‘California’s nice but I like seasons’ – ‘So do I, that’s why I live in a place that got rid of all the shitty ones’. - Daniel Tosh

After picking up a new and much worse hire car from the MGM Grand it was a long drive to Shoshone, a tiny hamlet with one motel, some trailers and a bar/diner that seemed only to sell Hash Browns. We arrived late after stopping in numerous other hamlets, each with fewer amenities than the last. Shoshone was the last stop off before entering the Death Valley National Park, a fact it seemed to be almost arrogant about, judging by the cost of the petrol, water and sandwiches available at the only store for 50 miles.

Death Valley, if you aren’t acquainted with it, is the hottest place on earth. It has the highest year round average temperature and was pipped by Libya for the highest ever recorded temperature (57°C if you’re wondering) as well as this inhospitable claim to fame it is also the lowest point on earth, 287m below sea level to be exact and within this hellish basin is contained impressive salt flats, cacti and various scurrying rodents and carnivorous birds who pick clean the skulls of deer and other unfortunate beasts who wander unaccompanied into a very bad time indeed. The park itself was massive, despite looking like the much quicker route to Bakersfield on the map the 30mph speed limits and exceptionally law abiding New Jersey and New England tourists made for another long days driving and we gratefully pulled into a crap Motel for some rest in Bakersfield before Emma steeled herself for the drive to the first major city we’d been to since New Orleans – San Francisco.

San Francisco is notorious in the rest of the US for the lack of kerbside parking, as well as the sheer expense of it, with space at a premium the cost of a days parking can be upwards of $9 an hour, a cost we could not accommodate given our limited budget so we set out with gritted teeth to look for one of the rarer than a Golden Eagle free spaces the woman at the front desk of our hostel had told us about. Although she did say ‘There’s so few of them they might as well not exist’ That’s good then. She told us where there was one and we went to look for it. ‘It should be painted green.’ She told us. We found the right street but each parking bay was of a depressing uniformity. Standard grey. I asked someone who looked like he may own a shop on the street. ‘Do you know if it’s OK to park here?’ I asked. He looked at me, blinked twice and without saying a word started dragging a motorcycle out of the way and gesturing for Emma to pull into the space it had left. ‘Thank you, thank you so much’ I said, he had after all, saved us about $250 dollars in parking over the three days we planned to stay there. He gave me a huge smile and waved his hand at me before scurrying back into his shop. ‘I think I just met the best man in the whole of the United States’ I told Emma as we took our bags up to the hostel.

Now, we’ve all seen the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and that twisty road that featured in Bullit (I think) but what you won’t have seen unless you’ve visited certain parts of California, is the extremely laid back view that Californians take towards Cannabis, The Chronic, Sweet Mary Jane, Ganja, The ‘Erb, Marijuana, Puff, Weed or whatever else you kids are calling it nowadays.

The thing that made it so surprising, was coming so recently from States like Texas and Nevada where possession results in instant chemical castration and over 500 years in prison. Everyone was smoking mad blunts -On the way to work, dropping off their kids at day care, bus drivers, hipsters, doctors and tourists all at it - So that’s an exaggeration, of course, and what, I hear you ask, can you expect from a place that basically spawned American counter culture – Ken Keasey, Jack Kerouack, the Merry Pranksters and LSD all originated here – but the smell of it permeates the city, it’s even more prevalent than Amsterdam. The reason for this is a legal grey area and a source of much debate for San Franciscans. It remains illegal at a Federal level, meaning the FBI could basically close San Francisco down should the need arise, but on a state level, it is absolutely legal as long as you can prove that you have Glaucoma or a bad back or bunions (that’s not even a joke) to a doctor who will then write you a legal, over the counter prescription to be filled at a state sanctioned Marijuana ‘facility’.

That there, is how they roll (pun) in San Fran. Apparently they hate it when you call it San Fran. A lesson I learned the hard way in a bar on South Progress Street, a bar with over 150 beers on tap, putting to bed once and for all the myth that Americans only drink Coors Light, Bud Light and in certain states (Alabama)exclusively a home brewed 96% distilled spirit called Hooch. The Micro Brewing scene is thriving, particularly on the West coast and we sampled a great deal of them whilst chatting to a restaurant manager and head chef about subjects ranging from gun control, the cannabis question and why it’s frowned upon to call their city ‘San Fran’.  Don’t ask me the reason, I’d forgotten a minute after they’d told me but the main thing is that I won’t make that mistake again. Even, if I don’t know why.

