Finally, Stone Mountain to... New Orleans! June 17, 2009

Getting to N'awlins, it finally felt like our road trip was really beginning.

We lucked out by just rolling through the bayous and into New Orleans around sunset. Being in the car with recycled A/C for several hours, we rolled down the windows and felt the warm, thick Louisiana air wave over us. Just nearly coming to a stop on the highway from a traffic stop, we were able to look around us and take in the scenery. Louisiana was the first state we had gotten to that there seemed to be a real change in the environment. It's definitely swamp land out there, with the trees and brush looking just how the air felt; thick, lush, heavy. Spanish moss dripping from trees and buildings.

Arriving to the actual streets of New Orleans, we navigated our way through dilapidated buildings, seeing many places that were never returned to after Katrina. We got to the hostel we were staying at, the India House, and felt welcomed immediately.

A a 20-something girl in two longs brown braids, wearing a red gingham jumper and gladiator sandals greeted us and from behind the reception desk and apologized for the fart smell that just entered the air - "dude, i'm sorry - do you smell that? i think the owner just crop-dusted us. our it's the cat. it's like 17 years old." we laughed, refreshed by her candor, and followed her in an exhausted haze as she showed us around. The India House has incredibly homey, yet completely interesting and unique, common areas, a great accommodating kitchen, washers and dryers, and a swimming pool that guests and employees alike can enjoy until 10 at night.

The India House has both co-ed dorms, and separate female and male dorms, depending on what you're comfortable with. They also have private rooms, which Ben and I opted for, so after getting a tour of the main house the red-gingham girl showed us to our abode. They own 3 or 4 separate houses that have the available private rooms, and ours was just two doors down.

Our little place was pretty perfect - a decent size, it was a good sized bedroom with a bunk-bed (full size on bottom, twin on top) with it's own full bathroom. The shower - huge. The whole place was newly done. You could smell the newness on everything - the floors, paint, bathroom. They supply you with sheets and towels if you need them, the sheets which go on top of the rubber sheets already on all the mattresses. This probably sounds weird to a lot of people, but actually it's a really good thing to find. Why? Because when you cater to many nomadic types, many possibly coming from not the cleanest conditions, bedbugs can run a muck. Long story short, rubber sheets = good.

Feeling the weight of an empty belly and the itch to move after being in the car, we set out to explore New Orleans a bit before we called it a night.

We decided immediately that we wouldn't drive once in our 3 day stay there, so we made use of the public transportation, taking the trolley car that runs up and down Canal St., making all the areas of New Orleans you'd like to be in very accessible for only $1.25 each way. (Another great thing about the India House hostel is that there is a stop for the rail car right outside of it).

Seeing that we were in N'awlins and that it was getting dark, the obvious choice to us was to hit Bourbon Street.

Immediately you're bombarded with bright lights, the smell of beer, and more T&A than you could imagine. Not my favorite place, but it was something to experience. After doing a full loop of what seemed to be the main stretch, we asked a gypsy-like woman manning the entrance of a bar where a good place to eat would be.

Thinking for a minute, she replied "Yo Mama's" and gave us directions down a side street. Dressed as a dive bar inside and out, we felt pretty good about the choice.

(Quite the selection)

We ordered some gumbo to share and got some hefty burgers, which they declare to be the "best in New Orleans, and maybe the world." The whole rest of the trip I craved nothing else but more of that gumbo, and the burgers were in fact amazing. The selection of beef on a bun includes the usual fare, but a select few may strike you funny, like the Burger Romanoff that's topped with sour cream and caviar, or the Peanut Butter Burger that's topped with bacon, and, of course, PB. You'll also be surprised to find that the burgers aren't accompanied by fries, but by either a baked potato or salad, a choice I really enjoyed. I stuck with the Bull Fighter burger (avacados, jalapeno, salsa) and a baked tater and was super happy.

We wandered a bit more after our bellies were filled with happiness, and poked in and out of some places. Ben had some brews, and I tried the local concoction given the name "Hurricane." Every place seemed to have their own way to make it - most tasty like cheap jungle juice you'd find out any frat party. However, some places did it right; pretty much any where that wasn't a crazy dance club or drink vendor.

To do the Hurricane right, here's the gem recipe:

1 oz white rum
1 oz Jamaican dark rum
1 oz Barcardi 151 rum
3 oz orange juice
3 oz unsweetened pineapple juice
1/2 oz grenadine syrup
crushed ice

The places that mess it up are the ones that just throw in Hawaiian punch or some other equivalent instead of the separate juices. And cheap liquor.

