Forty Day and Thirty-Nine Nights

We pulled in to Portsmouth, my grandmother's home, at exactly six o'clock on July 2nd.  We dined on proper Southern diner of bar-b-que, cole slaw and iced tea and slept indoors.  We spent the better part of yesterday emptying out the car, cleaning off the camping supplies and sweating.  I'm not adjusted to this heat yet. 

In all we traveled over 8400 miles, visited 19 national parks, visited 15 states, saw wildlife a plenty, met loads of interesting people and spent gobs of money with nothing much to show for it but memories and annoying anecdotes suitable for cocktail parties.  Should I ever go to a cocktail party again I guess.

I'm sure if someone pressed me enough, I could tell you what was my favorite place or what the best time was.  But honestly, the whole thing was.  The trip in and of itself was superlative, it was the experience that I will remember most and the reason, the reason for doing it all.

The worst was west Texas though.  I still hate west Texas.  If it's going to be that hot and dry and least get some cacti or mountains to look at while I drive though.  That's what the other states in the Southwest did.

So concludes this blog though.  While Liz and I will surely have many more adventures finding the means and measures to restart our stationary lives, I doubt they will make for interesting reading being so few and far between the days of staring out the window of my grandmother's house, waiting for something to happen.  So I will leave you with this picture.  It's an historic old cabin along the Appalachian Trail, surely built by some of the first people to strike out 'west' to find new lives and happy to live dirt poor up in the mountains.  I can dig that, maybe if we play our cards right we can be so lucky.

Thanks for reading this far.

Before We Wrap This Up

Let me introduce you to the third member of our adventure, Ted.

Ted and I got together in Denmark back in 2003.  I met him on the streets where he was doing performance art for small change.  He chose to come with us back to the states and has been going on adventures with Liz and me ever since.  Here are some highlights...

In the desert, looking hot

Walking out on one of the arches at Arches NP.  A no-no for humans

Admiring the ancient pueblo dwellings of Mesa Verde

At the Smokey the Bear Museum in New Mexico.  Obviously a childhood hero.

In New Orleans on Bourbon St

Getting a bev at Buc-ee's

Taking a turn at the wheel

Ah memories.

The Last State

We are now in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Odds are that we'll camp tonight in the Blue Ridge somewhere and then float into Portsmouth tomorrow evening. And just like that the trip will be over. Sometimes it feels like it just started.

We had a great time in Ashville yesterday, seeing Liz's family and the town. It was my first chance to get around downtown there and I really liked it, very bohemian. Caroline, if you're reading this, why didn't you move there instead of Raintown?

Way Down South

As any follower of this blog might be able to tell from my lack of blogging, I liked New Orleans. Too much to waste my time there writing about it anyway.

Liz and I had a great time there. It was way, way too hot and humid, but thats why they sell drive through daiquiris. We didn't do everything there was to do though. We were too late in the day when we got to go to the Tabasco factory and we didn't get to Cafe Du  Monde due to personnel issues on our end. Turns out we are getting too old to go out until all hours everyday.

We do a lot though. We saw step brass band out in the wrong part of town, had some great po' boys and gas station fried chicken, and still found time to have a few drinks. It turns out New Orleans is known for that last one. Our host Jon made us get  house daiquiris at the Green Turtle, which tasted like artificial watermelon and kerosene. The best part of them though was that they were cheep and made everything else after that taste great.

The city itself was beautiful to a couple of architects. True it was pretty rough in spots, and damn scary in more spots but that is just part of the character. Our host Jon lives in an awesome shotgun duplex in Bywater which dated back to the mid 1800's. The whole neighborhood looked like old Key West, but no mater how far you walked, you never got to the beach.

A big thanks to Sherry and David for coming all the way down there and a huge thanks to you Jon for letting us destroy your place and sleep on your floor.

Since then we drove up to Natchez. The town was famous for being right on the Mississippi and having a few dozen insanely rich white people back in the day. Those rich white people are all gone, but their massive houses are still there. While they were all quite beautiful, they were also kind of wired since a lot of them are right in the middle of town. There would be a row of stately old homes and then boom, 20,000 sf of mansion. It would be like if Bill Gates showed up and built his house at the end of your neighborhood.

Since then we've been driving up the Natchez Trace, seeing the rural deep south and spending two of the hottest nights camping ever. I mean EVER.

We hit up the Jack Daniels distillery tour today. It's a great tour if you're ever in nowhere Tennessee and even got a bottle of booze there in a dry county (it's a long story). Tonight though, we're in doors sleeping and Liz's aunt and uncle's in Ashville NC. No more sweating in my sleep.

Here's Ol' Jack.

Big River

They don't have adventures like this on the East Coast until now. We crossed the Mississippi last night and are hanging out in New Orleans. This is my kind of town, everyone just wanders around the streets drinking. I could move here if they'd just air condition the whole outside.

Look, it's the Ol' Miss.

Everything's Bigger in Texas

Including gas stations. We just stopped at Buc'ees in Lulling, TX. To give you some idea of what I'm taking about, it's got thirty gas pumps and sixty toilets in the womens room staffed by three full time attendants.

If that's not enough, they make all of their food in house, like giant tacos, pulled BBQ sandwiches and a dozen kind of jerky. Let's not forget the confections either, like the bag of Bever Nuggets. They're like Kix cereal, but about a hundred times less healthy. How is everyone in the South so fat.

Oh and check out the logo.

Onward from Texas

We're bound for San Antonio to New Orleans and heading from one hotter than hell city for a hotter one.  But before we do, a little about our time here yesterday.

We headed out yesterday first for some history and then for some fun.  We walked over to the Alamo (the only area at grade you can walk to in this city) to learn the rich history of Texas.  After all this is where the independence of Texas was won, where Bowie and Houston died and where a historic building still stands.  Lies all of them.  Now growing up in Virginia, the most we ever learned about Texas in history was they were the willing provider of troops to the War of Northern Aggression, so I may have been a little light on the facts.  Let's go through them.

First, the decisive battle of Texas independence was at the Battle of San Jacinto, which was fought after the full defeat of the Texans at the Alamo.  And the only reason that the Battle of San Jacinto was the birth of Texas independence was because the Texans captured Santa Anna and he bargained his life for quasi-nationhood. The Alamo, while a brave last stand, was a huge loss in their was for independence.

Second, the only historically significant person who died at the Alamo was Davy Crockett and his bagpipe playing friend.  It turns out he was tired of being a congressman and was looking for adventure.  Looks like he found a little too much.  Bowie was there and did die there, but he was bed ridden.

Last, most of the battle of the Alamo took place in the courtyard and outbuildings surrounding the chapel that we have all come to know at the Alamo.  Where are these places now, below the city streets of San Antonio.  In fact, the Alamo building as we know it was a roofless deserted chapel on the edge of the battle.  The historic front and roofline was added by the federal government around 1850 after Texas was annexed.

But it really does have no basement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYfjq3ZYZbA