We spent a number of very enjoyable afternoon hours in that bar, due to the fact that San Francisco - once again bucking the trend set by the rest of California; 75°F and sunny, every, single, day – was under a slow moving sheet of grey drizzle, which, in one of the very few walking cities in the US, was a real pain. We persevered anyway trudging from landmark to landmark in the rain like arseholes until nightfall when we found ourselves in China Town.  There’s only so many Tsing Tao you can drink however and we eventually returned to our hostel, the Green Turtle, drunk as bastards and went to sleep. The next day was more of the same if I remember correctly except that we ended the evening listening to some pretty good live bands in a few bars with some people we’d met at our hostel. A good night was had by all and we slept soundly for the drive south, towards LA, via the spectacular Highway 1.

How to beat the Casinos.

The air in the car was one of excitement as we started seeing the first Casinos in Nevada, big, tacky overlit Bastions, declaring Cabaret and all you can eat buffets started to appear on the horizon once we passed the Hoover Dam, the enormous feat of human engineering that marked the boundary between Arizona and Nevada. We also gained an hour, as the time zone shifted from Mountain to Western time. We came into Vegas at dusk, the lights were coming on just as we arrived onto the strip and tried to locate our respective hotels, Pat and Judge in the old school Circus Circus Casino, made famous by Jonny Depp hallucinating out of his tits in the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which was about a mile and a half away from the main strip and Emma and I in the Imperial Palace, no less old school but right in the thick of the action, our balcony overlooked the Bellagio fountains and was closer still to some kind of outdoor club which played obscenely loud music until 4am every morning. No matter, we thought, we are in Vegas after all.

We met Pat and Judge, still sweating from their trek from Circus Circus and immediately embarked on a $1 frozen Margerita binge. This was to set the tone of our Vegas experience, the cheaper the better. The first night was a quiet affair and we split up at about midnight, Pat and Judge, after making sure they had enough water and hiring a guide so as not to get lost on the impressively long walk back to their hotel said goodbye and we got some beers in and went back to the room to watch how to play all the different variations of Poker and listen to the thumping Usher medley being played in the tent club just outside our balcony.

The next morning Emma and I awoke to the eerie quiet of no Usher and left our room to go out and try to find some natural light. As we made our way through the casino it was remarkably similar to when we had previously walked through it at midnight the evening before. A Tina Turner lookalike belted out Simply the Best before climbing off the stage and taking over from Lady Gaga on a blackjack table and dealing to the vacant eyed patrons who looked like they may not have seen their rooms that night. All the tables were full and almost everyone had a drink in front of them. Welcome to Vegas.

We went outside, blinking in the sunlight and got ourselves a beer, crossing the road we were just about to enter the Bellagio when I spotted Dog the Bounty Hunter chatting to someone at the entrance. If you’re not familiar with him then that’s your loss, the guy is a HERO. His golden mullet spilling onto his well muscled shoulders was just as I remembered it from the Bravo marathons I used to do as an unemployed gentleman. Best day of my life. I didn’t have the balls to go and speak to him so we went into the Casino and had a wander. The place is incredible, we walked past the $200 tables with little Chinese guys in suits betting more in one hand than we spent on a month’s accommodation in Bolivia, people playing that dice rolling game the rules of which may as well have been written in Hindi for al I understood them, but people seemed to be having a lovely time nonetheless. Eventually we entered the famous Bellagio buffet, the biggest all you can eat buffet in the world. We had many a discussion on how they could possibly run it at a profit and came to the conclusion that it was impossible. A sushi chef hand rolling sushi to order, Fillet steak, Pork Belly and gourmet Pizza sat side by side with Mountains of king prawn and lobster with about a hundred other things for you to eat in between. It was impossible not to feel guilty at the unashamed excess on display. I’m writing this in India and having seen full families sleeping on a blanket next to some of the busiest roads on the planet I can’t help but feel ashamed to the core of my being. Luckily, I’d never been to India at the time and I gorged myself with the other pigs blissfully unaware of what a horrible person I’d inadvertently become. It got to the stage, and I’m not proud of this, where I was filling a plate with steak among other things and eating only the pink bit of the medium rare cut of meat before discarding the ‘wastage’ and going up for yet another plate. After the first I wasn’t even hungry, any more, after the second dish piled high with all sorts of delicious stuff it was actually painful to eat and after the third, well I was actually worried about what was going to happen to me when I finally attacked the desert shelves. I stumbled out of there clutching my stomach and groaning in very real pain. Emma looked at me in disgust, shaking her head and scolding me like she’d caught me stealing 2 quid out of her purse, not angry, just disappointed.  And all this cost was 20 of your American dollars. Once I’d regained the ability to walk we carried on into the casino and going  entirely against the spirit of Vegas parked ourselves on the penny slots and did not leave until we were niiiice and toasty, me on free coronas, her on free double cosmopolitans. If you’re interested, we ended up about $16 dollars up with these pathetic, frugal bets so in your enormous bloated face Vegas, we took on your casinos and WON!

