New Mexico

In the dry empty expanses of Southern New Mexico, any thing not desert becomes a major attraction on the map. Flocks of retirees driving south for the winter fill the parking lots in their bus sized RV's complete with little yapping dogs and shiny Harley Davidson's for weekend cruzing. Just across the Texan border lies the Carlsbad caverns, a large system of limestone caves formed from and ancient coral reef now buried inland.

The caves were huge and filled with towering rock formations, but the most amazing feature was the elevator shaft cut into the limestone hills, shuttling tourists forty stories down from the visitors center above like a subterranean skyscraper.

With the A/C on high, we drove North through Santa Fe, a small but fancy town, with brown stucco buildings modeled after the traditional adobe mud buildings of the Pueblo Indians. We were

going North to meet my step brother, Johnathan, {Frederic's son} in Colorado so we quickly checked out the upmarket jewelry and craft stores of Santa Fe before heading up to Taos.

It was winter now and in the high alpine desert we had to layer on the blankets and cover our heads at night as the temperatures dropped well below freezing.

During the day the sun roasted the car and we stripped of the layers to tee shirts and shorts; this extreme environment had kept away the soft and only new-age hippies and outdoorsman types had populated the small desert towns.

Charming little Taos was still unspoilt by the elitist stores and hotels filling Santa Fe; it still had a local friendly community who had managed to keep separate from the seasonal outsiders and their RV's.

Before climbing out of the desert plains into the snowy Colorado mountains, we had to stop and check out the Earth Ship homes Eric had admired and spoken of so often; energy efficient, off grid, sustainable homes made from used materials sunk into the ground, harvesting the sun, water and air without the interference of public utilities.

We really enjoyed the tour, making careful notes of our impressions of the design and flaws of the Dr Seuss like structures. It was really impressive, if not entirely perfect for every man, but living in a desert of extremes in relative comfort with out grid power or water is still an amazing accomplishment.

Leaving the deadlocked hippies of NM for the dry alpine air of the Colorado rockies, we felt the cold air of reality breaking us out of our 10 week road trip daydream; it was getting just too cold to sleep in our car!

Texas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What can you say about Texas, its big, so are its people and their opinions of Texas are even bigger.

I was surprised at how pretty the country was, rolling hills and scrubby woods, green river gorges and well placed rocky outcroppings with sprinklings of deer and big horn sheep.

Living in the oil fed state, I can see how Texans can doubt pollution, environmental conservation and even social issues; when your surrounded by clean new houses, ample game hunting, big roads that led to truck filled church parking lots of cheerful folks, the worlds issues seem exaggerated and distant.

Austin is the state capital and its capital building is a replica of the D.C. original, only bigger!

Being the right-wing, gun shooting capital of America, it was a surprise to find out the Capital was liberal, democratic, educated and even a little bit hipster.

The University of Texas was impressive, with an annual budget of over 1 billion! The busy campus is placed on a hill above the government buildings, looking downtown, to the river where a large bat colony live under a bridge.

Every evening the bats come streaming out from under the bridge, trailing off like wisps of smoke into the night, strangely pretty. Another highlight was the Alamo theater, that serves locally brewed beer and meals during a movie; its a great addition to the movie experience, hopefully it will catch on elsewhere.

As we moseyed on West, we passed thru some small pioneer towns where the hard working Mexicans dominate, how strange all this over the top Texan stuff must be for them if it felt strange to us.

Louisiana pt2

We decided to visit one more plantation villa before we left, we turned North towards Rosedown plantation's beautiful grounds to take a tour of it's restored home and grounds.

Ami was lured by the romantic buildings and amazing gardens to the point we splurged on another night in southern luxury. We found a half price deal just down the river at Nottoway plantation, a massive home turned hotel/museum straight out of Gone with the wind.

We got the historic tour during the afternoon then as the visitors cleared out we had the museum to ourselves, left inside a trapped piece of history, with our own massive room complete with four post bed, a refreshing mint julep and view of the Mississippi.

Ami got dressed-up and we walked the empty grounds at night; a white stallion could have majestically galloped through the live oak trees and swept her away and I wouldn't have been surprised in the slightest. We felt like two high society characters straight out of the 1800s cotton boom, the charm of the south had finally reached our cores.

New Orleans

The air was comfortably warm and slightly humid as we drove straight into New Orleans, Louisiana.

Driving through the streets of old neighborhoods with paint peeled walls, we saw the shiny high rises in the city center looming in the distance. The notorious images of hurricane Katrina, the flooding and the Super-dome nightmare were always in the backs of our minds, as we mixed with the tourists in the French quarter.

The South seems to always be trying to forget its past, and the French quarter, polished and gentrified for the visiting, ends at an invisible line where the money stops and drugs, crime and poverty still thrive.

Old buildings and easy going locals give the commercialized Bourbon street some charm, but the real treat was the garden district; where the rich white live in beautiful pillared villas, high above the flood waters.

