80:Louisiana:Living it up in the Big Easy
I guess the slight advantage of it being so cold while camping is that it certainly encourages me to get my ass out of bed. It was 6 degrees, so not too bad, and I was wearing plenty of clothes which certainly took the edge off it. I was starting to hum a bit since my last shower wasn’t since Tuesday and there wasn’t a shower in the Parkway campground but I was planning on making a hostel in New Orleans tonight. I cooked up some oatmeal and finished up my left-overs from the night before and carried on South West through the Parkway. I was looking for somewhere to grab a cup of coffee on the way but I would be waiting a long time for it. We were in the midst of a high pressure system so the sky was clear and the heater in my car soon got the chill out of my feet. Best to make the most of it since there was rain forecast for the weekend.
Tags: shopping, oatmeal, groceries, coffee, earth, bustle, cruise, couchsurfers, photo, highways, local history, nonsense, hostel79:Mississippi:Looping down to New Orleans
After a night in a carpark in some nameless town I was desperate to check my bank balance after constantly forgetting the previous day and my funds were in dire need of a top up. I was now driving west again in the big S loop down to Louisiana and the Big Easy, New Orleans. The roads were pretty much the standard I was now used to, long, flat and boring. All the junctions had the same set of chains for gas, food and lodgings. The interstates were convenient for getting around the country quickly but hardly a tourists dream journey. For most of the day the most exciting thing I saw was a dead mountain lion on the side of the side of the road. What a treat it would be to see a live one but I would guess roadkill would be the closest I would get this trip.
Tags: wifi, starbucks, excitement, desperation, checks, highways, carpark, minivan, cars, posh hotel, interstates, tourists, mountain lion, mountains, junctions78:Alabama:Back in Brum
Despite my thermal bottoms and socks I was woefully under dressed for the night and woke up at 5am absolutely freezing, well almost, the thermometer said 0 degrees. I had to get up and start the heater and since I was up I made a cup of tea and thought I may as well get an early start. If I hadn’t taken a shower Im sure I would have gotten away with the heinous crime of leaving the park without paying but the guy got me while I was having a much needed wash and left a note on my windscreen saying I should pay at 8am when the office opened. It was 6.45am and there was no way I was waiting around for over an hour. They have slots at the entrance where you can pay but the ranger saw me in the car park while I was taking dawn photos and took my $11 there and then.
Tags: Travel, map, cars, drinks, lunch, museums, tourists, maps, traffic77:Gulf of Mexico:Hunting for hillbillies
Still no complaints about the weather as I made my way through the farms and across the highways south back to the I-10 but there wasn’t really a lot to see. I was eating up the miles but I wasn’t really seeing the ‘south’ that I was expecting. No hill billies sitting on their porches, no crazy people walking around, all rather disappointing. :p Lots of expensive cars, nice houses, lots of money. I had chosen a route that wasn’t taking me past any interesting sights. I would check my map for things on the way and wasn’t really seeing much in that regard. I saw a sign for the USS Alabama battleship site down on the coast and that wasn’t too far off the Interstate so that seemed like a good idea. Of course I got there at 4.15pm and was greeted with the sign telling me the last ticket was sold at 4pm. I still got out and had a look, took a few pictures but it would have been a lot nicer to get inside and have a look.
Tags: maps, cars, greetings, weather, map, money, Travel, camping76:Florida:heading West
My seats went in the skip and I went on my way with the weather definitely back to the Florida standard, but not for long as after 100 miles driving to the west I turned back to the North West and back up into Georgia. It was 28 degrees again for quite a while but the temperature soon started dropping and then the rain started in earnest for most of the afternoon. I listened to the car advice show on NPR and heard about some guy who couldn’t get his wheel off who ended up blasting the thing from a foot away and ended up going to hospital as a result. Dumb yanks :p It wasn’t the only retarded thing I heard that day since there was also a story about a Mexican who rescued a 9 year old child in the forest fires currently devastating California at the moment and earned a deportation as a result. Kind of proves what a freakin crazy country Im traveling through at the moment.