The next day, by way of an activity, we made our way down the strip to Glitter Gulch in downtown Vegas, this is where the glory days of Vegas took place, the Vegas of legend and folklore where the gangsters ruled with impunity. It’s obviously not like that anymore, but still definitely worth a visit, the main strip where the battered old casinos, very obviously from the 70’s, scream at you for your business like tired 65 year old whores. The ceiling of the whole complex, lights up all day, trying it’s hardest not to look like the Rock’s skinny, balding cousin in comparison to the recent billion dollar refurbs that the strip has had in the past 5 years.

On our penultimate day, we had to up and leave the gloriously decrepit  Imperial Palace and carry our enormous rucksacks over the road into Caesers Palace, where due to the fact that people at Emma’s work actually valued her contribution, they had bought her a night in one of the major casinos of my choice. We went in early to leave our bags with the bellhop and see whether or not we could check in. We couldn’t so we went to try and find a waitress on the penny slots. We returned to reception, dragging our rucksacks past the tanned, fit and above all, rich clientele that usually frequents the lobby of such an establishment and, half cut from yet more free, penny slot beers, started trying to lay our ‘free upgrade’ spiel on Jason, who looked like a cage fighter in a suit. He was having absolutely none of it and Emma and I looked at each other with a disappointed face. Once the check-in was complete, Jason placed the key on the counter in front of us and said ‘So, I’ve given you guys a sweet upgrade’ He really did emphasise the ‘sweet’ like that. And he wasn’t lying. We arrived at the door and put the key in the lock. The door opened into a corridor which as we alked down it, opened out into a fucking SWEET room indeed. A Jacuzzi in the bathroom facing a flatscreen TV, a huge double bed in a room bigger the than the entire ground floor of my house with the window on one side facing out to the pools and the window on the other facing out onto the strip. I’m not lying when I say it was much better than an ETAP.

We really didn’t make the most of that room, apart from a Jacuzzi at 4am we just went out and found the most hospitable waitress, by that I mean one who didn’t get pissed off when she realised that we had blatantly not put another dollar into the bandit since the last beer we had about 7 minutes ago.

All in all Vegas was amazing, but I have to say, I’d love to go for two weeks with 3 grand to waste. Then I might have something else to feel bad about apart from gorging myself on fatty foods. Next stop, Californ I A.

I'm not paying 70 dollars for that......

In a rare act of altruism Judge left us in our Fort Stockton Motel to go and get the problematic Goodyear Interceptor fitted and it was later that morning that we left in high spirits to make our way to Flagstaff, the last populous town before the Grand Canyon. It was a long journey, one that took us through New Mexico and Arizona the temperature steadily dropping all the way as we rose in altitude steadily all the way to Flagstaff, a nondescript town, very similar to a lot of others in the States which when we arrived was under about three feet of snow. After the laborious all day drive we were more than ready for bed which we gratefully fell into without the regulation 5 or 6 beers to which we had become accustomed.

The next day was a trip of around 80 miles to the entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park. As we drove from Flagstaff the scenery gradually became more Canyon-like and the earth changed to the familiar red colour we all associate to the Grand Canyon through years of having seen it in Books and on TV, the temperature did not rise with the altitude and we stepped out of the car at the first look-out point to a fairly chilly 3°C. It shouldn’t have surprised us as everywhere we had been thus far, barring Terlingua which had been freakishly hot had fallen victim to the US’ worst snowstorms in 40 years, the inclement weather had been following us from New York and wasn’t about to stop here.

Despite the fact that we’d all seen the Grand Canyon before numerous times in both still and moving images the view was truly spectacular, it is over a mile deep and over 4 miles wide in places and gives such a breathtaking sensation of space where it drops off into nothing that any doubts about whether or not it had been worth the trip, fell away into the void. I could write a flowery and descriptive piece about the different colours that played about the shadows which moved with the sun, about how the whole thing was a deeply spiritual and moving experience but, I’m not a homosexual poet, so I won’t.

We stayed most of the day moving from look out to look out getting different perspectives of the world’s largest overwater canyon. We had read of the Skywalk, which was a glass walkway which overlooked a part of the Canyon which remained in an Indian reservation and decided to try and find it. It was a long trip from one side of the Canyon round to the other. We were a little bit concerned that the price may be prohibitive to our backpacking budget we decided to chance it. An hour and a half later and after negotiating some of the worst roads in the United States, fearing for our lovely, shiny hire car all the way we pulled up to the entrance of the Reservation where we were met by a tall man with two long braids in his hair. Apparently alcohol is illegal on reservations such as these and so the two litres of Duty Free rolling around loosely in the boot could have made for some pretty serious problems, despite this and showing true British resolve we answered the man’s ‘Do you have any alcohol?’ question with a heartfelt and resounding ‘NO!’ Pat even managed to look a little hurt at the insinuation. And we were in. Only to be back in the car moments later moaning about how $70 was unacceptable just so that you could look through your feet at the floor of the Canyon a mile below you.

