It’s about time: Nawlins.

Arriving anywhere in the middle of the night is both daunting and exciting. From the bouncing back of the truck, Julia could really only see the back of Anna’s bobbing cowboy hat and the shimmying street lights: there were tree silhouettes, with branches and leaves hanging low, brushing the pavement, and what looked like windows and staircases glancing at us through the dark. We turned and turned and turned (in the truck, on our feet) and got lost and finally found ourselves on Rose and Dylan’s doorstep. And what a sight for sore eyes! They very efficiently tucked us under their feathery wing-arms, offered us beer or water and informed Julia that they were also coffee-addicts (and that there was a batch of cold brewed hazelnutty or vanilla-ey something or other coffee just waiting in the fridge for morning-consumption). Despite kicks of protest, Rose made us sleep on her bed while she curled up with one of the many kittens on her surprisingly comfortable bedroom floor (we forced her to reclaim her bed the following nights: beds are for suckers, you see).

When we woke up in the morning, we took it slowly: none of this running against the impending dark because you don’t want to get caught on a highway with nothing but the moon and the headlights of speeding cars to guide you. Our knowledge of New Orleans was pretty embarrassing. We’d heard mountains of tales of danger and warning: people who wanted us safe and had either heard horror stories about New Orleans or more directly experienced them. But Rose and Dylan were native New Orleaners (ish) who had been living there before the storm, and had relocated together in Austin, and then returned to New Orleans as soon as they could. They knew the wheres and whats: they told us about the pre- during- post-Katrina experience (the first time the storm became real to both of us) and generally kept us safe, made us laugh and gave us good times.

But yes, arriving somewhere at night means that experiencing the morning is just that much more exalting. Everything that had been nestling in the dark corner of a tree trunk, or hiding behind a shrouded pane of glass, between two steps, underneath a dim lamppost, came out to frolic in the light and the heat. Our immediate impressions are probably stuck on that street corner, or on Rose and Dylan’s doorstep–all we can truly remember is that we had pretty much synchronised thoughts of “Fuck the rest of the US. Let’s never leave.” Just like we’d been similarly sucked into San Francisco, thinking that we should stay an extra month and a half and then fly to New York to catch our flight back to London, New Orleans became that place where, if you didn’t have commitments across the ocean: things to do, people to see, degrees to finish, you’d never leave. We were both more than ok with the idea of getting jobs as baristas and sleeping where we fell once night hit the city.

Here’s a big hippie song for you kids:

It’s been about 5 months since we wandered around New Orleans and the first thing to go is always the chronological composition of our time there. So, we did stuff, you know in some semblance of an order, in the whole day to day basis. At some point we went with Rose to meet Marguerite, who had had an accident and so couldn’t do much of anything on her own. We drank coffee and chatted, then went to the NOMA to see a beautiful photography exhibition called “The Art of Caring” with shots by Annie Leibovitz and other contemporary photographers (http://neworleansphotoalliance.blogspot.com/2009/05/art-of-caring-photo-show-at-noma.html). At some point, possibly after this dose of photography, we were taken to Frenchman Street where we ate à la Middle Eastern (New Orleans doesn’t cater particularly well to vegans): probably something involving roast aubergines. Because (note: roast aubergines are the way to both our hearts). And then we wandered back home where Dylan cooked us an awesome meal, as truly New Orleans as he could, considering his guests were non-meat-eaters: corn bread, goats cheese and sweet potato filled pastry mouth-watering thing, rice and beans (which warmed the cockle’s of Julia’s Brazilian heart), and something else which was deliciously full of cheese. The idea was to go to a bowling alley where there would be a swing band playing, but the night wore on and the food weighed our eyelids down so we curled up on Rose’s floor with kitten fur and kitten purr.

Next morning was, I imagine, equally slow. Somehow we ended up at Rouse’s (a shop that was to appear again and again during our time in New Orleans): probably in search of phone credit for Anna who was starting to go cold turkey (having not been able to text or receive texts for a couple of days now). At check out, we received a phone call from Mr. Benjamin Morris of, quote Ryan Van Winkle, Forest publication fame, who, because he was in the area (and was wondering why, of all places, we were at Rouse’s) decided to pick us up and drive us to our next destination (as of yet, we have no idea where that is). He was in a yellow car, or so he claimed: it seemed closer to cream-coloured. There was some talk about this, and then we were invited to go to the cinema with him and his friends to watch Plan 9 from Outerspace (yes, the worst film ever made) with a voice-over by some American comedians Anna and I knew nothing about. He’d pick us up at an hour and we would head to the cinema, and then to drinks at Mimi’s: the coolest booze hole EVER. In New Orleans, you can still smoke in bars (or so it seemed) and people at Mimi’s seemed to prefer smoking Djarum’s, so the low-lit bar, with its profusion of delicious local (and other) ales, beautiful people and awesome music, smelled predominantly of clove cigarettes (which reminds some of being fifteen, but pretty much just pleased our noses and reminded us of times on our porch in San Francisco with dude and the kids). After much drinking and merriment, Ben left us safely at our front door with the promise of something that may or may not be called Swamp Pop (time only knows) the next night, again, at Mimi’s.

Marguerite and Rose took us to a park somewhere by the NOMA (you New Orleaners will probably know which one this is) where we walked Marguerite’s dogs and Julia got her foot consumed by painful ants that left boils all over the top of her foot and in between her toes (hawt, we know). We searched in vain for ‘gators (though Marguerite assured us she’d seen one in that park before), mistook a log for one of those famous reptiles, then drove off to have a wee look at the huge, gray Mississippi and spotted an unnecessarily large NO SMOKING sign on a boat, seemingly directed at the people looking at the boat as opposed to the people on the boat. (Disclaimer: these two events probably didn’t happen in unison, but happened at some point when we were in New Orleans… again, to hell with chronology!) 

At some point over those couple of days Rose also took us to see one of the infamous Louisiana above-ground cemeteries – swamps making it difficult for buried people to stay buried you see.

Here, Anna will write with amusement about how Julia managed to get stuck in a lightning storm, soaked to the bone in the middle of New Orleans, with both shoes broken, hiding amongst the produce of Rouse’s, to finally be saved, again, by Mr. Ben Morris, of Forest Publication fame. Enter Anna:

So, here is a tale of Anna and Julia facing all odds to reach the French Quarter, and failing. As we left Rose and Dylan’s on our solo expedition, we felt the first heavy drops of summer rainstorms fall on us. Now, as we saw it, it warm outside and summer rain never lasts long, so we decided to just carry on undaunted by the weather. By the time we had reached the end of Rose and Dylan’s (not-very-long-at-all) street, we were completely soaked through. We shuffled quickly to the next block down and ran into the first cafe we saw. This was only about 200 yards away from the house. We sipped ice-teas and discussed what should be done. On the one hand, it was warm, so being wet wasn’t particularly a problem, and we had to get to the French Quarter before we could leave the Big Easy. On the other hand, we didn’t know how long it was going to rain for (it was easing off by this point, but skies remained moody), and were also quite aware of the lighting that we could hear getting closer and closer.

Eventually, we decided to just fuck it and keep walking – what could possibly go wrong? A little rain never hurt anyone after all. As we approached the river, a point of high excitment for Anna as it was full of terrapins and encircled by junglesque sidestreets with lizards everywhere, Julia became aware that one of her shoes was becoming rather loose. It is worth remembering at this point that Julia has already lost a shoe in transit to LA, and disposed of two other pairs en route. As she paused to inspect her shoe, it seemed that the straps we beginning to come unattached from the sole on one side. “Fuck it!” we cried, and carried on walking. Our stubborness only lasted for another street or so, at which point it became clear that one side of the front strap had become completely detached from the shoe. From here, there was only one place to go – Rouses.

