Through Texas, and to National Parks and Forests

We went through Texas and drove up to Austin, Texas, where we hung out and visited a Lomography store, a cool cafe owned by Sandra Bullock, and a great Mexican restaurant bar with a really good happy hour and a cool bartender. I discovered that I liked beers from the Texas brewery Shiner, particularly their Shiner Bock.
After Austin, we drove all the way down to the border to Amistad Recreational Area, which is a recreational lake that sits on both sides of the border.  (Amistad is Spanish for friendship, for those interested). It was while camping at this site that we experienced one of our weirder, creepier nights. Out in the darkness and in the middle of nowhere like we were, I was a little unnerved when we heard a cat meowing pathetically outside of our tents. After hearing it go on for a little bit, I heard Ashley venture out of their tent and look for it with a flashlight. She didn't see it, and I hunkered down praying that there were no crazy masked murderers out in the brush. She repeated her search a couple times, because each time she went back in her tent, the cat started meowing again. Finally she opened a can of tuna and left it out on a picnic table. Soon we heard the animal eating, but when Ashley looked out with the flashlight it ran and she only got a glimpse of its striped tail. Again she turned off the light and kept quiet. I was trying to go to sleep. But probably five minutes better the thing was back and knocking over a trashcan. I hear the tent flap open and the click of a flashlight and -"It's a huge raccoon!" I was a little shocked, and impressed. "Smart raccoon!" Smart raccoon that had figured out that cat noises could make humans give it food, haha.
The next day we drove though Marfa, Texas, an artsy little town that had been used as a set for the movie Giant, which was James Dean's last film, and for No Country for Old Men. The town became famous due to the presence of artist Donald Judd and his creation of the Chinati Foundation. It is an artist residence meant for large-scale projects, and showcases some of his works, which were originally founded with the help of the Dia Foundation. (This was interesting to me because just south of my hometown is the Dia headquarters).
The rest of our trip is mostly filled with bragging material. The southwest has a large number of National Parks and Forests, and it was our goal to see as many as possible. With that, I'll just say that we go to camp in the Guadalupe Mountains, descend into Carlsbad Caverns, walk the White Sands National Monument, and spend our last night surrounded by giant saguaro cacti at Saguaro National Forest. The thrill of our last week of site-seeing was accentuated by coyotes, hawks, and people with interesting stories to tell.

I forgot to mention Lafayette, Louisiana, didn't I? I forgot about much of Lousiana. Every state that we visited has its own character and many of its own stories. On our way to Lafayette we visited an old Creole plantation. The tour guide there told us about their way of life, about the importance of the Spanish moss and cypress trees for the colonists and later the Americans living there. We also watched a film on the family history of the place, which we found a little over dramatic and annoying as it tried to make us sympathize with the rich owners who lost everything in the Civil War. For us the most interesting history lesson was about the Acadians. Remember Acadia National Park? Well the Acadians were the French who got kicked out of Nova Scotia by the British. Most of them were farmers who got along with the native Americans there. They were forced into boats and a lot of them settled in Louisiana, where they were seen as a lower class in comparison with the Creoles, who were, ironically I think, also originally French colonists. The word Cajun comes from Acadian. So it was cool for David, Ashley, and I, to have followed their path a little bit.
In Lafayette we happily stumbled upon an Art Walk and strolled through the galleries of this pretty, relaxed town. As we were walking we watched a literal "Party Bus" go by, filled with partying college students. Quite amusing. We also went into an artists' market, where local craftsmen and women, most of them close to us in age, were selling handmade jewelry, shirts, books, glassware, etc. It was really fun.
At the end of this, Ashley felt sick so she went to lie down in the car, but I decided to explore a little more...

It was probably homesickness. At the end of Texas, we high-tailed it to Chula Vista...

(Sorry, apparently I never finished this post!)

N'Awlins to Austin

Internet access was spotty after Asheville. Here's what I wrote for December 13.

