help that we made a move to go out at 11.30pm. We had a laugh and Gaz showed us random little “tricks” he used to do while messing around at school. This carried on when we got back to the hostel when him and three others tried to do the “light as a feather, stiff as a board” trick on me, whereby they lift me entirely off the ground (while I’m lying down) only using two fingers each. Me being such a cynical bastard had no confidence in this and was right to do so. I think someone managed to lift my left leg up a couple of inches - not the same really!
The drinking and late night chats turned to such crude things such as douching and felching (I’ll let you google them if you want to know what they are.) This was queue for Gem to go to bed, I wasn’t far behind.


Day 15 - Tuesday
31.03.09

This time I made myself be awake for the free pancakes (woo!) which helped set me up for the drive to Austin. We had realised that so far we were only doing 2-3 hour drives at a time from destination to destination. We’re not going to cover any ground doing that so it was time to throw ourselves in fully and go for a massive 10 hour drive. Tamara, we had found out, was also going to Austin the next day so we invited her along as well, as she is a very cool girl and we are nice like that.
It was a very uneventful drive, nothing worth mentioning other than it was rather funny trying to load up Bluey as it turned out Tamara’s suitcase was bigger than our stuff, us and the car all put together which is very strange as Tamara is a very tiny person, almost on par with a midget.
The whole day consisted of us driving as for some stupid reason we set off at 1pm. We got to the HI-Austin hostel and crashed straightaway. Unfortunately by crashed I DO NOT mean sleep as some stupid bitch thought she’d be “considerate” by listening to music through her headphones so no one else could hear. What she clearly didn’t realise was that when you listen to what I can only describe as drum n bass, others can hear the fuckingly irritating and repetitive bassline. This is one of my pet peeves, I don’t have many but for this I was considering going out and buying a gun to shoot her in the face. Eh, I was too tired so I just fell asleep with a pillow over my head - a little hard to breathe, but suffocation was preferable to listening to that. Not that I’m overly dramatic or anything.


Day 16 - Wednesday
01.04.09

We got up early-ish. We sucked the hostel woman dry of all useful sight seeing information and then headed off to make the most of the day. Austin is a massively music and art orientated city, so we were looking forward to what it had to offer. We headed to South Congress St - a cool little area for food and shops. We immediately spotted a thrift store where we tried on a million t-shirts - all too small, but I did spot a cool belt buckle branding the logo for ‘Bass Anglers Sportmans Society’. It is very Texan and a bargain at only $3 once I haggled him down from $8. It slightly took the shine off though when Julie lovingly pointed out (over webcam) that I was wearing a fish next to my crotch and how appropriate that was - thanks!
We trotted off and found a health food store and a half price book shop so again Gem was in heaven. While she spent an eternity finding an Italian phrasebook, I amused myself by picking out CDs such as Best of Lenny Kravitz and some random NSync CD both of which I only later realised (after paying) that Gem hated - never mind, I’ll play them when she’s napping. Can’t beat a bit of Nsync!

We went back to the hostel which is sat right next to a lake. I knew this already but because we arrived so late the previous night I didn’t know what to expect. The backdoor to the hostel was a stone’s throw away from a beautiful lake including two docks that you have access to. It was amazing - the only thing I can compare it to in my uneducated way is Dawson’s Creek.
The sun was out (hurrah!) so we sat and soaked up the sun and later went down to the dock. It was brilliant, my favourite place so far, location wise. As the sun went in, thoughts turned to night activities so we very slowly got ready and headed into town with Tamara and Patrick, an American we had met staying at the hostel for a few days for work.
We headed off to 6th St, the happening place in Austin with no real plan as we’d decided to leave the lesbo clubs for the night after.
We bar hopped for a while seeking out cheap drinks, proceeded to get very drunk and dance to hip hop - even Gem danced so we must have been pissed. We were on our way to another bar when Gem spotted a street drummer at 1000 paces so she immediately made a bee line for him. He had a spare drum just sat around so she wasted no time in going at it with him. It was very cool and she even drew in a crowd. Some drunken fool tried to have a go afterwards but of course was no match, so we walked away laughing at him.
Just after the drum session and also climbing onto a giant guitar we found sat in the middle of the pavement we found a cool little jazz bar that Patrick had been recommended. It was really different but very cool atmosphere. We continued to drink and play “I have never” which inevitably turned to sex questions which just meant I got very drunk.
As if we weren’t drunk enough when we got back to the hostel we decided to have a few more whilst sat ‘on the dock of the bay’. Really cool, I loved it. The only thing that spoil it slightly were two Australian guys who we met earlier who we had named Gay and Gayer (to comment on their thick meathead attitude like Dumb and Dumber and also that they were clearly closeted homosexuals protesting too much “I’m not a fag!”) Still had a brilliant night though and it was probably good that they came out to join in as it made us go to bed and sleep it off - again 4am!