We hobbled and shuffled (when I say we though, I do mean Julia) quickly towards Rouses as the sky began to darken again, and the smell of rain chased us down the road. Rouses held no adhesives. Thankfully, the discovered a large home depot next door and hatched a plan to borrow a giant staple gun. As Julia selected some super strength gorilla glue and sweet talked the store staff into stapling her shoe back together (they seemed more than entertained by this), we heard the rain start to fall hard again. Realising we couldn’t stay in the Home Depot forever, we said our thanks to the nice stapler men and hurried back across the car park (now 3 or 4 inches deep in gross slidy petrol mud). Needless to say, we got about 10ft away from the building before the staples came out and Julia’s straps broke completely. Lightning began to strike closer on all sides. Julia, painfully aware of her lack of rubber sole, began to jump onto one foot every time lighting struck. Regardless of the fact the lighting strikes before you hear it…

So our journey from one superstore to the one next door began – Anna leading the way through the sludge, laughing hysterically, with Julia hopping and shuffling behind her, jumping at every noise that might be even related to lighting.

Once reinstated in Rouses, Julia settled herself in the cafe to begin the slow process of waiting for glue to dry and save her shoes. Anna went to forage for tiffin ingredients. We remained walking in and out of Rouses for the next two hours or so – the insane amount of air conditioning inside the store chilled our soggy bones, but the lighting still tried to kill Julia outside, and she was not willing to accept Anna’s offer of shoes in order to venture further. Eventually, rescue came. Merci, Ben Morris. That day, the French Quarter was shunned in favour of making tiffin for the fabulous Rose and Dylan. 

The setting is Mimi’s: the people are Ben, his flatmate Lauren, and his friend whose name I can’t quite recall at the moment, but who looked a bit like Val Kilmer. We started off with pints of Abita and calculations: how many naked people, of average build, we wondered, would it take to fill Lichtenstein? Would we fill all areas: rooftops, swimming pools, river and lakes? Would we lie them down or have them sitting or standing? Either way, the result of the calculation was that millions would be needed, and we were not sure how many people in Europe there were who would be ok with invading Lichtenstein in the nude. So far, we had three volunteers, Anna, Ben and me. By the time we moved onto our next pint, our conversation must have wandered onto other things: Julia’s drunken rant about how Switzerland is full of fascists and Anna’s well-rehearsed monologue about menstrual blood and photography. By this point we were both completing each other’s sentences, having told and retold the same travel accounts and would take turns at telling each other’s respective autobiography. At one point, Anna pointed to Julia and exclaimed, “I’m Brazilian!”

Anna, later in the night befriended a man called Terence who insisted that she google him and they become friends after impatience caused her to accidentally smell his shit. A bit later, yet not too late, in the evening, Ben took us to another bar where there was live death metal. The bar, it seems, is a must see, but both Anna and Julia by this point were gone with the drunken fairies. Anna’s telling point was 1) when she started slurring in a thick Scots accent, claiming she wasn’t dRRRRunk, and 2) when she started dancing with Ben. When Julia left them on the dance floor, in search of the loo, there were many people shimmying to the tunes: when she returned, most of the dance floor had been cleared by their sweet moves. Of course, she joined in and managed to get the rest of the loiterers off her, Anna and Ben’s rightful territory. At some point amidst this havoc, a free bottle of wine was found, there was talk about poo, and then we eventually decided it was time to hit the sack (or floor, in our case).

Needless to say, Anna woke up with a bitch of a hangover. It was our last opportunity to get to the French Quarter (we feared that if we didn’t, we’d never leave: a bit like the Los Angeles situation where we had to go to Venice Beach before the city let us go) as we were planning on moving to another floor (we felt it was time we gave Rose some actual space: not just a bed, but a whole room) and then finally hitting the road to our longest and most ambitious stretch yet: 923 miles North to Chicago. But first, we had to conquer the French Quarter (our last attempt having been a failure because of shoe-related proportions). So, we found out what bus we had to take, waited at the busstop for about an hour, then got on it for a whole 10 minutes, missing our stop and ending up in a deserted back street. At this point, all the tall tales of danger came rushing back, and Anna thought it would be a great time to tell Julia that she thought she may or may not faint or throw up. Dehydration, she claimed. Hangover-related dehydration, possibly furthered by her refusal to actually drink any water. So, we sauntered on in search of Paul and Louise who had arrived in NOLA the previous night and were staying right next to the French Quarter. We missed their hotel, but ended up in another full of bikers from around the country, wearing leather that looked far too hot for that weather. Eventually, having found Louise, who escorted us to her hotel, we decided it might be best to hydrate Anna a wee bit more before going for a walk. This was done, and so the risk of her passing out/being sick passed. Anna and I, as veterans of New Orleans, were not all that impressed by the French Quarter. Beautiful, no doubt, but full of loud obnoxious tourists and a strange man loitering in a doorway with two tiny ponies on leashes.

Photograph by Louise Bianchi

 

At one point, on Bourbon Street, we saw huge adverts for Barely Legal and Bicycle related Sex Shows. The joy. On the bright side, after guiding Paul and Louise to Frenchman Street, we finally got a taste of a Poboy! Sullied, of course, by its vegetarian/veganness, it was still pretty damn good. We walked back towards the French Quarter, stopping at vintage shops on the way, in the search for Anna’s long lost Southern Belle hat. We went to Dylan’s work where he filled us with beautiful ice coffee, and then went somewhere on Bourbon Street for drinks and some music. Paul and Louise, our eternal saviors, then drove us back Rose and Dylan’s, where we said our goodbyes and were picked up by our couchsurfer, who offered us a couple of beds in a very hot garage to sleep in.

Anna, being hungover and generally foul-mooded, sulked in a corner somewhere, while Julia tried to keep up conversation with this man who was very much involved in the couchsurfing community and who claimed to like yoga and cycling. We ate. We attempted to drink a beer. We slept. And the next morning, Ben, again, came to our rescue. When hitchhiking, you have to start early. Again, you generally don’t want to request rides after dark. Vampires, werewolves, all manners of strange evil creatures come out at night to play, on the highways of Mississippi and Missouri. So, Ben collected us bright and early, we threw our things into his car and started the drive outside the city to somewhere hitching-friendly. Little did we know that the highways outside New Orleans were elevated above miles and miles of swamp (our search for gators having been unsuccessful thus far, we weren’t really in the mood to defend our hitching turf against the many sharp-toothed creature of the swamps). It was beautiful, but it was also a wee bit inconvenient in the whole hitchhiking-out-of-Louisiana plan. Many miles (merci encore, Ben) later, we found sturdy ground to commence our hitching (this is, after we stocked up on loads of sweet, fresh fruit to eat on our 900 mile long trek). At a truck stop, Julia approached many truckers who all seemed to be heading in either the wrong direction, or were lying about leaving soon so that they could be in the company of two ladies for a while longer. After about an hour of failure on this account (comments such as, “I wish I was heading your way, you’re mighty fine” and etc are actually really discouraging and unnerving), Ben drove us to a ramp, where we decided we’d stick our thumbs on the road, smile, and hope for the best.

As we were saying our see-you-soons, a trucker pulled over, obviously under the impression that Ben’s car had broken down. As we rushed towards him with our huge packs, he obviously came to the realisation that we were only being dropped off, and his good samaritanism had landed him two ladies on their way up North. And so the epic hitch began.

Austin, and the hitch to NOLA

William Wallace lived up to his historic reputation (imagine that the rest of Texas is the Earl of Surrey) and redeemed his native state by collecting us lost folks and retreating with us into the humid misplaced Obama-hole that is Austin. 