After our wild goose chase of the stingiest kind we eventually we found a nice spot to watch the sunset dip down behind the cliff line. We stayed in that spot for about an hour and a half, it was absolutely freezing and not for the first time we were all woefully unprepared for just how cold the place was getting. We were sorely tempted to leave before the sun had set but we talked ourselves into staying, citing the fact that our next stop, Vegas, didn’t spare much time for natural beauty, or for going outside for that matter, so we stayed and I’m glad we did. We stayed til the last rays dipped behind the trees and jogged back to the car, our breath, billowing clouds of smoke in the last of the evenings sun. And so it was back to Flagstaff for a nights rest before we left the natural wonders behind for a while and headed to the gaudiest, most decadent and in some ways most disgusting monuments to human excesses – Vegas.

Please could you step back into the vehicle sir........

I have to admit that the sudden rush of air from our brand new, rented, Goodyear Interceptors could have been construed, in a way, as being my fault. I was the one, after all, who had removed the inch long thorns from the sidewall and tread of the front right wheel. We had managed to cover about a thousand miles without any mishaps and I suppose fate had the right to deliver at least one such catastrophe. It could have conspired to immobilise us in the middle of a crowded city with three garages in plain view but instead we were 50 miles from the nearest ‘town’ which had 250 inhabitants housed in an assortment of crude tin shacks and tents, and 130 miles from a town that had a prayer of having a brand new Goodyear Interceptor in stock.

We made our way to Terlingua, with the onboard computer informing us of a flat tyre on our front right side and an unpleasant listing caused by the fact that the donut was a good 8 inches smaller than the other three, unpunctured tyres. We arrived at the tiny garage in the tiny town in the arse end of Texas with big dreams of a successful patch up job on the expensive, expensive tyre. The guys in the garage were real Texan men, with a robust dislike of the rest of the states and a strange kind of fascination with Pat, who as the self proclaimed least masculine man in the world, sent a confusing message to the mechanics. They looked at him, the smooth faced, bespectacled englishman who had so unselfconsciously asked to watch them fix the tyre, with a mixture of horror and confusion, but none the less gruffly nodded him into the workshop. By the time they had finished their unsuccessful attempt at fixing the tyre I’m sure they viewed Pat as a sort of daughter figure.

Unfortunately the tyre was a write off and we would have to negotiate the 80 or so miles to Fort Stockton in order to find a replacement, but the Texan kindness knows no bounds and the mechanics offered to put a spare onto our moribund rim free of charge in order to avoid having to crawl at 25 mph all the way to Fort Stockton on a donut. ‘We just want y’all have a good impression of Texas’ they said as they helped us fit the slightly balding interim tyre back onto the Chevy. The Mechanic in Fort Stockton wouldn’t be open until Monday we found out and so the weekend was set, we would be spending it in Terlingua, population 250, made up it seemed of Border patrolmen, Hippies and gun toting, 10 gallon hat wearing cowboys.

As we settled into our hotel, holding our complimentary Lone Star beers and overlooking the desertscape from the balcony of the El Dorado hotel, things started looking up. This might not be the wasted weekend we were all expecting we silently agreed as the sun went down, casting long shadows behind the cacti and taking the edge off the 95°F heat. A few beers later and we were ready for bed. We didn’t go to bed however, we took a stroll down to the local bar, along unlit roads periodically jumping out of the way of the ecologically irresponsible 4x4’s that ploughed past us.

The Starlight bar was as much of a pleasant surprise as the rest of Terlingua, we met all manner of colourful characters there, an English guy who was in this part of Texas doing a documentary on a local woman who had emigrated from China 50 years ago and was a champion ping-pong player in her youth. He was in tow with an American called Cliff an Arizonian who, by his own admission had ‘a pretty extensive rap sheet’ and a somewhat sexually aggressive demeanour who made almost every woman he spoke to, feel visibly uncomfortable as well as an affable West Virginian with a flowing hobo’s beard who was in the process of hitch hiking all the way to Alaska to live out his favourite book ‘Into the Wild’.  Many beers and Margheritas later we all collapsed into bed lightly toasted  and pleased to have ended up here in Terlingua albeit by a cruel twist of fate.