Tags: rain, Travel, wheel, weather, cars, photos, photo, borders, sleep, wheels, seat, mistake, bridge75:Ocean Park:Getting eaten…
No big surprise that I slept through my alarm at 8am and woke up bleary eyed and confused around 10.30am. So much for my resolution to do another long day on Sunday… At least I was alive, on the way in the night before I passed a huge correctional facility, but it seems there were no break out and murders happening this week. I resolved to have a day sorting out my car and looking for one of my lost memory sticks. I made breakfast and then found I wouldn’t have been going anywhere fast in any case, once again my battery was nearly dead. I discovered I had left my side lights on, which shouldn’t have made any difference since I couldn’t see them in the night but it seemed that was the cause of the problem. After a shower I set about removing pretty much everything from the minivan and taking a few photos for the blog. I wanted to show how you could make a bed in the back with a $20 piece of wood. No sign of the missing memory card though 
I took out the rear seat (which weighed a ton) and then put the right hand seat behind the left one. It fit ok, but I wouldn’t have much room to sleep in the back…
If I could turn it around it would have no gap on the side and more room for me, but the stupid designers didn’t forsee this option. A handle on the side was in the way, so out came the screwdriver and now the metal bar was digging in the plastic wall of the van. Better but still no fit. I switched to the knife and chopped a square of plastic out. Even better, but still not quite. I removed the plastic runners from the floor of the Minivan, sat on the seat pulling the handle and with the use of a piece of firewood as leverage got it to lock into place. Success! I can always move it back around if I need to give someone a lift. I moved the front seat forward so it would lock back and gained a nice spot between to hold my now unused backpack and other superfluous stuff. I could now fit my twin mattress in the back and sleep on the floor which meant I could also hang out there if it was raining and even change. I had gained 50% more room in the back.
I spend the rest of the day putting some black tint in the rear window and clearing out other junk and stuff I wasn’t using. I resolved to sleep in the back that night and since it looked like rain that wasn’t a bad idea. I worked on my blog, watched some episodes of South Park I had downloaded, played my guitar and swatted mosquitos, and when the moon poked through the trees I got my camera out and took a few pictures, the best one of which is this one:
74:Ocean Park:The plan wasn’t to get shot!!
Crazy Miriam and Patrick had left that morning at 4am to get back to Miami for a gig the next night so I met them at the junction of the Interstates for a final eggy-basket breakfast and to get my pillow back! Shall never the twain meet once more? Who knows, Im going south, she’s going to Italy. Well after her paying gig in Miami. I made myself comfortable and gunned my engine down the highway west. I rode the frequencies looking for something good to listen to. 90% is either ‘god-rock’, ‘god-country’ or ’god-chat/rants’ so plainly not for me. I would listen to it occasionally for pure comedy value, some of the stuff they come out with is absolutely hilarious to a true non-believer like myself. The other 5% is just country which is also occasionally side splitting. I will have to find a link to ‘Christmas Carol’ and post it here, I was crying with laughter as I drove down the highway from the horrendous clichés and terrible rhymes. 2 ½ % you get an R&B station which is usually better to listen to than any of the other crap and then occasionally the state will re-transmit National Public Radio, which at least doesn’t tell you its ‘fair and impartial’ like the fox news radio does… if they’re telling you that, it isn’t and it isn’t!
Tags: highways, england, seals, Travel, cars, locals, bleh, girls, tourists, crap73:I-26 South:Makin the PLAN!
I woke, took another hot shower since I didn’t know when my next one would be coming and went back into Main Street for coffee and a strategy meeting. Happily they were open this time so I grabbed a big cup and set to work on my map. I needed a bold route across the continent, something exciting and fresh. Something no one else had done before.
Tags: photographs, sleep, Travel, hostel, rocks, google, goddess, maps, hostels, mexico72:Hendersonville:No turkey for me!
For my first thanksgiving in America I didn’t find it particulary exciting I must say. Would help if I had some family nearby I guess. First I went back to the estate agents to surf, then I went shopping at good ol Wal-Mart, lamenting the poor bastards that had to work that day. Then I went to the Red Roof Inn and got myself a room, a shower and a shave. It was about time I think. I kept working on my damn GPS plots but kept changing my mind as to how I wanted to work on them but I was learning more about how to sort them out once and for all. The majority of the afternoon was spent vegetating in front of first, The Princess Diaries and then one of my favourites, the incomparable Incredibles. I love that movie! It wasn’t all just hedonistic pleasure as I had a good bash on my guitar too… Oh that was pretty good too!