Will himself is a born and bred Austinite, fabulous guitar player and holds the particularly excellent job title of ‘Senior Combat Designer’. Yes, my friends. Star Wars. He was also kind enough to turn his kitchen over to us upon our arrival (we’d been eating cookies and salty nuts all day and were dying for vegetables) and allow us to cook him dinner. 

That night we head to the Spider House Cafe (Austin’s grooviest vegetarian patio cafe and bar) for banter with Will and his most charming friend Chris, also a fine musician (so we were to discover the following morning as we awoke to his strumming) who was also to be spending the night on Will’s living room floor. A popular place by all means. The following day was mostly spent in the river, with the everybody else in the city, I think. 

This lady took quite some time to get up there. I hope she made it, although there is no evidence either way. And there was a policeman staring at her. For some reason. 

We meandered a little further to where we could paddle delicately without being molested by pondweed, and eventually came upon a little bend by a cold spring that suited perfectly for swimming. There were loads of folk playing music and swimming their dogs and flirting awkwardly with each other and only one snake to be seen. Which didn’t seem to be poisonous, so all was well. Post swimming, we ventured off to find a dive bar to hang around in for a while before going to watch the bats ( http://www.austincityguide.com/content/congress-bridge-bats-austin.asp ). On our wandering we got picked up by an awesome passer-by called Carol who bundled us into her car on the bar hunt, and was responsible for us eventually winding up on the set of “Machete”, the upcoming Rober Rodriguez movie. Rumour has it that we’d just missed Steven Seagal. Cars were to be blown up. Mostly, we hung out with the paramedic and drank gator aid. Swish or what? 

Eventually we hook up with Will in a dive bar lots of men in leather in it and drink some beer. Bat time. The bats in Austin are one of the most amazing things. Ever. The world needs more guano. 

We passed our final evening in Austin with Will, Chris and Wes, playing music and shooting the shit. Wes, despite having just made of acquaintance, seemed pretty concerned about the fact that we had yet to organise a place in stay in New Orleans the next night. Since ‘Nawlins has a fairly dangerous reputation, he vowed to call some friends of his who had evacuated to Austin but returned to NOLA and enlist their help on our behalf. 

So the next day was the day we were to hitch to the Big Easy. All began well – our homeland hero Mr. William Wallace drove us out of Austin to the on-ramp we need to catch that sweet I-10 all the way to New Orleans. This was our most ambitious journey of the trip to date – we were attempting to travel the 540 miles in order to arrive before dark, due to accommodation lack. Plan B was to stop and camp if it got dark and we were still homeless for that night, however, this option was slightly unappealing if reconsidered in the light of alligators and increasingly common poisonous snakes. So, we chose optimism and decided to leg it the whole way in a day. 

Our first ride of the day came pretty easily.

1. Tom – Austin to Lockhart

Tom was an old hippy guy with old hippy guy hair and an old hippy guy car. He was excellent banter, and a fine start to our day. 

2. Russ – Lockhart – I-10/H-183

Russ was the only person who picked us up to ever state that he was Republican. For his honesty, I salute him. Politics aside, he was a pretty cool guy, and had spent his youth hitching around Europe. 

3. Duncan – I-10/H-183 t to Houston

Duncan was our first ex-con. He’d been to jail for 10 years for drug related stuff, but got an extra long sentence because he punched the cop who arrested him. The way we heard it, seems the fuzz were being a bit too rough on him and might have deserved it. Either way, it resulted in his brother getting in and out of jail twice before poor Duncan could take a walk to the shops by himself. He said that the most surprising thing about leaving jail after missing the nineties (he was incarcerated from 1991-2001) was colour. He’d lost sense of it after being in grey cells for such a time. Oh, and the internet. Bit of a shocker that one. As far as we could tell, he still keeps it simple. 

Duncan dropped us off in Houston, since the I-10 ran straight through it and left us to go about our business. His business was oil, and needed tending to. The only problem with this drop off, was that we suddenly found ourselves standing on the edge of a 70 mile an hour six lane highway with nothing but pure, unadulterated Texan metropolis around us. Fuck. We decided to hit up the gas stations and try to get a ride that way, but were generally met with “I just live around the corner” or “I’m not into giving rides”. Things seemed to be getting a bit dire, since sunset was by this point only 6 or so hours away, and our destination was still 350 miles away. We placed some panicked calls to California and to the UK – does anybody know anyone who might just happen to be driving through Houston RIGHT NOW? Nae joy on that one, unsurprisingly, but our own dearest Ryan was kind enough to pass on the number of a friend of his in New Orleans we could call if we got there in a panic. Baby steps. Attempts to get a bus to a truck stop also failed.

We eventually gave in to standing on the interstate (thankfully Texas is the only state in which this is legal) to more actively pick up the race to NOLA. After a 15 minutes or so of waiting (although we had now been in Houston for nearly an hour and a half), a car pulled quickly onto the hard shoulder. Being as panicked as we were, we just got in the car without asking too many questions. Mistake. 

It became quickly clear that the back seat was full of stuffed toys that had been seat belted into the delicate sea of empty beer cans. 

4. Greg – Houston to somewhere outside Houston

Greg seemed a little on edge. I mean seriously on edge. Our excitement about finding a ride to Louisiana quickly dissipated as we realised we were in the car of a drunk, anxious, crazy man. Greg said he was going to Louisiana, but he wasn’t sure where. Or why apparently. He avoided most questions about his personal life, and concentrated on finished his beer and getting his hands to stop shaking so he could text. 

Soon after we’d left the city limits of Houston he got a text message and started muttering under his breath. “I can’t do it, I just can’t do it.”.

After a little nervous enquiry, it became clean that “it” was to go to Louisiana. Apparently. So, Greg dropped us off at the first off-ramp and high-tailed it back to Houston. Whatever was going on with him, I’m pretty damn glad we never found out. 

Despite the fact that we had no idea where we were, things seemed a little less desperate now that we were no longer in the city. Things did look up pretty damn quickly too, as within 5 minutes we’d been picked up by our hero of the day.

5. Kevin – Somewhere outside Houston to New Orleans

Kevin was our second ex-con of the day, but served a much more modest sentence of 4 years for grand theft auto. During the following 6 or 7 hours we spent with him, we shared a lot of stuff – stories about his Hells Angels days, stories about his family, Anna trying to talk around her sexuality and all 3 of us driving his 18 wheel truck together through huge storms and torrential rain. We went alligator hunting, and laughed at roadside adult warehouses. Kevin picked us up at around 4pm, and had been driving since 2 in the morning. Needless to say he was a bit tired. Being the good guests that we are, we took him up on his offer to let us drive for a bit…

Julia chose this moment to inform us both that the last time she’d driven anything she drove into a fence. Confidence abounded, especially when Anna took the cruise control off and started overtaking other trucks, or when Julia and Kevin had to swop places while driving down the interstate because there was a cop car coming the other way. Noticeably, neither Ju or Anna would fall asleep in the truck bed while the other was driving. 

Kevin took us for a fine dinner in Pizza Hut, who actually seem to have a passable salad bar (Anna lost her hat there, and was forever to be broken hearted), and we continued on our way. Although he wasn’t going to New Orleans itself, he decided he would drive us there anyway in return for the company. In the meantime, Wes of Austin fame had sent us a number for his friends in New Orleans, and a place to stay had been arranged. Things were set. 

It’s hard to explain what passed between us and Kevin. Let’s just say we felt a real bond with him. 

It’s a shame this is my only picture of him. Later attempts to meet up with him the next day failed due to my inability to understand his thick Texas accent over the phone. Damn. 