Day 17 - Thursday
2.04.09

Understandably I woke up with a horrible hangover, not too bad though only my second hangover in 17 days. Hmm, I wonder if Gem can say the same?!
With the help of a hangover coke though I had put that aside as I had a plan to call home as I knew Mother would be in. I spoke to Mum and Rich and ended up calling Gran and Granddad and also left a message for Dad. It was really cool to talk to everyone but by the end of it I was sick of my own voice and still very much hungover - brill.

Compared to the previous day it was really windy so no chance of sweating out the hangover in the sun, instead we decided to go to the cinema to see Sunshine Cleaning. A wicked film and fucking funny - the two sisters in the film reminding us both of how we bicker with each other. Those of you who are actually reading this, go and see it!
The cinema was VERY cool also. It was a smaller independently-run cinema - in the week showing a re-runs of Steel Magnolias and Weekend at Bernies. They also served you food while you watched a film so we were both in heaven.

That night we knew we wanted to go out but that we also had another 10 hour drive the next day to El Paso so the plan was not to drink. This was a plan to be followed by stronger willed people than ourselves as we both hit the alcohol. Gem, Tamara and I headed out to The Rainbow Cattle Company - a dedicated lesbian bar (if you can believe it) with a drag king show on for extrovert dykes that obviously have no other outlet for their poser-y other than to lip synch to “Big Spender” in a very bad way.

There were so many lesbians there we were a bit overwhelmed. We had both never seen so many lezzers in one bar before (how sad is that) AND we were in Texas, can you believe it!
They were such posers though, it was so funny to sit there and dyke watch. Mel, Gem, you would have LOVED it.
American culture is so strange; the music was all R n B and hip hop and all of the women were gyrating on each other and sticking out their arses into one another’s crotches in some form of mating ritual. No one was actually in a couple though as this dance may suggest, they were all just chopping and changing, sometimes mid song - where’s the romance in that?!
It was soooo funny just to sit back and observe - honestly it was like animals at a zoo.
Then to completely contrast to all of this ‘hoochie mama’ dancing, they would start line dancing and two-step couple dancing to songs that would only clear the dance floor in the U.K - only in Texas!
We had a right laugh though - Gem went on a mission to pull a girl in a pink top who we of course named Pinky and we got chatting to Stacy and her friend, who looked like an albino Rastafarian and who unfortunately tried to hit on me, I was having none of it though. Gem did succeed in pulling Pinky, and I managed to befriend a very nice girl, Nicole. She ended up driving us back to the hostel along with Stacy - who we later nicknamed Scrounging Rum Bitch as that’s all she seemed interested in, that and talking about herself that is.
We chilled out on the dock again but this time I wasn’t pissed so when I crawled into bed at 5am I knew I was fine for that 10 hour drive the next day!


Day 18 - Friday
03.04.09

It was time to move on from Austin and our next big destination was the Grand Canyon but that was over a day away of constant driving so we thought we’d throw in a couple of stops on the way.
Were driving to El Paso, I was a bit tired but Gem was still pissed so I took the first leg of the driving!
We said our good buys to Tamara and we hoped we’d meet up with her again somewhere along our journey as she is a very cool girl.
Even though we had tried to plan it better we had again set off for a bloody long journey at 1pm - idiots! A little thing like this didn’t deter us however from stopping several times during the drive for gas, sandwich stops and to take photos of Ed the horse and what can only be described as a breast looking rock which we obviously took advantage of took stupid pictures.
By this point I had had a few hours’ kip in the car (obviously when Gem was driving) so I took over the driving.
Now, let me set the scene - still in Texas but almost edging out of it towards New Mexico. Masses of flat, expansive highway with nothing in between other than dirt, the odd bit of road kill and hardly any other drivers. Because of this you can do 80mph. Brilliant, we can cover some much needed ground wasted taking pictures of houses and breast rocks.
In the distances we cover; 100’s of miles a day it is easy to lose focus for a split second…..I sound like I'm making excuses so I’ll just say it. I got pulled over by a State Trooper for speeding, doing 85 in an 80mph zone. Obviously we shat ourselves but the officer was very nice about it and warned me of the dangers of speeding. He let us off with a warning but told us the next time would be a fine. We thanked him and let him get on with his day of sitting there ready to pounce on the next idiot.
We of course breathed a sigh of relief and eventually did laugh about it. After that though I never went above 75mph and got RSI in my eyes from continually looking down at the speedometer. I'm being extra anal about it all now too, not that I wasn’t before, I said EXTRA anal mum. Don’t worry, were being safe and sensible I promise!