My R&R was interrupted by Miriam ringing to see if I wanted to come and sit in the freezing yard in front of the fire. We were supposed to be off having an adventure the next day but she was getting grief from the people she was staying with and I thought best not to push it. I went over and we sat alternately freezing and then coughing up smoke once I got the fire going. I met Patricks brother Mike as well who is a sculptor and makes really cool latex masks, I saw some of his work in their shed/studio. He was working on a dragon mask, just the kind of thing you would see in the Dungeons and Dragons Dragonlance novels. I want one. It was too cold to sit out, too smokey to sit near the fire so we went for a rather pointless drive and then said our goodbyes as it would be time for me to get a move on the next day. I needed to plan my route out. It was time to have another meaningless adventure. I guess that’s what they call life eh?
Tags: brother, Travel, guitars71:Hendersonville:T’was the night before Thanksgiving…
In the morning I drove back up the mountain and back down to Hendersonville where I was hoping to run into Miriam for Thanksgiving. She was up in North Carolina with her friend Patrick having come up the night before. I checked my messages when I got out of the park and back into normal reception and found she had left me *my* number to contact her on. I parked up in town, wandered around for half an hour and just came out of the Music shop and was wondering about my next move when I heard “Mark!!†and she jumped out and into my arms for a hug. Well the move was the same as I planned and I dragged them both to the Bear Paw Café for a coffee and more importantly, the use of the restroom. Miriam was desperate to use the internet to submit some work so after only drinking half her earl grey she and Patrick ran off to the Library to sort that out, leaving me with sipping coffee and trying to automate my GPS logs a bit better. She returned about an hour later, still not having gotten online and displaying the all too familiar signs of not having any food. Patrick took her home which I didn’t object to, I wasn’t looking forward to another crisis that afternoon and I went looking for a coin laundry.
Tags: mountains, electricity, pints, laptops, camping, beard, drinks, laptop, tent, maps, coins, clothes70:Great Smokey Mountains:I’m Freezing!
Today was a big driving day and I left Charleston in the morning and drove most of the day Northwest to the Great Smokey Mountains. It took far longer than I anticipated though and the route up to the campsite was completed in darkness, not helped by a couple of wrong turns. I really wanted a shower but this was a National Park and they didn’t do cold showers nevermind warm ones. I would have to suffer with a sponge bath. I slept in the back not bothering with the tent and nearly froze to death anyway, the nighttime temperature hovering just above freezing and me with no firewood.
Tags: mountains, sponge, Travel, tent69:Charleston:New Old Money
I had an amusing conversation with the lady who checked me out of the campground who asked where I was from said she couldn’t understand my accent and would I talk slower. She then asked if I could understand her and I replied ‘Of course, you should watch more English Television’ but you could see the confusion on her face from such a simple sentence. America and England, two nations divided by one language. I did get a useful snippet of information from her though as she advised me that I could use my camping permit to get into the lighthouse for free. This wasn’t strictly true as I would find out so drove on the couple of miles down to the next park to have a look…
Tags: Travel, money, mountains, europe, supermarket, camping, sea, stupidity, england68:Hunters Island:Camping on the beach.
Across the carpark from Wal-mart I found the taps actually worked so I brushed my teeth and headed back into town to do some more exploring. I had a good few hours in the Sentient Bean again, slurping coffee and researching the whole topic of running macro’s in Excel. I wanted a better way of editing my GPS tracks which have suffered of late through my inability to reduce them in size to a reasonable level. I was looking for a way to work out whether a group of points were in a straight line and hence could be reduced to just 2 points. I used to be good at trigonometry at school but that was a long time ago now and I couldn’t find any useful examples on the internet. Still, I had a mostly productive day and in the afternoon headed north and back into South Carolina for the evening. As soon as I crossed the bridge that separated the states I could see the gas prices drop below $3, which I hadn’t seen for quite a while. Just think, this time last year gas was only $2 a gallon. A 50% increase in a year must be very shocking to the yanks, but it’s still cheap compared to the UK. I camped on Hunters Island on the coast, on the beach which was thankfully windless this time although I had made a windbreak for my stove from an aluminum tray in any case. Groovy!
