BOURBON STREET

After the paddleboat cruise, I headed up to the French Quarter, which I had reconnoitred earlier in the day. It was going off well and truly, Bourbon St was absolutely jam packed but I think I got there too late. About 30 years too late!! It is first class sleaze, with hundreds of noisy bars, full of people getting (or already) pissed out of their brains, strip joints for people of all persuasions, and weirdos on every corner. Just like the Boaties Tent at the Aussie Surf Lifesaving Titles, really. Didn't go much on the pervading stench of overflowing garbage bins & vomit though, but I'm sure I saw a couple of the Village People in one joint. Nevertheless, in the seventies I would probably have been in there with my ears back, & I probably would have started at breakfast time. (I still dare not show my face in Pamplona after the fiasco of the Running of the Bulls in 1977, & thats all I'm saying).  But at my current stage of life, active participation would have been just pathetic, so I went back to the hotel, kind of cheesed off at the whole place. Or cheesed off at being 60, probably.

I decided that the following day would be much more enlightened, so I turned to more cultural pursuits. I took a bus ride out to two old plantations, one of which was the magnificent Oak Alley, a fairly typical southern mansion, but with the added bonus of a stand of exquisite 300 year old oak trees lining the approach. It has been used to shoot scenes in lots of movies, apparently. Look familiar? Fletch 2 was my guess. I was surprised to find they didn't grow cotton in this latitude because it is too humid, here they grow sugar cane. Remember that, it may come in handy.

 Of course, everyone knows the slaves got a raw deal, so there's no point me going over all that. Suffice to say the living conditions out the back in the staff quarters were pretty rough, yet somehow still better than some of the septic tanks Chris Phillips & I stayed at in the west of Pakistan, or the room I had in Peru last year with no glass in the windows.

Later in the day, I took a stroll around the so called Garden District of New Orleans, where some of the well- to- do built their town houses. I think its fair to say the parts I saw had seen better days. Nice houses, but most are built of high maintenance timber, and with 150 years of tropical humidity, the damage level was high. Also because the whole city is built on a swamp, there are subsidence problems galore, and there is evidently a huge problem with termites here as well, with the conditions being ideal. OK, no more free  building advice, I'm retired, but here's one of the better ones.

I was also able to revisit the French Quarter, and this time I discovered a whole world of culture away from Bourbon St itself. There are many exquisite buildings in the other streets comprising the French Quarter, with lots of antique shops, art galleries, cafes, hotels and residences. It has a very relaxed feel, & maybe because it was a Sunday, there were lots of buskers around, and some impromptu bands playing all kinds of neat stuff, mainly trad jazz, but other stuff too, and most of it was high quality.

OK, good stuff, glad I've seen it, but now its time time to move on. I flew up to Charlotte, North Carolina today, & I have just settled into yet another hotel.  A noticeable drop in temperature of about 15 deg C was immediate as soon as I stepped out of the airport. I will do a bit of sightseeing, this actually looks like a very nice city so far, and a bit of shopping for more camping equipment while I wait for the bike to arrive later this week. Yippee, I don't have to carry that bloody big bag around any more, I will soon be able to actually wear most of its contents & stack the rest on the bike. I look forward to giving the bag to a homeless person to live in, and getting ON THE ROAD...... AGAIN. Blue Ridge Parkway, here I come. There is a chance I may rendezvous somewhere in this area with fellow Ulyssians Brian, Val, Bjorn & Sigrid in the next week or so, if they can get out of the snowstorm that just hit New Jersey & the north east of the country. The weather really is all over the place, unseasonal & very variable. Currently 40 deg in Phoenix, with snow in Yellowstone, and rain around this area. That's adventure riding!

STILL IN N'AWLins

Life was not meant to be easy. Gmail Blogger has just changed the entire format on me, now I have to learn a whole lot of new tricks. Technology gets right up my hooter sometimes, no, make that all the time. Please bear with me while I re-learn how to blog.

Well, I burnt some dough & shifted hotels to get a bit closer to everything. Turns out this is Navy Week, and there are several warships in port, and I note that Britain, France & Canada are represented, as well as sailing ships from Ecuador & Indonesia. The latter two countries probably sent their entire navies, but I don't think we even have one, do we? The Indonesians of all countries shouldn't be here, they should be patrolling the Timor Sea to round up boat people heading for Australia! How come the alleged refugees have no trouble getting into Indonesia anyway? But I digress. There are several American ships in port, & as usual, they let people crawl all over them & play with guns & other neat stuff. The USN aerobatics team, the Blue Angels, stage regular shows above the city, and with 6 x  F/18's you do get "spectacular", no problem! I've only ever seen one F18 at a time at home, we cant afford to buy replacements if they run into one another. Makes the Roulettes with their trainers look a bit tame. Mind you, the security in the harbour is fairly high profile

There are several inflatable hulled Coast Guard patrol boats buzzing around the place, armed with a machine gun on the front. They not only escort ships coming in & going out, they park in front of the Navy ships as well. No doubt to deter would be suicide bombers etc. No more USS Cole incidents around here, and fair enough too. (just flying bullets). I guess if the bad guys get in the first few shots, the inflatables zip around like balloons & then sink.