He, as promised, took the load off his truck and drove us to our door in New Orleans in the middle of the night. There we were met by two of the most awesome folks we were to find on our cross country way – Rose and Dylan, midcity madcap music makers.

Lubbock to Austin, the hitch where white girls burned

Juan was one of those drivers who relish in there being some form of physical presence beside him. He didn’t need this physical presence to reassert itself vocally or otherwise. After a while, we were grateful, but in the beginning, unsure of how to assess whether or not this man was harmless or not, Anna and Julia pried conversation out of him. And it wasnae easy, kids. Like opening a clam with a pair of tweezers.

Señor Juan drove us for a couple of hours and dropped us off in a wee towny town called Abilene, which ended up being a town sent from the pits of Texan suburban hell. After being dropped off on the ramp we believed would take us to the correct highway, Anna wandered off to play with some blood in the desert. Then we waited. And waited. And eventually a kind sir informed us we were on the opposite side of town from where we wanted to be and that he’d give us a ride there.

(Robert: Abilene to Abilene)

Robert was the paternal kind of driver, who, seeing that we were fairly hungry and thirsty and allowing for the possibility of us not managing to get anywhere that day, left us his number and offered us a place to stay if we did get stranded.

Next:

Jeremy: Abilene to Long

Larry: Long to Coleman

(And here’s a photo to amuse your eyes while I gather up the anecdotes in me ‘ead)

Larry left us in a spotof sunlight (read unbearable heat) and left us to go about our business at the gas station. After filling up with water, the kind gas station lady gave us some ice and sent us on our way. We walked the whole 100 yards or so to the hard shoulder to begin to wait. When we got there, our ice was gone, and our water was fit for making tea with. We had the delightful experience of being passed by the same jeep-towing RV that had passed us in Abilene. They continued to pretend not to see us. There were an alarming number of blind people on the roads of Texas.

Eventually, a car that had passed us swung around and came back to save us. Inside were Corrie (a lifelong Texan with an awesome accent), Tom  (the only Puerto Rican in the village) and their daughter Maya, who broke our streak of silent-type single Dads. There were about 20 years between Corrie and Tom, who were obviously stupidly in love with each other.  This song is for them:

John Prine – In Spite of Ourselves

Being the sweet and amazing people they were, they also pointed our their house to us as we drove by it and made us promise to come back if we got stuck. Then, they drove us to the end of their town and left us by the side of the road, continuing our journey to Austin (Coleman – Brownwood)

From that suburban sunspot we were fairly swiftly collected by ‘Sweet’ Tony, a charming former Air Force chappie who spent much time on the phone (“I’ve got some hitchhikers in the back – I should probably talk to them” and discussions about butch coffee table books), but also taught us the secrets of cruise control. ‘Sweet’ Tony Mincer cruised us efficiently from Brownwood to Goldthwaite.

Goldthwaite, it is worth mentioning, was just a power station by the side of the road. Since ‘Sweet’ Tony’s high tech car had told us that is was 104F, we embarked upon a new plan as we waited by the roadside in this unusually shade-free and power station-bordered town of sorts. We decided to try to appeal to the humanity of the road users, and so scrapped our Austin sign for one that read “100F”. Within about 5 minutes a car emerged shakily on the horizon, and pulled up to a disorganised stop next to us. The window rolled down to reveal a highly excited cowboy who announced immediately that he didn’t normally pick up hitchhikers, but he just had a good feeling today. Hell, he hadn’t even noticed we were girls until he had pulled over!

James – Goldthwaite to Lampasas:

It became quickly clear just how drunk James was as he finished his can of Clamato (beer with tomato and clam juice in it) and threw the empty can out of the sunroof. He proceeded to call a friend of his driving ahead of us to get him to pull over. The beer was in the back of his pickup you see. Despite his incredible drunkenness and general dangerous driving (he had a fairly unnerving habit of texting while steering with his knees), James was a cheerful bloke and provided the entertainment for the duration of our ride with him. He also very enthusiastically tried to persuade us to stay a few days and “party like rock stars”. We politely declined, and he equally politely dropped us in a large and welcome patch of shade.

Our final ride of the journey to Austin was completed in the one and only bus that picked us up. Samantha rolled up in a hospital bus full of children and crisp packets, only to open the door and yell:

“Are you guys on the level?”

What?

Apparently this means “Do you plan to kill me” or “Are you chock full of drugs?” No and no, so yes, we answered and away we went into the sweetie wrapper bus, collecting another sunburned hitchhiker on the way. Samantha hailed from California, spending her childhood raising alligators in the bathtub, but had now dedicated her life to accumulating children. She dropped us by a bowling alley on the outskirts of Austin, where we were collected by the fabulous and yes-it-is-his-real-name William Wallace to begin the Austin section of our Texas adventures…

Lubbock, Cutting Edge Gifts and Drive-in Liquor Stores

Our arrival in Lubbock summed half the city up: we were dropped on a shady (shady as in under a tree) corner of a strip mall. The other half of Lubbock is churches. It was around 6 o’clock in the evening and it was about 105 degrees outside. Why? Because Texas is weird and it gets hottest in the evening. The concept of siestas just wouldn’t transfer.

Our walk into the strip mall was one of ogling. On both parts: the citizens of Lubbock were confounded by our arrival there. And well, we hadn’t exactly been anywhere near a strip mall in a while. A few people came up to us asking if we were travelling (no, duh, we just enjoy carrying these really heavy packs around with us), and immediately afterwards, jaw-dropping and wondering why the hell we’d stumbled into Lubbock, where Anna proceeded to explain the sister-situation.

That morning, Julia had had no coffee, as she and Anna had been mustard-seeding (for lack of another word) at the organic farm. Our first stop in the mall was somewhere we could drown her in caffeine. There, a beautiful Israeli girl (whom Anna ogled) and an Israeli boy also wondered aghast at what we were doing there. What were they doing there, though? We were just passersby. So, yes, Lubbock: most people don’t know what the hell they’re doing there. Check.

Denissa met us at the cafe and there was chitchat and things of the sort. Eventually, we re-donned our hats and hit the road (i.e. the 10 block walk to her house). We arrived at her abode, dropped our gear and then went out to a supermarket to buy provisions for vegan meal-ness. At the supermarket, we searched for the freak aisle, failed but nonetheless held some vegetables affectionately to our breasticles. We cooked up a storm, hung out with Raul, Denissa’s husband, and heard tales of Anna’s childhood. Then to bed, where Anna got, gleefully, to sleep naked again, without hurting anyone’s feelings.

The next day, Raul and Denissa had to work, so we essentially mooched about the household writing letters and reading books and watching bad spanish telenovelas, which was crazily satisfying, as we’d not really had much time to do nothing at all. Anna went off to find a Radioshack where she could top up her phone, i.e. she had to venture back into the strip mall. OH GOD. It was not without its benefits, however, as in the strip mall Anna stumbled upon a hilarious little shop called Cutting Edge Gifts, where they specialise in knives and crucifixes. Och, Lubbock! Anna nearly peed herself laughing then returned home to make Julia pee herself too. She then set off again to find a cash-doctor to cure her of something or other, failed, so got herself some cowboy medicine instead: a yummy cowboy hat.

Our next adventure requires some explanation. Lubbock is the only dry-county in Texas (it’s pretty much a big church town) so in order to get ourselves some vino to accompany our second amazing vegan meal, we had to cross the county line. While driving, Raul pointed us in the general direction of the liquor store, but all we could see were flashing neon lights. Denissa thought that maybe after getting some wine we could take her kids to that amusement park. We agreed. Little did we know that we were actually heading straight to those lights. We also came to notice that we were only one in a long line of cars driving in the direction of those lights. No, it can’t be. But it is. The liquor store we were searching out was this line of neon-lit Liquor Drive-ins, with cars speeding in and placing orders, lined on one side by neon booze and on the other by cornfields.