The next morning we awoke with a need for a hearty American breakfast, this we found in the heart of the ‘town’ at an establishment called India’s Cafe. The place was little more than a tin shack with a stove in it and was run by a smiling yet formidable woman called India. And her husband, who it turned out was a Londoner. I think the fact she had the same name as the cafe was a coincidence. We spent the morning eating greasy yet satisfying Hash Browns and Eggs whilst listening to the stories that made up the daily lives of the locals in this sleepy back water. None of whom could have been more charismatic than Big Mac, a local man who came to India’s so regularly that he had a breakfast on the menu named after him. It consisted of 3 pork chops, 3 eggs, 2 Hash Browns, each the size of a dinner plate, French Toast and a Flaggon of Iced Tea. This guy was enormous. His round head grew directly out of his shoulders and the only suggestion of a neck was the 5 or 6 ample folds of fat that padded the back of his skull. At a guess I would say he must have weighed about 40 stone. It came as a surprise when I saw him get up and walk, unassisted, back to his pick up and struggle back into it before driving off.

Another night of beer and chat with the odd assortment of misfits at the starlight bar followed that evening and, slightly groggy we set out for India’s for our final Terlingua breakfast. Judge took the wheel and we set off from the El Dorado hotel at a brisk pace. So brisk in fact that as we neared the crest of the hill near the hotel Judge remarked that the 70mph he was doing was ‘so unnecessary’. Unnecessary indeed, so unnecessary in fact that the local sheriff, coming over the brow of the hill in the opposite direction felt moved to hit the lights and pull us over to impart some wisdom to Judge, himself on the front line in the war on terror back there in good old blighty in his role as PC Alex Judge, mover onner of drunkards in West Yorkshires market towns.

Judge got his driving license out of his wallet and got out of the car only to be gruffly ordered to ‘Please step back into the vehicle sir’ by the sheriff whose hand rested lightly on his service weapon and who sported a khaki shirt and a pair of blue jeans as though we may, at any point, forget that we were in Texas. When he was ready, Judge was ordered out of the car and received a stern reprimand. A reprimand, that despite rolling down all the windows and straining our ears, we could not hear over our own laughter.

We arrived at India’s for breakfast well within the speed limit and sat down for another hearty breakfast and amiable chat with India and her husband. Emma and I got around to explaining the full extent of our trip to India, who, like most Americans, was both confused as to our motivation as well as mightily impressed that we had chosen to venture outwith the borders of our birth country to see the world. ‘......and then after South America we’ll be heading to South Africa’ we were cut short by Big Mac who despite his enormous bulk we had failed to notice hoovering down the last Pork Chop on his three plate breakfast at the back of the cafe ‘Watch out for them blacks!’ he offered, before sucking the last of the meat off the bone in his hand and starting the laborious process of manoeuvring himself back into his truck.

And with Big Mac’s advice still ringing in our ears we left Terlingua and headed to Fort Stockton on the penultimate leg of our journey before Vegas. The Grand Canyon. Texas, you’re amazing, but not always in a good way.

Lots of driving through the Republicanist bit of America.

It certainly has been a while since the last blog and I sure do have alot to catch up on, so here we go.

After the wonder that was New Orleans we were all anxious to get in a car and spend sometimes in excess of 14 hours a day driving, so that is exactly what we did. Emma and Alex the two drivers went to pick up what I can only describe as a red Cheverolet and arrived, excited, back at the India House hostel where Pat and I had spent the the time feasting on gumbo and talking to an odd little fellow about marriage. On their arival we scooped up our bags and hopped in.

A long days driving followed past the oil fields and refineries, as well as the swamps and bayous of Louisiana, alot of which I hear is now underwater. It is a long flat drive only broken up, with alarming frequency I might add, by Penetentiaries. We counted a dozen in the 4 hours it took to leave Louisiana and enter Texas.

During the drive we had alot of time to listen to local radio, which is always a good way to guage the lay of the land in the area you happen to be driving through. As we left Louisiana ad entered the wilds of Texas the radio took a turn for the weird.

"Boycott Home Depot" one particularly fervant preacher screamed into his mic. The reason? Well they employ the most homosexuals of course.

"If Ahmed or Fahmed or whatever he's called wants to get reparations after we LIBERATED THEM..." This was a particularly measured and thoughtful talk radio debate about the mayor of Baghdad having the temerity to ask his liberators for reperations to rebuild his crater ridden, yet free, city back to it's former glory.

All four of us looked at each other open mouthed. There is no doubt, that had this been the UK, the preacher and shock jock alike would have been hauled up on charges and rightly so. This, was all we heard for the remainder of our time driving through Texas. Which took a while.

After a fine drive from Alex and Emma we entered Texas and at roughly 10 o'clock pulled into a horrible little Motel in Beaumont Texas. Beaumont seemed to consist of about 10 churches, the same amount of Fast Food outlets and about 5 Motels. I wouldn't reccommend it as a relaxing holiday destination.