We made our way back to our New Orleans home, and crashed.

Keep on travelin,


C

North Carolina to Stone Mountain Georgia June 16-17, 2009

After bidding farewell to Chad, his family, and the Hershey Ice Cream guy, Ben and I were back on the road, originally bound for New Orleans, Louisiana. That drive, however, is about 11 hours long and we didn't want to punish ourselves like that, especially since driving on the east coast is as awful as it is. So instead of plunging straight through the night, we stopped in Stone Mountain, Georgia, which is about 10 minutes outside Atlanta. We stayed in a cheap motel for the night, I can't even remember where, and crashed immediately.

The thing that had made us decide to stop in Stone Mountain specifically was, crazily enough, Stone Mountain. It's basically the Confederate version of Mount Rushmore, which the images of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee and Lt. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. The mountain is about 825 feet high, and the hiking trail to the top is 1.3 miles. Ben and I figured it was a good way to ease into our future hiking adventures, and to finally get the chance to break in our hiking shoes a bit.

Reaching the top, you get a great view of the entire Stone Mountain Park, and there's a visitors center there to get the necessary post cards, souvenirs, and water. There's also a tram lift that you could ride to the top and back down if you don't feel like trekking up.

Getting back down into the parking lot, we felt a little refreshed for burning off some of the toxins built up from spending so much sedentary time in the car. Getting some sandwiches for the road, we were finally off again and on our way to bubbly, loud, exuberant New Orleans.

Baltimore to North Carolina - June 14-16, 2009

(Fifi! the water skiing poodle. Postcard from Baltimore)

We woke the next morning to the sounds of Sean's two lady finches, Sadie and Edith, having quite the squabble. One of them had laid some eggs and they were being pretty territorial. Sending them to time out, Ben and I tried to figure out the best way to finish our time in Baltimore before our departure that afternoon. We grabbed some breakfast with Sean, then said goodbye as he headed off for a photo shoot, and me and Ben headed for our last stop in Baltimore. One of my favorite places, the Visionary Art Museum. If you take the water taxi from the Inner Harbor, you can see the sign across the water from the boat. It's a vertical sign along the corner of the brick building, but what makes it easy to spot is the neon and metal eye at the top. What makes the Visionary so awesome is that the work in the museum is all done by self-taught artists. A couple sections of the gallery are filled with work completed by people who have been institutionalized, making it that much more intriguing.

Fortunately, there was a beautiful wedding happening in the Visionary garden. Unfortunately, that meant that we couldn't explore the other building housing even more handcrafted works.

Ah well, just another reason to bring Benjamin back.

Then we were back on the road. Our next destination was Greensboro, North Carolina to stay with my Aunt and Uncle. It should have been about a 6 hour drive, but took us actually close to 8 hours. Again, we hit some pretty bad rain that followed us a good way down. We also took Route 29 pretty much all the way down, which, while very scenic, took forever, and wasn't too fun to navigate through the dark. We got into Greensboro around 11:30pm, and after some short visiting with the fam crashed out. It was the first night we could actually sleep in and not have to think about all our road trip plans.

We slept in some, and woke up in time for my Aunt coming home from work - she took half the day off, and we went to go see the botanical gardens about 10 minutes away. The Bog Gardens were lovely and as isolated as they could be considering the dense suburbia we were in.

We hopped over to the plaza next door for some P.F. Chang's which my Aunt was craving, and kept it pretty mellow for the rest of the day.

The next day we said so-long, and headed for Charlotte, NC to visit one of Ben's friends, Chad, and his wife and little baby girl, Cassidy. It started raining a bit there too (we seemed to have brought it with us everywhere), but no worries, because it passed over us while feasting at a great little place, Lupie's Cafe.

(a sassy veggie poster at Lupie's)

The chili's great, the burgers are huge, daily specials fantastic, and $1 PBR's to wet your whistle, our you could splurge, with their most expensive brew not hitting over $3. For dessert, make sure to have their Kuchen (prounced coo-gan). A total gift from Germany, it's a great, warm, custard-like treat with a crispy crust.

That would've been it for Charlotte right there except that when we were leaving, we passed by this great fella in a hershey ice cream cone sandwich-board, working hard to bring in some clientele for the shop next door. Sorry guy, filled up on the Kuchen.

Next stop: New Orleans, Louisianna.

Albany to Baltimore - June 13, 2009

Sorry about the delay! Benjamin and myself have been so super busy with being on the road that we have been super shabby bloggers. I'm going to try to catch up a bit!