Oh my lord. Anna and Julia proceeded to pee themselves again. And decided the next day that more wine is a perfectly valid excuse for going back to take touristy photos (or vice-cersa). To top it off, they found MEAD and GINGER WINE! Though they decided not to buy any. It wasnae Moniack, you see.

And then, um, let’s see. More food, more wine.

And finally, Denissa and Raul drop us off on the side of the road in the good ol’ breezy Texan mornin’ (what a cheeky, deceptive bastard–later that day, a pitiful lack of rides leads the two ladies to inform drivers in their air-conditioned cars that it was 105 degrees farenheit outside, i.e. enough to melt a melon to raclettte-consistency (or Julia’s deoderant) by use of paper and Sharpie). The pleather tramps stick their regular-sized thumbs in the road, whistle a tune, dance a jig and get picked up by their first ride of the day: quiet, monosyllabic Juan, from whom one has to wrestle a sentence, like a shell from an octopus…

 

(Photos to be posted at later date when in possession of appropriate computer equipment. Aye. Shpanks.)

Colorado to Lubbock, maybe, with a Spiritual Groper halfway there. Pt 2.

So there we were, safe in the arms of our gentle hearted cowboy Jeremiah. He loaded us unquestioningly into his beautiful yellow pickup and drove us cheerfully to his home in Denver. We spent the day having lunch with a friend of Jeremiah’s and fixing windows. Andrew and his wife merrily tore each other apart as we marvelled at the wittiness of their banter. We spent that evening in the company of Jeremiah and his cowboys, confusing the pizza place (“My wife, she’s a vegan. Can you believe that?!”) and developing little cowboy crushes on the boy. Sweet thang.

Jeremiah

An Avedon shoot of dear Jeremiah revealed a tattoo of a man in an overcoat with a penguin and a branded cross, each with their own stories to tell.

We left, sadly, the next day, but not before visiting Sputnik’s in Denver for lunch and squeezing into a photobooth with dearest Jeremiah. The results are lamentably not available to place here at the present moment, but perhaps in the future they shall transpire.

Jeremiah dropped us by the side of the road (thankfully the exit after the mental institution), we said our goodbyes and he set off for a wedding. The hitchiking began.

A few minutes passed. We thumbed enthusiastically at cars and discovered the variety of ways people do not pick up hitchhikers: the head shake, the ‘i’m on the phone’, the ‘i can’t see you’, the full car. After 5 minutes or so, we grudgingly applied suncream to each other as the cars rolled by. As soon as we began to do this, a woman pulled over. Her name was Randy, and she was one of the very few single women to pick us up.

1. Randy – Denver to Conifer.

She left us at Conifer by the roadside, and about 2 minutes after sticking out our thumbs, a pickup truck of 3 guys pulled over enthusiastically.

2. Mike, Scott and Tony – Conifer to Bailey

Mike and Tony served together in Afghanistan, and both had amazing scars. Mike, having been blown up in Iraq breaking 32 bones, puncturing both lungs and rupturing his spleen, had Andy Warhol style chest surgery scars (http://editorial.designtaxi.com/tds-artistsasmodels/2.jpg) and an overall rugged look. Tony had been in a motorcycle crash that severed his bicep from his shoulder. It spun around his arm when he tensed it, and we spent most of the ride asking if we could touch it.

We met up with Chris’ aunt Karen in Bailey, who whisked us away to her mountain home where she lives with her husband and high school sweetheart, also a Chris. Turned out we’d arrived at happy hour, so naturally love potions were made and we settled ourselves upon the deck for a night of chit chat and an excellent dinner.

We spent a couple of days at the house in Bailey, sleeping on a water bed (Julia would often wake up in the night, remember she was on a waterbed and cause waves in the mattress with her laughter) walking and drinking. On our first day of walking, we saw a dog running towards us from one of the houses. As it bolted towards us, we tried to decide how likely it was to try to kill us. However, we noticed that the closer it got to us, the lower to the ground it got before finally rolling over and licking Anna’s feet. Harmless, we decided.

Soon it became clear that whatever we had decided did not matter too much, since the dog had decided it was coming with us. It followed us on our walk for 3 hours or so (long enough for us to give it a name, Holly) before following us home and making itself comfortable on the porch.

Lamentably Holly finally disappeared the next morning, but then again, so did we.

Here’s how it went:

1. Randy and Janee – Bailey to South Park (yes, that South Park)

2. Jim and Gaylon – South Park to Poncha Springs

3. Calvin and Betty – Poncha Springs – Taos

We met Betty when visiting a gas station in Poncha Springs to pee, and she spotted Julia’s ‘make-winter-go-away’ palm tree shoes in the bathroom queue. It went something like this:

“I love your shoes.”

“Thank you”

“Say, you don’t happen to need a ride to New Mexico do you?”

“Why yes, I do indeed.”

“Well hop in!”

Betty informed her son that he was driving us to New Mexico and we set off. They eventually decided to take us all the way to Taos, possibly due to charm. We saw the Church of Feed and Grain.

Upon arrival in Taos we began to wander around, having arrived with nowhere to stay. We met some kids who were left over from the Rainbow Gathering who informed us that it was possible to stay at the Hanumann temple in the town. Which turned out to only be kind of true, depending on who you spoke to. We did manage to secure a tenuous arrangement, and pitched our tent at the Ashram. There was a meteor shower that night, as well as heat storms, so we settled ourselves outside with some temple-goers to look at the stars. As we were learning the constellations, our numbers dwindled until we were only three. It can only be considered unfortunate that our companion thought that no star gazing was complete without a little unauthorised nipple touching. Vexed, we left him and the stars in favour of bed.

“You got me writing lyrics on postcards
Then in the evening looking at the stars
But the brightest of the planets is Mars”

- Rufus Wainwright, Go or Go Ahead

To our great disdain, the same man (now known as the Spiritual Groper) was waiting in the garden, staring at our tent when we awoke. Quickly, a decision was made to leave the temple. Couchsurfing was arranged during the day, and we set off to visit Taos Pueblo. However, the Pueblo turned out not to accept visitors who come on foot, so we elected to boycott it.

A woofer at the Ashram had agreed to drive us to some hot springs and then to the farm where we had arranged couchsurfing for the night, but when we returned he was nowhere to be seen. The only available mode of transport was the Spiritual Groper. Not thrilled by this option, we enlisted an old hobo/hitcher called Joe to come with us. The Spiritual Groper seemed displeased by this, but we had little sympathy.

He took us first to the farm where we were staying. Fortunately, sort of, as we were leaving for the hot springs (where we did not want to go with the Spiritual Groper), the farm’s dog began to tear apart one of the chickens. We wrestled it off her, only to discover that it was still alive but had  no chance of survival. We convinced the Spiritual Groper to kill the chicken (which he did rather too willingly) and used distress as an excuse not to go with him. Whew. He finally left us alone a scant two or three hours after that.

One night in a yurt at the farm, and then the hitch to Lubbock, TX. It looked something like this:

1. Mike – Taos to Vadito

2. ‘Slipknot’ – Vadito to Sipapu Lodge

3. Doreen – Sipapu Lodge to Las Vegas

4. Mario – Las Vegas to I-25/H-84

4. Patrick – I-25/H-84 to Lubbock

Patrick was an ex-military man on a mission to make or break his relationship, driving 700 miles to surprise his girlfriend. His destination was San Antonio, but after an hour or so in his car he decided he would take a detour through Lubbock on the condition that we went swimming in the blue hole with him. The blue hole is a cold (very cold) water spring in New Mexico that is 83 feet deep, and has a number of high ledges to jump from. Anna, being somewhat nervous of heights, was fairly reluctant to jump off them. Julia pushed her in with her mind. Possibly as revenge for the death horses. Anna was indignant.

