June 30th - July 2nd
Gadsden,
AL to New Orleans, LA
I-59 to I-10
We started off the day with a Waffle House breakfast. First time I experienced Waffle House was 4 years back when I drove down to Atlanta with Vinny (boss at the antique store) and Chris (my ex-boyfriend) for an antique show. There were Waffle House's all over the place and it amazed me how polite the staff were. I mean really, they have one of the worst jobs around but are still so happy with life - Southern people, they amaze me!
From here it was just a couple hours drive down to New Orleans, the speed limit had increased to 70 miles/hour, which was quite a pleasure! We checked into the hostel, India House and could have sworn the guy at the front desk was high on something. That was our introduction to India House. Definitely a back-packers hostel, it had a very cool vibe. Our dorm was crammed with bunk beds for 8 but fortunately there were only 4 of us. It also had air conditioning, which was a real bonus in the New Orleans heat. Downstairs were two living rooms, one with a TV. It also had an eating room and a communal kitchen. Outside, there was a nice courtyard, a swimming pool and a little pond with a couple of turtles and alligators.
After a shower, we drove into the French Quarter - what a mistake, parking was a nightmare. Had a really nice dinner at a cozy restaurant on the outskirts of the Quarter. I had a plate of Jambalaya and Shrimp Creole. Then we head towards Bourbon Street. Its pretty bad - loud music comes from everywhere and there are tons of obnoxious, drunk tourists running around. We did find a cool place that had a great 5-piece band. We were less impressed when we got charged $14.50 for an orange juice and a Southern Comfort.
We certainly wouldn't have minded staying there for another drink but at those prices we decided to move on. On the way to the car we found another cool place - Sweet Kathleen's. Another 5-piece band and 2 guys from down the road had stopped by to jam with them. They also had a couple of guest singers including our waitress, which I thought was pretty cool.
Sunday, July 1st
New Orleans
This time we left the car at the hostel and took a bus into town. Our dorm mates had suggested going to the Aquarium because there were some really cool 3D Imax movies playing. The sound of sitting inside an air-conditioned movie theatre in the middle of the day sounded like a great idea so we decided to do that.
We saw 'Into the Deep' which was about animal-life under the sea off the coast of Oregon. It was stunning. After the movie we took a walk around Jackson Square in the French Quarter. It's a really beautiful area.
Back at the hostel, we went straight for the swimming pool. Then just sat around the courtyard with a glass of wine and some reading. Didn't get much of a chance to read though because people kept on coming and going, making conversation. Eventually, the beers and games came out. I found myself a backgammon buddy - English but had been living in Fort Lauderdale for 3 years. Another English guy had just finished working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. There were a couple of guys from Boston and Dublin on their summer vacation and a French girl who was working as an au pair in Ohio. We played cards into the night. I'll probably never see any of them again in my life but they were definitely good fun.
Monday, July 2nd
New Orleans
to Port Arthur, TX to Sabine Pass to Just outside Houston
90 to I-10 to 87 to I-10
We took the 90 out of New Orleans through marshland along the coast. Marshland
is a weird thing, there's water everywhere and the trees just grow straight
out it. First town over the Louisiana/Texas border was Port Arthur. It looked
like a pretty town harbor town on the map and just after it was a state park
right on the Gulf of Mexico. Well, the map was very deceiving. Port Arthur
was hardly a town. It was just one big clump of oil refineries; disgusting,
a side of life you just never see.
So we made it down to the campsite at Sea Rim State Park (just passed Sabine Pass). As we drove towards it, it got bleaker and bleaker. It was really bad; the coastline was the worst I had ever seen. It would have been a great place to do a re-enactment of D-day. Off in the horizon you could even see a couple of oilrigs. Inland there was a huge fire bellowing smoke out across the sky - couldn't figure out for the life of us what was causing it. The atmosphere reminded us of a Steven King book. We should have listened to our instinct right then and left but after looking at the tent sites, it didn't look too bad and we decided to set up camp. We got the camping gear out of the car and put up the tent. We went down to the water and checked out the awful coastline. The sunset was quite nice but the mosquitoes just didn't stop. There were tons of them and they were biting us right though our clothes. Back at the tent we started to heat up our dinner - the mosquitoes were still out like crazy. It was at that point James looked at me and suggested that we get out of there. With about 30 mosquito bites already, I looked at him and agreed.
It took us about 10 minutes to pack up. In those 10 minutes, I probably got another 20 mosquito bites. Finally, I got into the car and somehow the white noise was gone and all I could hear was this swarm sound. It was really surreal. James finished up packing and got into the car (which was full of the buggers) and shone a light on the window. There were thousands of them against the window outside and in. That was it, he started the car, we rolled down the windows and drove out of there as fast as we could. We passed streetlights on our way out and there were swarms of them hovering around the lights. Never in my life have I ever seen anything like it. I hope I never ever do again in my life.
To put icing on the cake we had to drive through the Port Arthur again. Now it was nighttime and all the refineries were lit up and smoke was bellowing out of them. Pollution running freely out into the atmosphere we all breath - as I said before, this is the stuff we never see and I understand why - it's terrible.
So we drove as fast as we could with the windows rolled down - still freaked out. We were heading for Houston, about 90 miles away but found a cluster of fast food places and hotels just before it. We pulled in and paid double our budget for the pleasure of a comfortable bed, a warm shower and cable TV. It was worth every penny.