So getting to Baltimore was alright - it rained for the last 3 hours of the trip, but Ben and I made it in one piece. I navigated Ben into my old stomping grounds around the MICA campus, parking right outside my old apartment near the corner of Park Ave. and McMechen. I ran into my good ol pal Alissandra (an incredible illustrator/artist/creative person/wonder woman), whose blog and professional website you should all investigate thouroughly.

Giving Ben the guided tour, we walked the 2 miles down to the Inner Harbor. You could easily take the light rail, getting off at the stop for Camden Yards and then walking only a couple blocks, but our legs needed the good stretch. A total tourist trap, the Inner Harbor is complete with it's own ESPN Zone and Hard Rock Cafe, but having it's perks - There's the incredible Baltimore Aquarium, where you can catch a dolphin show and walk down the lengthy, spiral ramp surrounded entirely by a circular tank of sharks (to paint the picture, the shark tank is the donut, you and the ramp are the hole in donut). There's also the Maryland Science Center, which is on the far right end of the harbor. Very worth it.

Ben and I stopped in the throng of it all, as there was a youth group of steel drummers putting on a pretty cool performance at the time (there's almost always some sort of performance going on there), so we through in some spare change and enjoyed them for a few.


What I really wanted to show Ben though was Fell's Point. Usually a bit more laid back and chill than the Harbor, and offering a wealth of gems to eat in. Almost all the shops and restaurants are independent, which is a good switch. We took the water taxi over, and even at $9 a pop it was nice to feel the breeze on our faces and let someone else do some driving.

We could hear an old trumpet belting some tunes as we landed and walked around the square. Hungry for some nourishment, we plopped down at a table outside the Greene Turtle, lured in by their deal of the day: a cold bucket of 5 Miller Lite ponies. Me with burger, Ben with crab cakes, it seemed like the best choice of the day; until we ran into Bertha's. Quiet and unassuming, Bertha's sits at 734 S Broadway. We walked in, and at first thought it was just your average, tiny, dark dive bar, but when we saw the wall of dissected and reassembled green bumper stickers, we realized it was most likely at least a little bit more. Originally reading "Eat Bertha's Mussels," the bumper stickers on the far wall had their letters rearranged to read various clever (and also not so clever) phrases. Immediately Ben and I knew we had to accept the challenge and trump all the other "witty" people that had their new stickers adorned to the wall. Our awesome bartender, Angela, kept our drinks full and supplied us with a heft of stickers and a pair of scissors to complete our mission.

Was it dirty? Yes. But we got our own wall.

One of my great friends, Sean Scheidt, was coming out to meet us there - he too is an amazing artist, specializing in photography. Again, look at his stuff! He was also putting us up for the night in his new place in Dundalk, so after the shenanigans were fully shenanned and the amazingly delicious mussels were devoured (we suggest keeping it simple with the garlic and butter mussels - superb) we blew Bertha's a kiss, snapped a picture with Angela, and head for our bed for the night.

Sean, thanks so much for your hospitality (hope Sadie and Edith haven't killed one another)

Day 1

We set out from Albany this morning! Destination: Baltimore, Maryland. Before we left the Capital District for good, we had to stop and pick up a souvenir.
The inscription to Bella & Luca on the back of this gem reads:

Dear Bella and Luca -

Today, we left Albany! Before we began our journey, we had to visit the giant statue of Nipper the dog, who in 1872 saved the Principal of Albany from the Great Marshmallow Fire. Nipper's owner brought graham crackers and chocolate bars as a treat for the city, and that's how s'mores were invented. Off to our next stop, Baltimore, Maryland, where we're hoping to catch some crabs. Oh boy!

Love,
Cory and Ben

So really, that's all you need to know.

Preparatory preparations

Slowly but surely our plans are falling into place. Benjamin and I have mapped out our excursion on the calendar, and so we are officially embarking on our journey on June 12. First stop will be Baltimore, my old stomping grounds, then North Carolina, New Orleans, Austin TX, White Sands NM, Santa Fe, then on to Flagstaff/Sedona AZ. We'll be then flitting to various places such as Las Vegas, Bryce Canyon, Los Angeles and San Francisco. We'll be leaving AZ around July 31 to head back to our home state of NY.

We'll mainly be camping and hostelling, but hope to sublet an apartment in Flagstaff for the month of July so as to have a solid home base to jump from.

Our first official hostel we booked with so far is the India House in New Orleans. We booked through hostelworld.com and it got really amazing reviews. We'll see how it goes! We really can't wait to do some of the haunted tours, woo!