We dragged our bags up into our room and stretched our legs and tried to remove the car journey from our muscles. As I went outside I noticed a car with absolutely irresponsible rims park up as three guys emerged from one of the other Motel rooms. The tinted window came down and something was passed from the window into the eager hand outside it. As this happened, the driver looked up and saw me, seeing him. I put out my cigarette and went back into the room to push something against the door.

The next day we piled into the car and drove most of the day to Austin, which is like a weird island of liberalism floating in a T-Party heartland. The radio stations all retransmogrified from shrieking preachers telling us all gays will die to a plethora of excellent music channels.

We had a good couple of days in Austin, visiting many bars and as well as the state capitol building, which they delighted in informing us was roughly 2 feet taller than the Capitol building in Washington. It's an almost pathological need of most Texans for Texas to be biger and better than everywhere else in the states. Any amateur psychologist could offer you an explanation of why that might be. It was illustrated beautifully while we took our guided tour of the capitol building. I asked a question with regard to what kind of legislation was being passed and we got into a chat with a group of schoolkids, creepily dressed as adults, there with their teacher. The teacher offered extra credit if they could answer me. No driving whilst texting, one proffered.  Something I always thought would be covered by basic common sense. Along with a couple of other things that would be so frighteningly obvious you shouldn't be doing them that I had to stifle a laugh. After enlightening us, one of the girls stepped forward and awkwardly whispered "y'all are in the BEST state" then looked at the ground and stepped back into her group. "Oh, right, I see" I replied. The teacher was explaining about a new law they were passing in order to up the minimum fine for being caght driving without a license. "Alot of people just take the fine rather than apply for the license" And by way of further explanation she clasped her hands together with a pained expression and said "We have alot of immigrants".

Austin was excellent, warm all year round with superb bars and live music, something we wouldn't see again for quite some time as the landscape turned to desert.

We drove alot the next few days, through tiny town after tiny town, pausing only to venture into a gun range to see if we could fire some guns. We got three quarters of the way through the process which involved only handing over my fake ISIC student card and writing my name on a bit of paper before we hit the first stumbling block "What gun dy'all want?" The nice lady with the perm and a huge handgun strapped to her side asked. "Errrm, a wee one?" I replied. She eyed us suspiciously and went to talk to her supervisor.

Back on the road not having shot any guns but thankfully, not riddled with bullets we made our way to the Big Bend National Park. Right on the border with Mexico. So close in fact, that at one stage we were skimming stones that were landing on Mexican soil. After walking, woefully underprepared, in heats well in excess of 95F, we rolled over the nastiest looking thorn I've ever seen, in one of the most remote areas I've ever been. We fitted the donut and started to drive, slowly, to the nearest town. 50 miles away.

Who Dat? Oh, Hey Baby!

After the trauma of a bus journey so long and so tedious and hair raising that it should have it's own blog post we needed somewhere to relax and Tulsa was just the ticket. Gorging on delicious food and drinking micro brewed beer from across the states really recharged the batteries and a big thank you must go out to Sam and family for putting us up and making us feel like part of the family. Much needed.

We arrived in N'Orleans after a 13 hour drive from Oklahoma in a comfortable and air conditioned car which made the whole journey seem like a pleasent dream. Especially when we arrived and noticed a positive swing of 40C compared to Tulsa's -20C the previous evening. We found ourselves basking in a positively balmy 18C in the positive which we hadn't felt since the height of the UK summer.

The first night was taken up adjusting to what can only be described as a debauched atmosphere prevelant throughout the city. Drinking in the street is encouraged and a ubiquotous Daiquiri called the 'hurricane' a bright red icey concoction so strong it actually hurt to drink, was a nice way to ease the 13 hours of stiffness from our weary limbs.

The music in New Orleans is unlike anything I've ever experienced. Every bar had a hugely talented band comprising of, at least, a trumpet, a guitar, a saxaphone and drums and the music drifts out and mingles together with the smell of Jumbalaya and Gumbo to create an absolutely unbelievable atmosphere. How an entire city can be so laid back I have no idea, particularly after the still raw and visible effects of Katrina a mere six years ago.

The next day, a saturday and our first full day in what was rapidly becoming our favourite leg of the trip so far, we decided to throw caution to the winds and follow the advice given to Judge and Pat, our travelling companions, on their flight to meet us in the Big Easy.
"If you aren't completely drunk the whole time you're in New Orleans, then you have completely missed the point".
Words we took to heart and the saturday turned, in predictable fashion, to flash memories of a fantastic time had along Bourbon and Frenchman Streets listening to Jazz, Blues and an assortment of Brass Bands, that piss from a great height onto the twitching, talentless corpses of 99% of the dross that infects the UK and American charts. I honestly can't find the words to impress on you how good New Orleans is, and if you ever get the chance I urge you in the strongest possible terms to visit.