We slept that night in a mosquito breeding ground disguised as a campground and then returned to New Orleans to explore the cemeteries, beautiful old neighborhoods and taste the rich meaty southern food. We stumbled across a film shoot and got to watch from behind the camera, as the crew hustled and Jason Statham looked cool in his woolen coat in the now sweltering heat. details here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472399/

The air was warm and sweet, the lifestyle relaxed; if it wasn't for the fact the the lower ninth ward resembled an African shanty town, New orleans might be a lovely place to live. We briefly drove thru the flood damaged boarded up homes that the poor inhabit below sea level, long enough to see how desperately poor and trapped some black Americans are.

The Deep South

After recuperating in Florida, the apex of our journey arc; it was time to start heading back to the Northwest, the direction of the grey clouds, rain, fog, mist and drizzle that is Washington. We had recovered, and were longing for more adventure.

The transition from Florida's wealthy, retired population, to the slow southern drawl and good ol' home cooking of the deep south was abrupt. As Julian keeps pointing out... it's hard to believe that the US is a united nation, the divisions are hard and fast. Driving along the Gulf of Mexico we entered Mobile, Alabama, a small city with an ominous, looming history. The Museum of Mobile skimmed over most of it's past; the lynchings as recently as 1944, and of course the KKK and instead focused on Mobile's contribution to WWII and Mardi Gras. We were impressed with the stately homes and the southern food we had been waiting for... Gumbo, my favorite!

Not so impressed with the not so distant past!

After spending the day in Mobile, we crossed the state line into Mississippi, and pulled into a campground late one evening. We awoke to diapers hanging from trees, and garbage strew about, to realize we were sleeping in the local homeless campground. While I was showering, a homeless man in the next room decided he would demolish the men's bathroom, so I quickly rinsed and we left in fear. Mississippi has the lowest per capita personal income in the US and the impact of the recession was most evident here. If only they could sell some of the unnecessary letters in their state name, they could make a fortune, Misipi, sounds like money!

The South has a certain charm, but it also made me feel more proud of the Pacific Northwest than I ever thought I would.

We also spent a day on the Gulf of Mexico.

The turning point

Crossing over miles of swamps into Florida, we drove directly South to Fort Lauderdale, bu it looked more like we had gone North. Being the winter nesting grounds of New England's elderly and elite, West Palm Beach and most of Florida, is dominated by empty vacation homes and sprawling franchises.

Originally, Key West was the only reason for visiting Florida, but serendipitously two of my favorite cousins had found work here on foreign vessels wedged inland amongst Fort Lauderdales palm trees and mansions.

We were lucky enough to be able to stow away on the $6+ million dollar S.Q.N, a super-yacht David was working on as the ship's engineer; the huge boat has an all foreign crew, including a Kiwi skipper Brett, who graciously gave us the marble floored owners quarters for a couple of nights!

The S.Q.N. was an amazing Star Trek like, luxury palace that happens to double as a fully functional yacht. It's one of many such ships that concentrate in the super-rich boating paradise that is the Caribbean.

As the crew toiled on the S.Q.N., Elliot {my other cousin}was just down the road {canal?}, working as a chef on an equally flamboyant dream boat; with only evenings off ,we hardly got to see either of my busy cousins as they polished their ships and soaked up the local flavor of Americana.

Rested and refreshed, we chugged across the famous concrete bridges towards Key West and it's communist neighbor.

The keys where chopped up into housing developments wherever a house could fit {with its own back yard jetty!}, until Key West where a stubborn population of old hippies and now trapped locals call home. We had arrived on a Friday and Fantasy Fest was kicking off, a week long dress up festival of drunken debauchery; basically it was overweight, over the hill couples ogling each other dressed as sloppy vampires or movie villains.

We saw Hemingway's old house and the Southern-most point, then left the beer gut, stuffed streets and the Keys for the Everglades.

We had made the turn North, and after ten weeks on the road, using public showers, cooking on park benches and sleeping in crampt quarters, we where still having a blast and could hardly remember owning a house or going to college!

Amazing Everglade bird life!

Bald eagles, Turkey vultures, Ospreys and bird sized mosquitoes everywhere.

Florida without the people is a swampy, steamy, stew of life; we lost count of the exotic birds we saw, we even saw the rare American Crocodile, the Alligators bigger, meaner relative.

Before turning West, going North, into the South, we stopped in Tampa to see Ami's step father, Roger for a couple of days.

It was funny to keep seeing family in Florida but this time we got to spend some quality time catching up and just hanging out; Roger is an avid hunter and had recently returned from Texas with a Sika deer and some Rams meat.

Our days where spent sleeping in and watching a huge flat screen TV, and our nights processing the deer, ram and pork into hamburger and sausages, it was a lot of fun!

We had such a nice time; we stayed for Halloween and handed out candy to the local ghouls and monsters, it was a unexpected trip highlight, but eventually we had to answer the beckoning call of the road and say farewell to Roger and Florida.