So Patrick, sweet sweet Patrick, hit a couple more bongs and drove us giddily to Lubbock where we were to encounter Anna’s foster-sister, unseen for seven years…

Informative Entr’acte

Because we’se all foo’s and have been doing stuff instead of writing stuff, we are here to politely inform our audience of what will soon be heading their way.

This is a list of upcoming events to be written about. Please keep reading as posts WILL keep coming, though unevenly and far between.

LIST:

• Denver and Jeremiah, the gentle-hearted cowboy
• First hitching expedition (soldiers with awesome injuries) to Bailey with Chris and Karen, arriving for happy hour + a temporarily adopted dog (Holly, found on Sleepy Hollow Road).
• The hitch to Taos. Arriving serendipitously in South Park, Colorado. Rides with the paternal. How Julia’s “chase winter away” shoes got us all the way to Taos. The Ashram. Constellations + guru groper. (“You got me writing lyrics on postcards/then in the evening/looking at stars. But the brightest of the planets is Mars”). Escape to organic farm. Chicken-killing as a good excuse to not be taken to Hot Springs by buddhist feeler-upper, though help of hobo Joe already enlisted.
• Hitch to Lubbock. Patrick. Compromise: Ride all the way to Lubbock only if we go swimming in the Blue Hole (Santa Rosa, New Mexico). Och, aye! Julia pushes Anna into Blue Hole with her MIND. Anna’s non-existent dignity shattered.
• Lubbock and Anna’s 7-year absent foster-sister. Cutting Edge Gifts. Dollar Western Wear as medicine. Drive-in Liquor Stores in neon and dust storms.
• Death hitch to Austin. [Texas becomes the first of our enemy states]. Julia gets overly excited by crazy quantities of windmills. Abilene. Oil giraffes. Drunk racist-homophobic-Clamato-drinking cowboys. Private bus. William Wallace: (is that your real name? are you shitting me!)
• Austin. Snake-chasing. Death heat. Awesome river. Carol Pirie and the film-set of Machete. Missed connections with Steven Seagal. New Orleans connections.
• Hitch to the Big Easy. Ex-cons. Near-death in Houston. Creepy man with stuffed animals strapped in back-seat. Kevin and driving an 18-wheel Semi into Louisiana in a storm. Loss of cute hat in Sulphur.
• ‘Nawlins: Rose, Dylan and Marguerite. Thunderstorms, broken shoes. Rouse’s. Mr. Ben Morris, of Forest Publication fame. Mimi’s with Swamp Pop and shameful drunkenness. Terence, the “google me” guy and dancing so hard we cleared the dance floor. Failure to leave. Failure to find the ‘gators. Bike Porn and Barely Legal on Bourbon. Paul & Louise and Anna thinking she’s going to a) throw-up, b) faint, c) die.
• The long haul to Chicago (923 miles). Fooling trucker into picking us up–by mistake. [2nd enemy state: Mississippi]. Mean frat boys with pennies. Ride with trucker to Sikeston. Awkward questions by trucker about Julia’s intimate relations while Anna snores in the back. Speedy Gonzalez tour of Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri. In Sikeston: Motel 6 experience that Julia sleeps through. Junky salad.
• Sikeston to Chicago: Bad start in mean truck stop. “People in Chicago are mean: you must be a glutton for punishment.” Finally, at the Flying J’s, Jerry turns around to give us a ride all the way to Chicago. Anna dances out of the closet as Mr Cherokee Jerry has a gay daughter. Arrival in Chicago where we are bombarded by nice people trying to help us. We hitch a ride in a cop car without getting arrested.
• Chicago. Kelly and the fat cat. Julia and Anna PMS at each other. Failure to leave Chicago. The dating conversation at Drew’s. Failure to leave again. [Indiana becomes 3rd enemy state]. Getting kicked out of Pilot’s truck stop. Disgusting man asks for sexual favours. Take train back into Chicago. Book train out of Chicago (27 hours and 10 states). BAR and free drinks from Russ.
• Arrival in Philly.

To be continued…

Be patient, folks.

Bow curtsy. Back to my beer.

Love and stuff.

J & A.

Colorado to Lubbock, maybe, with a Spiritual Groper halfway there. Pt 1.

In Colorado Springs, Julia danced her way to the truck owner’s neighbour’s house to ask to use the loo, as she’d been travelling  for four hours and has a bladder the size of something really small, like a needle, but smaller. And stuff. Mr. Truck-Owner’s neighbour happily let Duncan and her use the bathroom (with an amused look on her face) and then proceeded to inform both of them that they should start thinking about their futures and that studying humanities would leave them destitute. I.e. that the direction they were heading led to no future at all. And always hold God in your hearts, kids. Etc.

Julia felt, at the moment, evidently, like she could conquer the world with nothing but a spade. But then proceeded to spiritually sink into a pile of environmentally-detrimental manure.

The tow-trucker then proceeded to drop all three of us off at some interstate Exit where Chris’s uncle Jeff stood waiting, in his cowboy hat and boots, jean jacket, and chin strap (white as egg white white) beard. We dropped Duncan off somewhere he could easily hitch a ride to Denver, said our adieus to a boy we’d only spent a couple of days with, though it felt like we’d been hanging out for weeks (in a good way, Julia had to explain to Jeff, who seemed shocked since he thought Duncan was quite a sound guy): when you break down many a time in one truck, spend hours driving next to each other, sleeping next to each other, and waking up at ludicrous hours to watch suns rise together, it seems odd when you’ve only been knowing of each other for a little over 48 hours.

Jeff, in his sweet cowboy way, with his yes ma’ams and his almost constant flustered look, asked us about adventures and chuckled at our misadventures. He took us to Safeway to buy ingredients for Julia’s Basque Butterbean Stew (since, as one would imagine, at the Ranch, they were devout omnivores) and then proceeded to drive us through country roads to Crowfoot Ranch.

For the next few days, Anna and Julia censored their speech (our hosts were too gentle hearted and we didn’t want to drive them away with our usual obsessive use of profanities), roamed around the woods, caves and fields of flowers (where Anna was surprised by the quantities of bees–who woulda thunk, in a field full of flowers, hey?) and played cowboy. We sat on the porch reading each other some Shel Silverstein poems, gawked at the quantities of hummingbirds (though Anna gawked more), and played tunes on the roller piano. Yes, a real roller piano! We played Blue Danube, Que Sera Sera, Singin’ in the Rain, etc etc, and had a musical work OUT.

At one point, Jeff, who had seen us gawking (again) quite spectacularly at his 1941 Chevrolet (we purred, we cooed, we petted it, we wet ourselves in enthusiasm), offered us a ride.

Jeremiah, Jeff’s son, and our cowboy in shining armour, would later inform us that Jeff must’ve taken a liking to us as he’d only been allowed to ride in it once, on the way to his prom. Oh well. I guess our reaction to the car was adorable. Or sumfink.

Most importantly, and to Anna’s great joy, we got to go horse-riding. To our further joy, Jeff wouldn’t let us on without cowboy boots. Since the ranch had been in the family for well over 50 years, there was a cupboard full of cowboy boots of all sizes (from actual miniature ones, for miniature people that are more commonly known as children) to large-footed ones. Anna and Julia chose a couple, went to the barn, grabbed themselves some Western saddles, drove out to where the horse were roaming, and swung themselves enthusiastically onto the not so enthusiastic-about-working horses. Anna rode Sherman, who was always excited about running off, while Julia got onto Jenny (or Brownie), the older horse, who seemed to have been in a tiff with Fireball, her daughter (the horse Jeff got onto). Chris, earlier that morning, had informed Anna that Jenny was the lazy one. What she hadn’t informed Anna about was that she was obsessed with Sherman. At least that day.