The next day, our last, began with a chorus of what sounded like screeching drills, hammering and angle grinding. I thought it may have been coming from inside my own head and was a new side effect of a hangover so intense that it hurt to look at the inside of my eyelids, but no, it was the soothing tone of the hostel building some new rooms to accomodate the influx of guests for Mardi Gras. It turned out to be heaven sent because it made sleep impossible and we were forced out of our beds to get some breakfast and it was here that we met Phillip a young canadian who as it turns out has a knack for finding the craziness.

"Yeah I got the route down here but I was just wondering how safe it was going to be?" I started listening as Phillip quizzed one of the hostel workers regarding something called the 'Second Line Parade' which happens every sunday in different areas of New Orleans. On this particular Sunday it was happening in the Lower Ninth Ward, an area you might recognise as being the one completely devastated by Katrina. Phillip it turned out, needed people to go with, as the area itself is one of the poorest and therefore one of the less salubrious and more problematic, shall we say, that N'Orleans has to offer and a 5ft 5 white Canadian would have been a curiosity to say the least. It sounded like it was a little edgy, a little off the beaten track and alot of amzing fun. The only thing was that the route was not published as it was strictly a local tradition and one that few tourists ever got to hear about. Phillip had got the information from a local guy who was returning to rebuild his mothers house, long since devastated by the Levees collapse. We were on board.

We got the number 84 bus with more than a little apprehension and rode around the devastated lower Ninth Ward faces pressed against the glass in awe at the still prominent devastation. Houses still with furniture in them and eery messages spray painted on them. "NO DOGS SEEN"- "GAS OFF"- "1 SMALL DOG" and the strange crosses and code devised to let the clean up crews know which houses contained dead bodies and where they were located. These sat side by side with houses that had been completely renovated. It truly was an extremely strange feeling. We got off on one of the main roads before the bus returned back over the canal to New Orleans city centre and started trying to locate the parade.

We eventually saw flashing lights in the distance and followed the atmosphere. We walked past the NOPD vehicles that had been blocking the roads and found ourselves faced with a truly sureal scene. Row upon row of souped up cars lined the central reservations, 24 inch rims glinted in the sunlight as powerful stereos blasted out Hip Hop at ear bleeding levels and the smell of BBQ permeated the exhaust fumes of the high powered motorcycles openly doing wheelies past the yawning police officers with locals on horseback following behind. Absolutely. Fucking. Mental.
We looked around at each other, LITERALLY the only 6 white faces as far as the eye could see.

We carried on walking and tried to find the parade, it had recently passed and we caught up with it outside 'The House of Dance and Feathers' where the band had stopped and were playing in the middle of about 2000 dancing and singing bodies. I don't know what any of the music was or who it was by but what I can tell you is that it was exactly of the right and pertinent for that moment. The smell of weed was pungent and the police seemed to be mingling freely and shaking hands with guys who looked like extras from an episode of the wire. Gold teeth glinting and everyone in their finery out to impress and party away the warm sunday afternoon. A mobility scooter pulling a huge cooler passed and we walked alongside it and got a couple of beers to walk along with. Emma nipped over to a van with a guy in the back cooking BBQ Sausage, Burgers and 'Poke Chops' and the parade continued for another hour or so until it reached it's conclusion and eventually the crowd accepted the fact that the show was over. We walked to the bus stop and waited for the traffic to clear with huge smiles splitting our faces. We had all experienced something that we would never forget and this goes down as one of the standout experiences of our lives so far. I say that in all seriousness as I am not one for hyperbole.

In a way I was glad we left the next day as it would have been extremely difficult indeed to top the previous days shenannigans so it was tinged with sadness but fully satisfied that we picked up the hire car and set off with Judge and Pat on the next leg.

Next stop, loads of different places. Road trip from N'Orleans to Vegas.

What's your worst public transport story? This is mine..

What's your worst public transport story? Everyone's got one. I've been on an Edinburgh bus, more than once, with people smoking heroin at the back. I've been on the Megabus from Edinburgh to Dundee with sick from one Dundonian class act rolling from the front to the back with every tap of the break and burst of the accelerator from the unwitting driver on the deck below. I've been on a citylink coach from Sheffield to London where a baby two rows in front of me has refused to stop crying for the duration of the journey. For all I know, he's still crying now. But none of that could have prepared me for what we were undertaking when we boarded the NY to Tulsa, Oklahoma, Greyhound bus service. 34 hours of unadulterated bad time.