Georgia's Peach

Cumberland Island was naturally stunning and unexpectedly... magical . An Island off the coast of Southern Georgia, where millionaires had once played and now horseshoe crabs, armadillos and horses ran wild. Andrew Carnegie had built the mansion here in the late 19^th century and this was a home where he loved to entertain the super elite and influential.




Now, the island is mostly owned by the state and visitors are permitted to camp, and roam the island as they please. We did so with much gusto, happy to be let into yet another very foreign world, but this time the price was much lower... a ferry ride to the island and a small camp site fee.





We saw massive horseshoe crabs, the wild horses and the real star of the island, the armadillos. Their full body amour allows them the freedom to roam wherever they which, as loudly as they please. They were never hard to find as they make such a noise foraging through the undergrowth, we watched them for hours. Cumberland Island was the best natural gem since Nova Scotia.

The Charming South

After spending a few days in the strip-mall beach towns of North Carolina, the now healthy Julian, and myself were heading into The South. We entered South Carolina with the distant hope of staying at an old plantation, taking in the turbulent history of the south and eating some of their famous BBQ, and gumbo. What we found far exceeded either of our expectations.




We stayed at Mansfield Plantation Inn, a rice plantation dating back to 1718. Paying $200.00 for our luxurious lodging had given us the keys to this once prosperous plantation, it's thousands of acres were ours to explore for the day. The next morning we had our first 'grits' breakfast (a southern breakfast too heavy for me to eat at dinner) in the formal dining room, once again the hefty price of the room had afforded us access into this elite world. This turned out to be the plantation where many scenes of 'The Patriot' had been filmed.

We spent the next day visiting Middleton Place, a rice plantation that was for the most part burnt to the ground during the civil war. The grounds here, had been meticulously maintained; they had originally been a 30-year slave labored project of the Plantation's matriarch. We caught our first glimpse of an alligator here, sunning itself on the edge of the perfectly trimmed grass, two worlds somehow managing to coexist.

We spent some time in Charleston and Savannah simply... charmed. We took ourselves on historical walking tours and managed to see an open home, taking in the opulence their histories had afforded them. The streets were full of wealth; breathtaking homes, luxury cars, tea and coffee shops, and boutiques galore. Leaving town, I was surprised to see the the wealth ended abruptly, and The South's history of segregation still existed with clear physical boundaries.

D.C.

Kim left early for her flight back to Portland, Ami and I left sluggishly but were relived to see the car in one piece back in Brooklyn.

I had been feeling a bit sick and now had a full on fly; being sick on a road trip is ten times worse because the car window is your bathroom sink, and the world is is your toilet.

Ami speed us out of New Jersey into Pennsylvania, famous for its Hershey's chocolate and vampires. Factories and smoke stacks gave way to fields of pumpkins and corn tended to by the local Amish community, dressed in the latest farming fashion from 1886.

I was truly sick by this point, and the East coast was experiencing record low temperatures; at night it froze and my flu was thriving in the cold air.

We gave in and spent two night recovering in a “sleep inn” after drinking many a motherly concoction of garlic,ginger,lemon and eye of newt, we reluctantly went to a doctor for some antibiotics, $300 bucks later.

Feeling slightly better, we dipped south in to the capital on a crisp sunny Sunday, against Ami's better judgment.

Sunday was a good day for the Smithsonian Museums and the solar powered house competition that was happening in the middle of the mall, also we had arrived during a gay marriage/rights march.

Posing in front of the Lincoln Statue and the White house wasn't as interesting as the protesters marching down the main street, much to the horror of many a local resident.

Loudspeakers chanting as thousands of 'GLBT' people and their supporters marched by Obama's empty house, guarded by black suit snipers on the roof and in the bushes, watching in silence.

It was fun to witness a rally that felt straight out of the 60's; America still drags its heals when it comes to changing laws concerning religious and social morals.

The Smithsonian seemed small and childish compared to the other museums we had seen, although it does have most of Americas most famous national treasures; I posed next to some typically blank faced tourists, mindlessly cataloging every item with their flashing digital cameras.

Driving South East to the cost an amazing transformation happened, in a matter of hours we left the cold urban sprawl that began in Maine, and popped out into the humid South.

Signs for boiled peanuts and BBQ where everywhere, Spanish moss hung from the trees and the small rolling hills flattened off into sandy swampy forests.

The weather had found us again as we raced ahead of a cold front and my flu oozed back into action; we had found a hostel in Kitty hawk, North Carolina and spent another couple of days in warm air and indoor plumbing.

Strangely enough we had sheltered just a mile from the location of the Wright brothers first manned flight, a tiny bump in the flat landscape being the highest point on the coast, all the way to Florida.

The hill should have had a sign welcoming us to the precarious, just above sea level, landscape called the South; I made a quick mental note, if tsunamis are coming, this is the last hill till we hit Texas.

Welcome to the South!