Tags: camping, bridge, Travel, macros67:Savannah:Spooky Savannah
Next morning I set off on a proper touristy day to check out Savannah. This is an old town for the States, a bit of a tourist trap really but full of old and interesting architecture and compact enough, for an American town, to walk around and see most of what it has to offer in a day. I drove in, pulled out my camera and set off to explore. There were plenty of trolley tours going around so I grabbed one of their maps to give me an idea of what to go and look at and then just wandered at random. The northern end of the town had garden squares all over which was really nice and rather unusual too I thought, horse drawn carriages ferried tourists about (mostly American) and the town had a aura of understated wealth about it. Old money they call it.
Tags: photo, money, map, pints, girls, cars, sun, photos, maps, blog, wanderings, banana, job65:Florida/Georgia:Heading up the coast.
I knew there had to be something fishy about the scuba diving and I was right, pardon the pun. I went over to the office for my change from the night before and to ask about diving and she said no problem, and it was actually only $1.07 now. Great I thought, walked out and then walked back in to ask and find, no, it didn’t include equipment! Bleh. I should have known. Hey ho. After that I had no desire to even go snorkeling since I knew it was going to be freezing so just saddled up and headed north. I stuck on the back roads as usual and I started to wonder about the wisdom of this. Sure you see more than you go on the Interstate, but you’re starting and stopping all the time and what is there really to see? Maybe I was just getting a bit bored. I found a fun radio station coming out of Miami which was mostly a Liberal Talk show and they liked to take the piss out of the stupid callers but that soon turned to static. I was back on the road alone again.
Tags: job, desire, weather, mail, Travel, stupidity, cars, bleh66:Jacksonville:Heading out of Florida
I knew there had to be something fishy about the scuba diving and I was right, pardon the pun. I went over to the office for my change from the night before and to ask about diving and she said no problem, and it was actually only $1.07 now. Great I thought, walked out and then walked back in to ask and find, no, it didn’t include equipment! Bleh. I should have known. Hey ho. After that I had no desire to even go snorkeling since I knew it was going to be freezing so just saddled up and headed north. I stuck on the back roads as usual and I started to wonder about the wisdom of this. Sure you see more than you go on the Interstate, but you’re starting and stopping all the time and what is there really to see? Maybe I was just getting a bit bored. I found a fun radio station coming out of Miami which was mostly a Liberal Talk show and they liked to take the piss out of the stupid callers but that soon turned to static. I was back on the road alone again.
Tags: bleh, Travel, job, weather, cars, mail, desire, stupidity65:Cape Canaveral/Deland:More rockets and driving
I returned the next day but it just wasn’t the same, it seems I had covered the most exciting parts the previous day. I looked at the other exhibits and took the normal tour over to see the shuttle viewing platform but all you could see was the top of the SRBs and the ET (solid rocket boosters and external tank). No shuttle viewing from there. There was also a stop at the ISS preparation place which was quite interesting but I then became rather pissed off when the bus queue was huge and despite my asking if I, as one person, could get on was told it was full, whereas it wasn’t. No big shakes I thought until I found I had just missed the last showing of the second IMAX film. I did the shuttle launch experience which was ok, but nothing that great. Was much better than the one I did in the Moscow theme park though :p Now THAT is a stupid pointless attraction.
Tags: queues, Travel, pizza, stupidity64:Kennedy Space Center:2 Months away from the UK! Yay!! :p
The entire campsite stank of sulfur, I don’t know why but it was most off putting. The Eggy stink camp I think it was called. Not very pleasant at all. I also had to contend with the extremely cheeky squirrels attacking my breakfast! They became bolder and bolder and one even became momentarily trapped in my car before scarpering through a gap in the side doors! I had to run from the table to my car and back so they wouldn’t be all over my eggy-baskets! Im not a morning person so everyone else might have thought this to be great fun, I was just miserable and pissed off :p
Not for long….!