(For future reference: the last time Julia got on a horse was in Mexico (i.e. a long time ago). Said horse tried to kill her. She was not exactly prepared to run off anywhere.)

We set off. Jeff and Anna mumbling incoherently at each other in the front and Julia, on her lazy horse, meandering a few feet behind them. Now and then she’d get Jenny to gallop up to meet the mumblers, but eventually gave up, as she’d only been in line with them for a few seconds before falling behind some more. We had got on the horses with business in mind. There was cattle-counting to do (how exciting, hey? no, seriously. exciting!) and so we approached the coos and proceeded to attempt to count them, though they moved, and stood close together, and blended in with each other and made it difficult. Eventually, we counted and recounted 63. We were short of a cow, so we decided to wander for about an hour and a half, in the hope that we wouldn’t stumble upon a cow that was either diseased or struck by lightning. We separated. Jeff wandered off on Fireball. Anna and Julia proceeded up a hill in the hopes of not finding a cow carcass. Even though Julia had warned Anna a few times about how her horse was obsessed with her (Anna), Anna forgot (of course she did), and so galloped off with Julia screaming for dear life and cursing under and over and all around her breath that Anna was a shit and she should stop because Julia had all the intention of killing her with her bare hands. She did. Then laughed and pointed. And swore she’d forgotten and then went up another hill and led us into trees with branches jutting out at neck level. Of course Sherman and Jenny just walked through them and Anna and Julia did the limbo on their respective horses, had some disagreements with trees and resurfaced with fairly aesthetic scratches that made them look well tough.

Needless to really say, the missing cow had rejoined the herd at some point and they were all laughing at how we’d spent an hour searching for them, when they were all there to begin with. Foolish humans. Yes, foolish.

There was more horse-riding the next day. Jeff invited us at 7 am, with a gentle knock on our door. Julia sort of understood and figured maybe horse-riding was equivalent to coffee. Anna saw it as an opportunity to rub herself all over the sweaty horse, again. Something Jeff had never seen someone do, it seems. We all laughed at Anna. Again.

And then we were driven to Castle Rock, where Jeremiah picked us up in his yellow and blue 1969 pick-up truck (another gorgeous car!) and were on our way to Denver, with another sweet-hearted gentle-mannered cowboy.

Our first 1600 miles or so part 2

So we rumble conspicuously out of the Grand Canyon National Park around 8am, this time with Swirly and Steph in the front and us catching a nap in the pickup bed. We were woken from our snoozing by the truck pulling into a gas station to fill our two gas tanks with enough of that sweet petroleum to get us to Denver. Or so we thought. As we were dozing off again after heading off once more, we were awoken by the cessation of the normally constant rumble of the engine. Headphones were pulled out as it became apparent that we were coasting silently down the road that ran through the empty Arizona desert. Fuck.

Our truck finally came to a halt on the hard shoulder, and we began the process of adopting the truck owner’s identity in order to use his rescue service. Unfortunately, Duncan had no battery, Anna had no signal and Julia only had 12 minutes of talking time left on her phone. This lead us to be unnecessarily curt with the rescue folks, although in our defence they did keep calling us to ask us the same questions (so it’s a truck. uh huh. it’s white. uh huh. and you broke down? uh huh. really? yes, damn you! come save us!) when time was short.

Where we broke down, about a mile from Tonelia, whose downtown was all in the Petrol Station, which also served as a dollar shop, a blockbuster, a post office and more!

They eventually showed up two mini storm showers later and put the truck onto the back of their tow truck with us still inside. As much as we tried to convince the tow driver to drive us to Colorado, he was having none of it, and dropped us at the nearest fixing garage (his own) before promptly fucking off to go and have lunch and leaving us there in a dust storm. This not to be held against him however, for in the 4 hours we waited for him to come back and fix it, Steph and Swirly adopted a rather lovely stray dog that was hanging around the garage and we all had some time to devour the avocados we had brought with us.

Tow-man finally informed us that our truck would have blown up (with the two full tanks of petrol) if we had kept driving and performed a temporary fix that he claimed would get us all the way to Denver if we didn’t faff on the way. “Faff we shan’t!” We cried, and piled the now 6 of us back into our beloved pickup.

What might have become of us and our truck, Toad. Shmokin'!

This time, we drove with purpose. With Duncan and ourselves in the front and Swirly, Steph and Four Loko in the back, we began to pack it down the road to Denver; past the desert, past the truck stops, past the four courners and straight into beautiful Colorado. Anna fell in love with the state at first sight, and considered never leaving. Julia felt similarly, but soon drifted off to sleep and the sun began to set and we began to ascend into the mountains with only 200 miles to go.

Once the sun had gone down completely, all were sleeping apart from Duncan who was driving and Anna who was worrying about running over one of the many many deer who walked casually down the narrow mountain road. However, she needn’t have worried, as soon enough the familiar rumble of the engine spluttered and died, and we began another silent roll down the highway. Julia awoke, and joined Duncan and Anna in their belief that rocking backwards and forwards in the cab would help the truck keep moving. It worked for a while, but as the truck began to slow down, it became clear that more desperate measures were needed. Duncan, Anna and Julia took it upon themselves to jump out of the moving truck and give it a push. Thankfully Duncan remembered to keep a hold of the steering wheel. Julia however had elected to jump out in Anna’s flip flops and was somewhat hindered by her impractical shoes and the fact that she stopped to save a water bottle she knocked out in her hasty exit. Anna had chosen to jump out barefoot, and consequently could only carry her soft feet and recently (that morning) ex-smoker’s lungs so far before she fell behind.

We slowed to a walk and watched the rear lights of our truck roll away through the darkened, forested mountain pass. Lions and tigers and bears oh my! thought we. Soon though, the lights grew nearer as we found the truck stopped in a rest stop at the top of the pass, worryingly named ‘Wolf Creek Pass’. We discuss for a while whether or not to stay and camp, but eventually elect to call the tow company for the second time that day. Turns out none of us have signal. Hmm. After some enthusiastic waving at passing cars we manage to flag down some kindly folks who let us use their phone, wait with us and provide the beer for the next hour or so before the tow arrives. They even drive Steph, Swirly and Julia to the tow garage in a town 30 miles away so they can set up camp and respect the law while the truck makes its leisurely way to catch them up in Monte Vista.

We set up camp outside the tow office, next to an abandoned train in a sweet little mountain town called Monte Vista. Here is our lovely home:

We awoke early the next morning, and enjoyed a quick jaunt around the town. Anna cursed the fact that walking around town in short shorts with obvious bed hair causes cat calling even in that quiet town environment. Julia and Duncan were duly filled with coffee, and we were ready to go. The tow company would only carry 3 of us, so we said goodbye to Swirly, Steph and Four Loko, who most honourably volunteered to hitch the rest of the way to Denver. Those of us who remained loaded up the truck on to the tow and headed for Colorado Springs to get rid of the troublesome truck once and for all…

Goodbye, sweet truck. You taught us many lessons, and saved us money on petrol. We’ll miss you, and your idiosyncratic ways.

Ford F250 1988, Rest In Peace.