I am surprised at the size of the ships that can use the Mississippi, at least this part of it, bloody great big ones! Then there are the barges, unbelievably long multiple flat barges connected together, carrying bulk commodities like coal or sand or whatever. It appears these are pushed, rather than towed. It would be like backing a giant trailer, quite tricky I imagine.

The bridge, by the way, I'm pretty sure is the one that Peter Fonda & Dennis Hopper rode across in Easy Rider. I'm still searching for some of the other iconic landmarks in said film,  but I'm not allowed to go anywhere near any knock shops these days, so that makes it tough.







No, you'd be 100% wrong,  that particular establishment was actually a restaurant.








OK, down to business. Last night I took a cruise on a paddlewheeler that looked just like this one below.

 It was supposed to be an evening jazz/dinner cruise, and it was, sort of. Well, it was evening, & there was jazz, and it did go up the river, eventually, after spending the first hour of the two hour cruise still tied up at the wharf while they fed everybody. By that time it was dark & you could only see twinkling lights & not much else. Having had a look around in the afternoon, that was just as well. Its a working port, & not a pretty place. The dinner bit was pretty woeful, I thought. Nursing home food for people who are dentally challenged. Various spoonfuls of unidentified grey slop masquerading as food, with a cupcake on the top, weird stuff indeed. If it was served in a prison, there would have been a riot for sure. Tell you about the nightlife next segment.

NEW ORLEANS, YO-'ALL

To tell you the truth, I have long harboured a desire to visit New Orleans. It probably started after I read a lot of Mark Twain and watched Maverick on TV as a kid. Grooving to Eric Burdon singing House of the Rising Sun, and seeing Easy Rider about 30 times probably helped as well. Carolyn & I had plane tickets & hotels booked for a stay when we were in the US in 2005, but Hurricane Katrina scuttled those plans, & a lot more besides.

I had a fairly early start this morning. I was due to leave San Diego at 8.20 am, Having already discovered the advantages of getting to the airport earlier rather than later,with the heavy security, etc, I had decided to eat at the airport instead of the hotel, but when the choice turned out to be Maccas or pizza, I decided to forgo breakfast. However, there was a bit of fog about this morning, & the plane I was due to catch could not land for a while, & eventually took off 45 minutes late. Consequently the relaxed brunch break I had planned for Houston turned into a breathless sprint down a seemingly endless corridor (lined both sides with food outlets, I might add) to change planes. I was almost the last to get off the plane & the last to board the flight to New Orleans. The pilot was waiting at the door , & said he was just about to shut it. When I arrived, with the time differences, it was 3.30 pm local. By the time I got the shuttle into the city, it was close on 5pm, & I hadn't eaten a thing all day. However, the guy driving the shuttle turned out to be worth the money. He gave us passengers a non stop commentary about NOO AW-lins and its history, in quite remarkable depth, whether we wanted to hear it or not. The commentary was interesting all the same, even if some of the jokes seemed a bit lame, or too well rehearsed. The dialogue was peppered with lots of slowly drawled "Yo-'all" s. So far I haven't established if that's really the way everyone speaks around here, or if he was laying it on for the tourists.

I got a reality check shortly afterwards though. After being dropped in the city, I still had to get to my hotel, which was still bloody miles away to the east. I was carrying a backpack, my helmet & a bag that weighed a ton, & do you think I could spot a cab? Eventually I found one in a side street, with three rough looking black guys standing next to it. It looked pretty banged about, but too bad. When I told them where I wanted to go, two of them just laughed, & the remaining guy said flatly "thirty bucks". Clearly he was the most entrepreneurial of the group. Now I don't even know if he was really a taxi driver, or whether he just stole the cab right then & there, but they were the last words I got out of him, so I'll never know. I had an uneasy feeling that people were watching me & saying "look at that tourist sucker".

Soon we were on the Interstate, and rapidly heading further away from all the things I had come here to see. The landscape turned to slums, burned out derelict factories, abandoned houses, and out on the horizon, several petro-chemical plants. Great! This must be the other three quarters that the French didn't want, & now I know why. Not a real good introduction but hopefully things will improve from here. Maybe moving out of the Post Apocolypse district would be a good start. Yo'all come back now, y'hear.

HIT THE ROAD, JACK

Ok, so when I got to Mike Valenti's place there was a big pile of cardboard boxes in the lounge room. Santa had come early! Goodies left, right & centre, mostly from Touratech. It took about a day to unpack, sort & install all this stuff on the bike, & I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the results. But as I said earlier, the panniers are a bit wider than I thought they would be, but the whole arrangement looks fairly serious.