It started innocuously enough when we boarded at 9.30am at the Port Authority bus terminal on 42nd street. A nice empty bus with maybe 4 other passengers which wound it's way through the city to Newark in New Jersey. From there it was fairly uneventful until we reached a place called Harrisburg in Pennsylvania  when two women boarded, shepherding 6 feral children all of whom had menacing looks in their close together eyes.

Luckily we were due for a change of bus soon enough so we put up with the raucous screeching and unbridled seat kicking for an hour or so before it was time to change.

I can't remember the names of every tin pot town we went through so from now on I'll mention only those of importance. After having managed our disappointment of seeing the 6 child party boarding we got on our connection and the despair truly began. I noted there was a bit of a buzz, people seemed to be getting on famously, I thought to myself, then, I started to zone in on specific conversations.

'Just got out today' I heard one guy, who could only be described as a gang member, say. He had 'Soulja' crudely tattoo'd on his hands.

'Bitch I toldjoo, I'll be back at 7!' Another exclaimed before raising his voice further to a booming baritone 'MOTHERFUCKER GONNA HAVE TO WAIT!'

I sank down into my seat and tried not to catch anyones eye. Although it was hard not to. I now understood why people had sucked in their breath sharply when I'd informed them of our plan to ride the Greyhound.

When we arrived in Pittsburgh, a city freshly defeated in the Superbowl the night before, we all had to disembark only to re-embark the same bus 30 minutes later,  this became somewhat of a pattern over the next 26 hours.

On re-embarking we noticed the loudest of the passengers, a guy called Chris, who I had heard to remark earlier 'this medication of mine is making me see everything, two' and that's verbatim by the way, was still in the concourse with his face pressed forelornly against the glass door as the bus pulled away. What happened to Chris? 'Oh he'd been dranking' the 17 year old couple who'd been taking the brunt of his frankly terrifying chat for the last 8 hours, told me.

Chris ejected, the bus now had a semblance of normality, that is to say we didn't feel in immediate danger, and things remained like that all the way to Columbus Ohio.

I'd been having fitful 7 or 8 minute bursts of sleep for a while, but when the bus pulled into Columbus I rubbed my eyes and sat up because this was worth a watch, roughly 18 Amish people boarded, resplendent in full Amish gear, beards and matching 1950's luggage. They stayed on for a while and although the most serene part of the journey it was undoubtedly also the most surreal.

As we entered the midwest at daybreak the Amish alighted only to be replaced by the most motley crew yet. A band of what could only be described as 'Midwest Tweakers' that is to say, prescription drug addicts, got on and things took a turn for the worse.

The previous bus drivers had all been keeping a close eye on the earlier reprobates and had so far managed to instill a modicum of decency and good behaviour but that all changed when a little old guy with a stinking attitude took the wheel. He was a law unto himself. He kept his eye on the road and that was that. The Tweakers had taken to openly drinking and at one stage a full blown fight broke out at the back. A race issue I later found out, but I personally, had a suspicion that it was alcohol related. Thankfully Emma and I, had the foresight to take seats at the front by this stage so we were, to a certain extent, removed from it. As much as is possible on  a single decker bus.

The atmosphere remained tense until we arrived into a town, I forget the name, somewhere in Missouri. I had learned by that point in the journey, that when you have certain amounts of whatever the stress hormone is called, coarsing through your veins, sleep is impossible. Auditory hallucinations however seem to come thick and fast. 'What was that?' I'd ask Emma, she would look over her book at me, confused. 'I didn't say anything' she'd reply.

We changed here for the final bus of the journey, and so, thankfully, did the fighting, buck toothed yocals who'd been putting a dampener on our jolly sightseeing tour. We breathed a sigh of relief and normality (sic) was restored. We hunkered down for the final 8 hours and even had a conversation with the tattoo'd guy from the military sitting next to us who it turned out had another full 2 days, before he got to his destination in LA. The chat ended almost immediately after it became clear that he genuinely believed that the end of the world was coming on December the 21st 2012. I put in my earphones at that point, even though my I-pod had run out of battery.

We eventually made it to Tulsa unscathed, where we met our good friend Sam, we'd made his acquaintance in Budapest 3 years ago and tomorrow we drive, that's right, drive, down to N'Orleans after having spent the most relaxing couple of days, gorging ourselves on hamburgers and Mexican food and drinking delicious beers from around the world.

Greyhound still had a nasty surprise for those who's journey hadn't finished, there was a snow storm coming in, so the bus was terminating there for the evening. 'We'll be putting you up in the local homeless shelter' I heard the rep say as he faded out of earshot and we climbed into Sam's nice warm 4x4.

Without doubt the worst public transport I've ever experienced but it was just about worth it for the glimpse at the US's underbelly and an America that not many tourists get to experience. One of those ones that's bad at the time but good for a story. That's easy for me to say now, I wasn't the one who got done in.

Next stop N'Orleans.