Our First 1600 or so miles part 1

(in an old beat up 1988 pick-up truck)

Los Angeles (you may or may not know this) is one hell of a city to get out of. Here’s a picture:

it’s enormous and has public transportation-ish (most people you ask about buses are like, what? buses? we don’t take buses) and because it’s illegal to hitch in the city, we would’ve had to take a train for 60 miles (that’s about 3 hours in total) just to get to the outskirts of this monster of a city. So, we refreshed the rideshare page on craiglist a million trillion times, talked to our people who talked to their people who got confused and tried to talk to our people again to talk to us. Finally, while we were roaming around the observatory in Griffith Park (the only redeeming factor of LA: it looks well pretty at night), Julia got a phone call from a boy called Duncan (who she was persuaded was Justin) who was like yeah, dude, yes, I’m going to Colorado. Sure, I’ll take the 40 and drop you off at Flagstaff, yeah, excellent, we’ll split gas, etc etc. We determined we’d leave on Tuesday at around 4 am. He’d call us. He’d pick us up in his truck. We’d drive across the Mojave desert. Awesome. All we really cared about was the fact that LA was NOT going to swallow us up. Michael Jackson would NOT come back to life and we would NOT be bombarded by crazed paparazzi who would impede our leaving the city. None of this was allowed to happen.

After Duncan called us around 3 am to announce that he was coming to pick us up,  we showered hastily (Julia chugged as much coffee as humanly possible) and then we decided to go sit outside, where Duncan could see us as he drove down the street. Mistake number one. LA is not Edinburgh. Do not sit in the street at 4 am. Cars will drive past you, then drive past you again, then flip a bitch, and drive past you again. Then stop. With steamed windows, while you clutch your pepper spray nervously, and yes, start shitting yourself everytime a cat walks through the bush, or someone goes to get a glass of water in the kitchen you are sitting outside of. “Come one, Duncan!” We kept repeating to ourselves, like two scared girls stranded on the street of a city full of crazies. Because we were two scared girls stranded on the street in a city full of crazies.

Duncan. Duncan’s phone doesn’t ring like normal phones do (you know, when you call him and you’re waiting on the other line for someone to answer, expecting something resembling a ring). No. Duncan’s phone sings at you. Sings “Imagine” by John Lennon at you. Awesome, I thought. Obviously harmless.

Das ist Duncan:

After hanging with us in the pick-up for about half an hour, enquiring about our reasons to go to Flagstaff and etc etc, Duncan decided that he’d just come with us to the Grand Canyon (because he’d never been) and then we’d all go or not go to Colorado together. What a happy family.

When you go east from LA, most of what you are guaranteed to find is desert. Followed by some more desert. Followed by a petrol station. Trucks. Desert. Etc.

By 8 o’clock, we were sweating more profusely than is ever necessary in life. We were miles far from what is considered acceptable sweating and we still had about 250 miles of un-airconditioned desert to get through. Oh yes.

Here’s some desert.

And here’s some more desert, about 100 miles later.

And then, by Jove, there was some MORE desert.

We tried singing to (or at) each other, but failed to know any lyrics in common. We tried turning on the air-conditioning, but were faced with something more akin to a hair-dryer than AC. Yes, indeed, it made us sweat more. But then. Oh then, yes, oh then. We stumbled upon an ACTUAL oasis. And London Bridge.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City) )

Our oasis, our life-saver, our bath, our cleaner, was Lake Havasu, somewhere in Arizona.

Deserts do funny things to one’s eyes. Deserts make funny shapes in the sky. Can you spot the polar bear leaving its ice cap?

The closer we got to the Grand Canyon, the less we started sweating. The more green there was on the mountains. The more green, the less sweat. These factors apply. The closer we got to the Grand Canyon, the more we started singing. Out of tune. Not matching lyrics. Just getting cooler and happier. When leaving the interstate, we came upon some more hitchers on the side of the road. And being of the sort of people who are touched by the kindness of strangers (especially when it regards hitchhikers), we decided to flip a bitch and pick them up. After talking some more with them, we discovered we were all heading in the same direction (Colorado), so we decided to see that great big hole in the Earth together and then continue hitting the road in a vaguely similar direction.

Here is a lesson to hold close to your heart. Do not try to drive and have your first sight of the Grand Canyon simultaneously. Our darling Duncan almost drove us into the hole.

This hole:

We then drove more. Ate some. Found people to park with so that we didn’t have to pay the $12 to camp. Wandered in a random direction into the trees to set up our tents. It was very well hidden, so that the park rangers wouldn’t find us. So well hidden that we got lost many a time on the way. Swirly sat on a cactus. Julia laughed at him. Then Julia sat on a baby cactus and had to unceremoniously pluck spines out of her butt. Steph and Anna laughed at her. She cursed the baby cactus. At least that’s one thing she can say she’s done and never do again.

We watched the sunset with Duncan and then discussed how many whales, jellyfish, corrupt politicians (throughout history), chick peas, love, rose petals, birds, etc, we could fit in the Grand Canyon.

Then, having woken up at 3 am that day, we decided to have dinner, chat to some Brits we met who were also cross-countrying in a very old hippy van, where duct tape was used to fix everything, and then hit the sack, hoping that the cougar shit Anna saw peppering our campsite would come to nothing (though Duncan dreamt he wrestled a cougar and won, so we felt fairly safe).

At 5 am the next morning, we were up and walking, on our way to watch our Grand Canyon sunrise.

And that was that. We avoided park rangers. We saw the sun rise and set on the Grand Canyon. And so ended our stay by the most beautiful hole in the Earth. We packed our bags, took down our tents, and left with the intention of getting to Denver before sunset. Oh intentions…

Hollywood

So, since we are indeed in Hollywood, in the spirit of celebrity, I decided to carry on my tradition of writing letters to the rich and famous. Kate Winslet, this one is for you.

My dearest Kate,

                                   The first time we met, there was ice encrusting your eyelashes. The titanic was going down; you, shaking like a terrier, looked into my eyes and said “I’ll never let go.” And you know what Katie? You never will. Since that day, since I was but 11 years old, watching a 12 rated film for the first time, I’ve know that you were the one for me. My English Rose. My honey from the Cotswolds (or Reading, which ever way you want to look at it) who has been with me since the tender age of 11. As I’ve already said, you came to me in Titanic. Then, come Hideous Kinky, you came to me again. Different this time, grown, independent. You knew what you wanted and it was me. We swam together in the lakes of Morocco, our love making us immume to both cholera and leeches. You sang to me, savegely, El Cuarto de Tula with an unnattractive Geordie accent and I still loved you. You killed your mother and I still loved you. Let’s examine the facts – you are high cheek-boned. You are vegetarian. You roll your own cigarettes. It’s meant to be, right? Right.

You don’t see me through the celluloid. I tell you Katie, if we met, you’d leave that fool of a husband of yours and come running. Because, yes, my rollies are the finest in the kingdom. Traveller’s fags, regular rollies, beast fags, uber-beast fags, big fatty boom-batties, I do them all. With me, you would want nothing. There would be tea, cigarettes and suprisingly exotic fruit salads. Apples ommitted, of course. Let’s not takes these shenanigans too far before we say “I do”.

I saw you in Vanity Fair recently. You posed naked on the cover of the article in a tribute to Catherine DeNeuve. The introductory sentence of the aritcle claimed you were wearing slacks. Lies. Lies, I tell you!

I would never lie to you, cherie, so come with me. To the land of freedom; no directors, no assumptions. Just fruit, love and cheekbones. I promise, I’ll even have mine operated on to match yours if it would make you happy.

Say you will Katie. Leave your children: I’ll be your Mia. One day, let’s run away together. Bilbao, Indonesia, Mongolia, Brazil, Iceland, Gretna Green. Let’s go, go now and get it done. Be with me, little one, and let’s fall in love.

Yours (oh yes, yours) sincerely,

Anna Gibson.

 

I need help, right?