A few of Mike's mates called in to see at was happening, & it was arranged that we would get out for a ride the next morning. Being a Sunday, we went to "Church", which for these guys was a ride to a bar up in the hills behind San Diego for breakfast. I don't know why the last bit of text is blue & underlined, but this is a voyage of discovery! Anyway,when we got there, there was a bunch of boxer engined BMW of various ages in the car park, which was promising. I walked in the door & immediately saw .........absolutely nothing. When my eyes adjusted to the ambient light level, approximating that of a coalmine on the dark side of the moon, I saw a long row of guys sitting perched on stools at the bar, at least one wearing a cowboy hat. I immediately think they must play both kinds of music in this joint (you know, Country and Western). Actually it was a bit more raunchy, some Stevie Ray Vaughan, followed by some George Thoroughgood, but you get the idea. Over in one corner, there was a table full of bikers, which we immediately joined. I was about to meet the local Airhead (ie boxer engine fanciers, geddit?) chapter. And what a great bunch of guys! It was just like Ulysses, but with some young blokes & a lot more food, a real lot more! I was warmly welcomed, and we proceeded to talk about what bike riders everywhere talk about (that would be bikes, bikes, bike bits and past exploits, some of which might be true), and generally had a good time. We then hit the road, into some lovely stretches of twisties. This road turned out to be bike central, & it was a real good hoot, despite a lot of sports bike riders out to break the land speed record. Call me a chicken, but right about then, I decided I will not bother to ride the Tail of the Dragon when I get to the Appalachians, not if its infested with guys that ride that hard. I'd rather go to a track day, & that aint ever going to happen either. We finished up at another neat little cafe, before turning back to town on an equally good bike road. Yahoo. I had no idea Mike was running around busily taking photos, and of course, I forgot my camera altogether. Look at me, I'm an Airhead already! Thanks Mike.




So now the bike is all ready to go, packed with as much stuff as I could cram in the panniers. I just need to drain the fuel & its ready to be trucked to Charlotte, North Carolina. So I had a little spare time this afternoon, and took a walk along the shoreline opposite the downtown area. There is a maritime museum precinct along here, & there are a number of sailing ships on display, a cruise ship terminal with a humungous Dutch passenger liner in town, and further on the retired aircraft carrier USS Midway. I wanted a look but it was just closing, however, I am tempted to go back tomorrow to check the aircraft I could see on the flight deck.

I then detoured into the city, and it was all but deserted. Apart from a few tourists, the streets had been left to the homeless, and they were plentiful. Some lying inert on the footpath, a few under bridges & in vacant lots, some animatedly talking to the voices in their heads, and one guy standing with his hand down the front of his trousers playing pocket billiards with a spaced out grin on his dial. Well, as long as you're happy....but I noticed everyone was giving this guy a wide berth. Glad it wasn't dark, this would really be scary. Lots of shopping trolleys being pushed around and bins being cleaned out by those for whom the American dream has not come to fruition. Sadly this is commonplace these days in affluent societies, and that includes Australia. If I knew the answer, I'd tell people. There but for the grace of God....

So a couple more days here, then off to New Orleans while I wait for the bike to be shipped east. Did I mention that the security going through the airport in Dallas was the tightest I have ever experienced. Shoes off , belts off, pockets emptied, laptops & phones in the trays, no exceptions. Then through the metal detector then, & get this, into the full body scanner. Legs apart-stand on the big yellow footprints, sir-arms up in the air please sir. It was as though everyone in the crowd, one at a time, had just seen the light. Halleluia brother!! Either that or a very slow Mexican wave. Speaking of which, adios.

USA 2012

Well here we go again. It is April 11 and I have just arrived in Dallas, after a long flight from Sydney. Possibly the roughest flight across the Pacific that I have yet encountered. I was sure I was going to end up wearing my food & beverages at some stage. Anyway, I remained clean, although the jet lag has kicked in already, & I do feel like I have had a frontal lobotomy. On this adventure I have been dragged kicking & screaming into the 21st century. I have a notebook computer and a GPS. The computer seems to be working & the GPS must feel like I do, because it took quite a while to work out it was in a different country. But my Travelsim phone card is not working at all. My antique 4 year old Telstra phone won't handle it. Well if Telstra think they are going to collect another Global Roaming jackpot for a few modest phone calls, they can get stuffed. I wont use it at all. Email only please. Or write me a letter.


Dallas airport is intimidatingly large, & pretty busy as well. I broke into a sweat just walking to the front door of Terminal 85A or whatever. The driver to the hotel wasted no time in telling me that the airport here is bigger than Manhattan. I thought he meant bigger than JFK, but no, he meant Manhattan, apparently. Well this is Texas! He also asked if I was from Sydney, but changed the subject back to how big Texas is when I said I was from Adelaide. Adelaide.... A-d-e-l.... Still not sure what to make of that conversational tack. Anyhoo, back to the airport after a good sleep, & tomorrow I get to fly to San Diego.