December 13, 2011

We're in Austin, Texas now. Even though we've been on the road for a month and a half, we're technically in the middle of the continental U.S. We spent a week in New Orleans, which was amazing and definitely lived up to all of the hype that is given to it. Before getting there we had made a slight detour to Memphis, Tennessee. Unfortunately, even though I could have sworn we had made our way south for the winter, the cold and the snow actually followed us. It struck in Boone, North Carolina and followed us all the way to Memphis. So Memphis was a bit of a ghost town when we got there, it being the off season anyway, and only fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Still, while not as exciting as it must be in the summer, we did get to hear some good live music. We also visited the Lafayette Motel, now the Civil Rights Museum, and saw the balcony where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was shot and killed. Also in Memphis was Slavehaven, a house that was part of the Underground Railroad. We took a tour of the house, and it was pretty incredible to learn about how it was started by man who came from Germany as immigrant to escape an oppressive culture. Upon his arrival this man found another kind of oppression, and had Slavehaven built and to help escaped slaves, and it helped an untold number. Our tour guide chatted with us at the end and had a great story about a tall British man visiting one day. The next day, when she was getting ready and had the Today Show on, she saw Sting come on and realized it was the same person. How cool is that??

We went from Memphis to the Natchez Trace Parkway, catching all the color that we had missed on the Blue Ridge. None of us even realized before that the leaves change color and fall off the trees in the south. We drove past cypresses and oaks draped with Spanish moss, fields of deer and even some cotton, and made a couple of stops along the way. The first place we stopped at at was called Sunken Trace, which is a section of the original Natchez Trace and was so heavily used from foot and carriage traffic that it is thirty feet deep. It was incredible. After that we continued on to an old cotton plantation home. We walked around the grounds and took pecans and cotton from the remnants of the old groves and gardens. Following that, we went down to Emerald Mound, which was an 8-acre raised mound with a flattened top and smaller mounds atop that, once used by native Americans in the area for ceremonial and possibly recreational purposes. Ashley and I rolled down the hills in a most sacrilegious fashion. At this point, David made it known that he couldn't find his wallet, and in fact had noticed it was missing when we were at the plantation. We ended up having to drive all the way back to Sunken Trace. I find this funny because I remember that before, as I was carefully inching my way down into the ravine, David loudly proclaimed that it was necessary to slide down on your derrière. So of course we went back to where he had slid down, and fortunately Ashley found the wallet within about five minutes. Crisis averted.

We were urged to stop in Natchez to see the beautiful plantations. Unfortunately it was late in the day so we didn't really make any visits. Instead we visited the house of a freed slave, who interestingly enough acquired slaves, and also ran three barber shops and was rather wealthy for the times. After this we drove on to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where we caved and got a cheap motel for the night. It was cool because when we first got into the city there were fireworks as part of a Festival of Lights. We missed the party but the fireworks were good.

We walked around Baton Rouge the next day, visiting the beautiful Capitol building, trying some tasty Louisiana comfort food, before continuing on to a campground outside of New Orleans. There we were greeted by a nine-banded armadillo at our campsite. It was awesome. We were endlessly amused by the armadillos that hung out in the swampy and rural areas of Louisiana, although I was a little saddened to learn that they, along with a large rodent called a nuvia, are not actually native to the area and are a little bit of a nuisance. (Similarly, now we're in Texas and learned about the black buck antelope, brought here by hunters wanting to hunt an exotic animal and now taking over the territory of the white tailed deer and creating a problem for cattle rancher).

We spent about five days exploring New Orleans, checking out its art and music scene, meeting a lot of locals and falling in love with the city. We spent the first three nights at the campground, and the next three at Occupy New Orleans, who were originally getting kicked out but fortunately for us were allowed to stay at the park for seven more days. The first day in New Orleans we basically got tourist information and decided to go to a restaurant called the Green Goddess, where we got an amazing lunch, and then walked up and down Royal and Bourbon Streets. We also went to Louis Armstrong Park, and on our way back from that we got ushered in by a crowd at an artist's residence. The artist was basically doing a little gallery show in her house, so we checked it out, David got some art, and we made contributions to an art project the woman was working on. The woman also gave us home-made fortune cookies, with cute little fortunes inside and little "learn French" lessons.

While in New Orleans went to see the Preservation Jazz Band at Preservation Hall, which was one of the best experiences we had on the trip. They played real, original jazz music in a small, old hall. The whole thing was like a big party. 

New Orleans is simply full of art, music, and history. We heard from several people that if you stay there for six months you never leave. We went into a shop with beautiful masks, and the shopkeeper showed us a book that had been made by his photographer friend. It was all these photographs that he had done, all having funny titles and explanations. The photographer had passed away so the shopkeeper kept the book in his shop and told people the man's story. The French Quarter in New Orleans is all about stories like this, but once outside the Quarter you can see the disparity. There is definitely a poorer population in the city that can't be ignored.