Tags: cards, cars, photographs, amazement, Travel, camping, photos, photo, disaster63:Cape Canaveral:Clean up time
Well, the next day I was rather embarrassed but dearest Miriam seemed to be very understanding. I guess she has to deal with peoples reactions to her slightly psychotic behaviour all the time :p So we ended up parting on good terms, no thanks to me. She drove South down the I-95, I jumped on Highway 1 and followed the coast North. I can’t believe its Mid-November.
62:Florida:All girls are freaking crazy! :p
Miles traveled : 4,000.
We woke to the sound of the thundering traffic. Miriam froze most of the night, myself not so much. She’s been in Florida too long and away from her native Seattle. We stumbled down to the car to make breakfast and coffee. We planned on going for a swim and then whatever but Miriam had a minor shock when she phoned her friend so we could sing happy birthday to him and found she had somehow lost a day. Was probably a good job she found out as it might not have come up in conversation :p I pulled out my guitar for a quick strum and the guy that had come and sat on the bench near our site saw his chance and moved over to make conversation. Seems he knew a few chords himself but it made his fingers hurt. It was enough to get him onto our bench though so we couldn’t ignore him. Miriam told me off for saying he was a hillybilly but if you sound and look like one the cap fits. I did a few Beatles tunes from the book and he asked if we were a traveling band :p Bless! Its not a bad idea though. He asked Miriam if she sang and it’s the first time I’ve heard her shut up. If he only knew about my little Opera singing jellyfish’s talents!
Tags: seat, pool, freak, girls, pizza, photo, bleh, wanderings, guitars, cars, walkway, tent, mistake, Travel, beds61:Ocala Forest Park FL: Bonnie and Clyde…?
Ah, clean sheets, warm shower… right there. The luxury! This was in fact my first paid for accommodation since Toronto nearly 2 months before. Everything else has been couchsurfing, camping or sleeping in my minivan. They even had a TV! :p We eventually tore ourselves away from the decadence and went off for breakfast. This meant finding a nice place by the sea which was easy enough and then performing the ritual called ‘eggies in the basket’ at which I am now becoming quite proficient. Still not a master though but all the practice I was getting was honing my skill quite nicely. We sat under a gazebo near the sea watching the fishermen and drinking English morning breakfast in the early afternoon. Still hot and sunny. We packed up, the dishes could wait (for 2 days it transpired!) and set off north. Up the I-95 was a big state park called Ocala which seemed as good a destination as any. First we had to rob a hotel….
Tags: chili, drinks, Travel, girls, camping, sleep, dishes, locals, accommodation, guitars, pool, laptops, sea, pasta, shoes, cars60: Palm Beach-Stuck in the middle with you…
I was very happy I hadn’t been drinking that whiskey at 3am when I took a look at Randy’s face. It was 10am and he was 2 hours late for work. He took some time to show me his weapon though and I got shot… I meant I got A shot. Always get them confused. He took out the magazine and checked the chamber, a real pro and apparently a deputized cop. Not someone you want to be insulting while drunk but then I always get away with it when Im around WPC Tim Keenan :p
Everyone had seemed to disappear in the night, Randy ran off to work so that just left myself, John and Carrine to head off for breakfast. I did a bit of work as payment for my accommodation first and help do some wall scrapping. Very therapeutic I think.
Tags: wheels, Travel, map, camping, pool, mistake, sleep, beds, ears, google, accommodation, highways, maps, europe, drinks, girls, cars59: Tampa Fl:Meeting the locals
The weather died down the next day and I was off and away by about 10am. It certainly is nice to be able to sleep until whenever I want again, however this means it easy to be a bit too lazy. Maybe I would meet someone who was on the road like me later on at the party and they would be waking me up…?
Tampa Fl: Windy Night
I had a nice nights camping the previous night in Little Manatee River Park, was my first state park and for $16 I couldn’t complain. I had water and power right next to the camping ground, I sat, lit a fire and played my guitar. I tried to forget about my sunglasses :p
I was just south of Tampa/St Peterburg and it was coming up on the weekend. I got back in the saddle and headed North, back into the burbs and civilization. Or what passes for it in