We arrived at the Garden Hostel in El Paso at 11.30pm and by this point Gem had been driving and was very tired and irritable. This wasn’t helped at all by the rude, over opinionated and narrow minded night manager. He tried to tell us in a very adamant way that if we didn’t carry out passports with us at ALL times we would get arrested immediately - Twat. I ignored him while trying to change the subject to save him from Gem punching him in the face.
We got to our private room (which we had paid a whole extra dollar for) and it was fucking appalling. Our sheets were stained, the blankets were matted with other people’s hair and the window was making a very suspect noise. We didn’t care though as we were sooo tired.
Before we went to bed however I did try and investigate the source of the window noise and discovered that not only did the large, single glazed window pane have a massive crack in it, it was also only hinged to the top of the frame and it was the wind that was blowing that back and forth making the mysterious noise. How it didn’t fall down and shatter I don’t know. It was obviously held on by years of shit.
I did try and fix it by using toilet roll as window sealant but for some reason it didn’t work!


Day 19 - Saturday
04.04.09

We had to get up at 8am to move the car so we thought there was no point hanging around El Paso, especially after the un-warm welcome we got from the night manager - funny how he’s not the day manager (who was lovely) with people skills like that.
We were driving to Santa Fe, a 4 hour drive so nothing in comparison to what we’d already driven. Because of this we had a bit more leeway to stop and rest aka fuck around. As the drive was becoming so much more picturesque we stopped and took pictures of nearby mountains - very pretty. We also stumbled upon a thrift store where we bought the All Saints album - Very much on par with the Natalie Imbruglia-esque CD where by if you play it too many times it will just blend into one noise!

We found and checked into The Santa Fe Hostel - another one of those ‘chore hostels’ which we’ll get better acquainted with in the morning I'm sure! We met out roomie, Sandra from Sweden and headed out pretty much straight away for Mexican food which we were both jonesing for being so close to Mexico.
We found Maria’s, a family run restaurant which was obviously so as the 17 year old hostess had no airs or graces and didn’t care as her granny was the boss. The food was fit though and there was shit loads of it so we doggy bagged some of it up so we could eat for free the next day - Woo!
We did contemplate going to the cinema but after realising it was Saturday night, the place was full of shity little kids and we were both irritable as fuck we decided against it and headed back.


Day 20 - Sunday
05.04.09

I woke to the thought of my morning chore - which we couldn’t avoid unless we wanted to lose our $10 deposit, brillo. Its funny that hostel like this and The Zen Hostel in Gainesville boast the pretence of a ‘free spirited crash pad for travellers from far and wide’ (or some bullshit like that) and yet they’re so anal about their rules they completely contradict themselves - Eh whatever.
As we were in such mountainous surroundings now we really wanted to go experience some more of that culture people talk about.
Gem found a near by hike as well as a willing passenger in roomie Sandy to tag along for the ride. We headed off and found Tent Rocks State Park.
Now, New Mexico as you might not realise (we didn’t) is VERY cold. It’s sunny but that is very deceptive as there is a biting wind hitting you constantly. We obviously don’t have any clothes that are suitable for this type of environment so we were going to head off to the Goodwill store to buy a load of jumpers. We instead were luckily shown to the lost and found area of the hostel by the very nice yet very strict manager woman. We found some truly awful clothes which we loved, Gem fell in LOVE with an owl jumper that if it were only a little bigger and a little less shit smelling she would have worn it till the day she die.

Tent Rocks was AMAZING. We took the Canyon Trail. This was the alternative to the Cave Loop which we later did and found out was just a slight incline to a singular cave. You’d be truly disappointed if you had just done that and missed the rest.
All in all it took us 3 hours and was completely worth it. We were surrounded by these massive tepee ‘tent’ rocks that I can only describe as gigantic ant hills with us being the ants.
We made it to the top, stripping off our shit layers as we went along as it was getting loads hotter. There were amazing and beautiful 360 degree views of the whole park, mountains and surrounding landscape. LOADS of pictures were taken before we just sat there and soaked up the views and the silence all around. It was brilliant.

That was our activity for the day and we were knackered! Massive drive to the Grand Canyon tomorrow and this time we are getting sleep before we leave!

Bye!

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