Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Mobile, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Texas


We hit 4000 miles so far. 4 states in the last 4 days.



Busy, Busy, Busy!
Ok, well if you thought we'd spend most of this trip sitting around on our butts in different cities... you were only half right. Quite often, it has happened that our butts have been firmly planted only when our car is in motion, an action inevitably equated with the American road trip. Outside of our vehicle, however,our legs frequently move with such purpose that terminal velocity may very well be achieved.
Our hearts were heavy when we left Mobile with the rising sun yesterday. Monday was a sight seeing day for us. We went to Dauphin island, the road leading in and the gulf assumed lovers due to proximity, where there is a sea lab with local concerns displayed beautifully through wildlife. After driving around town oogling the beautiful architecture we visited the Mobile historic Museum. ( Did you know that Mobile was actually the first US city to celebrate Mardi Gras? Not New Orleans. Now you do.) Then Kenneth and I made dinner and the three of us talked. And though the settings changed the week went by the same. We went to see things, drank amazing beer and hung out with our lovely host. When it came time to leave would couldn't help but to be sad. He had made us feel at home, was certain that some how he and Tony were separated at birth, and was just a very kind, rare person. That is the part about couch surfing that is both emphatically amazing and dubiously depressing at the same time: One meets wonderful people, gets to know them and like them, and then one leaves and hopes that despite distance that the friendship will stick.
After four days and a heavyhearted goodbye we took off to New Orleans. I can tell you now that one day there is definitely not enough! As we spent most of our time in the french quarter and most of our time in the french quarter on bourbon street we didn't really feel as though we gave the Big Easy the respect she needed in order to really fully experience her. ( Not to mention after biegnetts at Cafe du Monde Tony didn't feel very well for an hour or two ,which slowed us down.)
This is how our day went, not necessarily exactly in order ,give or take a few people yelling out doors of clubs for us to come in and a few bachelorette partys getting started way too early:
We took a street car in to the city after parking at the college. We then walked directly to cafe du Monde where powder sugar lives happily on everyone's shoes and pigeons are on a permanent sugar high. After that we made our way to the Mississippi river, stuck our fingers and toes in the murky water, and then paid a nearly toothless jazz musician sitting close by to sing along with a tape recorder while invading my personal space. There really really was music playing on every corner. Jazz swaying sweetly on the side walk, R& B blasting out of bars that were serving PBR and MHL cheaply, just wanting people to pay their cover charge at 11am on a Thursday, bluegrass weaving its gental way through wide open doors, and one loony looking man in a lawn chair was playing Lynryd Skynryd less than two feet from the open doors of a bar. We made our way to the famous Marie Laveau's looked around and then walked to cemetery with her tomb ( because we wanted to see a cemetery there not because we that enthusiastic about voodoo) And before we walked back to the street car that sqeakily took us to our car we stopped manage to stop for a while and drink some hurricanes( one at house of blues and one at Pat o' brians)and Tony get his Etouffee.( a long awaited dish for him)
The reason I've gone into so much detail is simply because it was such a crazy day and we barely touched the surface.
That night we met our host Nick who is a glass blower by trade. He let us watch him at work the next morning and it so inspired me that I swore to myself that I'd take a class when we finally end up back at home. We liked Nick instantly too.( We cant help but to like people with giant painting of their own creation in their living rooms offsetting a giant bean bag chair!) Early in the morning we left Baton Rouge and once again hit the road for San Antonio.
San Antonio, where Tony's high school friend Jeremy lives with his wife Ashley and two cute dogs, is where we are now. It was a very cliche Texas-y type evening. We loved it. We enjoyed Tex-Mex and Margarettas for dinner. After which we went to a western wear outfitters so that Jeremy could buy a cowboy hat and Tony could contemplate one. Then we went to the grocery store to buy...( you guessed it) beer! The Texas brand, we learned, gives away land every year... like the golden ticket in Willy Wonka!
Today we are off to go horse back riding( something I've never ever done) and later to see Todd Snider open of a super famous Texan whom we cannot remember his name. Sorry Texans.... we love Todd Snyder( he's a southern hippie)

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Update from the last 2 weeks.

Well it’s been about two weeks since my last post. You’ve seen the pictures. Last week we stayed in Fort Myers, Fl. What can I say? We were lazy. Very very lazy. We read, drank beer, cooked, and we put dreadlocks in my hair. Of the 6 days we were there, we made it to the beach just once. It was just so incredibly hot out! We both ended up with bad sun burn. Tony’s legs were burned so badly, in fact, that they blistered! The week sped by and before we knew it, it was Tuesday again and we were driving to Orlando.

So far, on this trip , we have encountered thing that one or both of us were excited to see, but nothing has made us act as childish as the three and a half hour drive from Fort Myers to Disney. We’ve known for quite some time that we would be going, we made sure to plan the trip accordingly but those few hours still seemed so long. We found ourselves turning to the other and saying “ Hey Tony, were going to Disney World!” or “ Hey Megan, were almost at Disney World. We took excited pictures of road signs mentioning Disney and I bounced around like a little kid who couldn’t sit still. Finally we drove under the big Disney World Resort sign and both up us lit up!

The next 6 days were so amazingly fun and so ridiculously, exhaustingly busy, that even now I’m still breaking down each day into comprehensible bits in my mind. Tuesday (Day 1): Animal Kingdom, Wednesday (Day 2): Magic Kingdom, Thursday (Day 3): Epcot, Friday( Day 4): Hollywood Studios, Saturday (Day 5): Magic Kingdom, Sunday(Day 6): Universal Studios Islands of adventure. Every day except for Sunday we went into the park with our friends, Dave and Vicky (also the friends who gave us our Lodging at the Magic Kingdom Resort as a wedding present. (Thank you guys!)) They played tour guide for us and if it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have seen or done half the things that we did do. We met our couchsurfing host, Jonathan, and Tony hung out and watched Scrubs with him.

We drove to Mobile AL today to meet up with our Couchsurfing host Kenneth who made us dinner and had us sample some home brewed beers. Tomorrow we are checking out Mobile.



Pooh bear


Us with Fantasa Mickey



Thursday, June 23, 2011

Epcot Photos (day 20 or so I think?)




Disney World

Some more Disney pictures from today.








Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Disney Photos

Just some pics from Disney Animal Kingdom today!






Stay tuned for stories in the next few days.


Sunday, June 19, 2011

Day 16-21 St James City Florida

Quick update for everyone.

We drove the 600 some miles from Athens to St James City Florida on Tuesday arriving around 7PM. We don't have internet access so I'm posting from a book store. Here are some highlights of the last week:

Eating peaches and boiled peanuts from Georgia


Hit 3000 miles on the trip so far on the way to Florida


Megan made vegan chip dip


Megan preparing her hair for dreads


Awesome new hair




We've since cleaned up and our view from our back porch

Us at the beach and Megan in the Gulf of Mexico




Drive home from the beach and the storm that knocked the power out.

We are going to Disney World on Tuesday morning to meet with our pals Dave and Vickie (thanks for the room!) We are quite excited and ready.

Our map from PA to Fort Myers: