Our journey home began with a 7:30am flight from Austin and we decided it would be a good idea to not bother sleeping the night before…

Ashton stayed up with us, watching Vanilla Sky and Family Guy until it was time to drop us at the airport. We were all lagging by 5am, so it was a struggle to pull our gigantic rucksacks onto our backs. Of course, we were a little sad to be leaving Austin too, we’d met some great people there, but I don’t think I could have been more excited about heading home after 47 days away.

We were flying with Delta, which is an appalling airline. They don’t mention anywhere when purchasing tickets that you’ll have to pay $15 for each bag you check in, and when they tell you you’ll be getting breakfast/lunch on your flight – you don’t – and of course they were delayed by almost two hours. Luckily, we had so many hours of waiting that day that it didn’t make a difference. We still shuffled around like zombies, moving from terminal to terminal and catching a bit of shut-eye at every opportunity.

A couple of hours were wasted in a stop over at Minneapolis before we could get our connecting flight to New York. It was cold and raining – summing up our moods exactly. We were sat separately on the flight and a kid kept kicking my chair, because apparently that doesn’t just happen on TV. Fortunately no one was sat next to me and I switched seats.

With New York came a six hour wait for our flight back to England. We tried to stretch out a meal and we walked about a bit, but finally we headed to the gate and failed to stay awake. Our plane was delayed by half an hour, but at 11:45pm we finally, finally boarded to make our six hours and ten minute trek across the Atlantic, divided by sleep, movies and anticipation.

It was beautifully warm when we arrived at midnight in Austin. Rachel, our host was waiting for us at the bottom of the escalators in a Garden State kind of affair holding a sign. We went back to her pink, tiger-print (on the outside) block of flats in the “ghetto” of town. Her flat was really sparse because she’s leaving to live on a boat with her boyfriend in a week or so, but we sat on what furniture was left and chatted all night anyway.

Of course, our whole reason for being in Austin was the music festival, South by Southwest. So, on Wednesday we headed downtown early to collect our passes and get to work. I spent the entire festival on my own because I didn’t have a phone, so couldn’t contact anyone. I’ll admit, I wasn’t overly excited about this factor, but I saw so many bands that I didn’t notice too much. I won’t bore you with who I saw, but I will just say that Laura Marling, Graham Coxon, Titus Andronicus and Cold War Kids were some of my favourites.

As sod’s law would have it, I managed to lose my photo pass on the first day. This meant I had to run back to the convention centre in order to get a new one and run back to the venue I was supposed to be at. Later that night Fin never came back, so me and Rachel just talked for hours and went to bed. On Thursday Fin came back in the wee hours, so Rachel only saw him in time to drop us off at Ashton’s on Friday morning, who is a friend of Adam, who – if you think back – we stayed with in DC. We hung out there for a couple of hours before catching some more music.

That night me and Ashton watched a load of Nip Tuck and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, in which Shirley Manson from Garbage plays a laughable machine. Fin came back once we’d gone to bed and left early the next morning, so Ashton didn’t see him until the last night of the festival when we were drinking and eating chicken wings with his neighbours until eight in the morning.

My funds have been diminishing rapidly throughout this trip, so by Austin I was broke. I was living on a bowl of cereal and a sandwich a day, but on Saturday Ashton made me an awesome breakfast and then I dropped by the restaurant he works at and he sorted me out with some dinner. I also made sure to collect all the festival freebies, such as ice cream, Margaritas and beer.

We slept Sunday away, waking around 4:30pm and heading straight to the supermarket to get food for a barbecue. I thought I’d be adventurous and bought a Napoles (cactus paddle) to try – it tasted like okra. Everyone came round again, including a guy called Ronen who was the character spit of Amory Blaine from This Side of Paradise, and a couple of bands from Norway – one called Casio Kids and the other I can’t remember, but they were all super cool and we were moaning together about tipping in the US.

Me and Ashton’s neighbour Leslie had our own little dance parties to Rock Lobster while everyone else played Rock Band at Ashton’s. It was an excellent way to end our trip, sending us off on our 24+ hour journey home in high spirits.

We arrived at almost midnight because the couple we’re staying with – Wes and Brandi – were both working late. They live in the Sunset area of San Francisco with their little dog Maus, who’s the liveliest little thing you’ve ever seen. She bounded about with her toys throughout our stay here, looking for anyone who would play with her.

Our first day’s decisions were based on the fact that we had the car until the 17th, so we thought we’d drive out to east California to see a ghost town called Hornitos. It consisted of two streets – High Street and Bear Valley Road – that ran parallel but bowed in the middle to make way for some ruins, a playground and some public toilets. Along the other sides of the streets were houses that people still lived in interspersed with abandoned old buildings that were crumbling to the ground. The first house looked perfectly normal from one side, but on the other its roof had collapsed to the floor like icing from a cake. Others stood proud in their overgrown lots, but nothing remained behind their vacant windows.

If you can’t read it, click it…

Hornitos was a lot further than we’d expected so that took up most of the day, but we still managed to fit in a cinema trip on the way back. We watched Taken because our only other options were teen movies about boys trying to lose their virginity. Liam Neeson was really good – by far the only likeable character – but it was weird seeing him in such a macho role.

Sunday brought yet more movie watching… We stayed in Wes and Brandi’s living room, which is really dark when the lights aren’t on as it doesn’t have any windows (they live in the basement part of the house) so it’s really easy to sleep and sleep and sleep. So we woke up late and tried to do all the things we’d planned to do anyway. We went to Walmart to return the tent we’d bought and get our $20 back. Then we went to drop the hire car off but the place was closed, so we drove to the Mission district to see Balmy Alley, which is covered in murals representing human rights, gentrification, Hurricane Katrina, etc. On the way there a woman gave us a teapot because she’d had a garage sale but it was over and she was going to throw it out, so we gave that to Wes and Brandi. We then tried to see Haight Street, but it was too late and everything was closed, so we went back and watched Choke and Slumdog Millionaire which were ok and excellent, respectively.

 

Click to read – there’s a line from The Second Coming by Yeats

Click to read…

On Monday we had to get the car back before 7:30am, so we had a super early start to a full day of walking. We walked all the way up to, but not up, Coit Tower, because it didn’t open until 10am, so we walked to Jack Jerouac Alley, followed by Grace Church, which has a stain glass window devoted to Albert Einstein. Then we walked to Haight Street (again) to look at records and books. By 4pm we were so tired that we had to head back to the house and rest our aching bones.

Our stop here was a short’n, but a good’n. We stayed with Jacob Hauge, who summoned his friend Emily over to dance to ‘80s classics with us on the night we arrived. We wrung the towel of Santa Cruz dry and drank every drop in the short amount of time we had there.

When we woke up we waited for Jacob to get back from school and Emily to come over again and then we went to do some thrift shopping downtown. After that we headed up to the Mystery Spot but it was closed, so we went down to Capitola Village to see all the little houses and their multicoloured façades and walked along the pier before getting Thai for dinner.

That’s actually all we did. It sounds like nothing at all, but it filled the whole day and we left at 10pm for San Francisco, somewhat sadly.

Jacob and Emily

While in LA we stayed in Santa Monica with a guy called Mike. However, we didn’t know he was called Mike until we met him in person because he went under Vladducantes on his couch surfing profile and I’d spent all of our phone conversations bypassing his name. On his profile it stated that he was really into vampires and pirates, so we had some idea of what we were in for…

What he failed to mention, however, is that he lives with his mum. Apparently the whole couch surfing malark was her idea, but you wouldn’t have guessed it the way she hid in her room the whole time. She was a small black woman resembling Mrs Tiggy-winkle and Naomie Harris in Pirates of the Caribbean. Mike was an introverted soul. He rarely made eye contact when he spoke to you, preferring the floor or an upward gaze through his red and black dreads. He wore black continuously and he loves Marilyn Manson and computer games.

The place smelt of sickly sweet vanilla and old flight cases, cabs, etc. formed the majority of their furniture. The bathroom was pink and filthy. Both the mirror and handrail were broken. Around the sink were scattered rose petals covered in a thin layer of dust, the bath was filled with black clumps of hair and stood on its ledge was a bottle of flea-shampoo for the cat. There was no shower in sight, so Fin and I spent the first day unwashed. Before I get into that though, I’ll tell you that in the living room there was a perfectly good futon that Mike had been sitting on while playing with his iPhone as we watched LA Confidential. When the film ended it transpired that we weren’t aloud to sleep on this futon. No, we’d have to sleep on the floor or on the very small two-seater that even I felt cramped on. He didn’t give us a coherent reason, he just mumbled something to floor and we caught the words “mum” and “clean”.

So, the first day: we woke intermittently to Mike and his mum arguing about various things and when we finally gave in and got up Mike’s mum was no where to be seen. She came bounding in an hour or so later screaming How Soon is Now at the top of her lungs before busting into Love Shack and shaking her arms over her head. It was all fairly amusing and we went out to breakfast fairly lighthearted. We drove as close to the Hollywood sign as possible, which isn’t very close as it turns out. Then we walked down Hollywood Boulevard to see all the stars and waste as much time as possible out of the house.

When we got back Fin wanted to make a sandwich, so he reached into an already open cupboard to get a plate but recoiled as his hand met with a thick layer of grease and dirt. Then Mike’s mum – you may be wondering why I keep referring to her as ‘Mike’s mum’, this is because we were never introduced – stormed out of her room and said “What are you doing?” Fin muttered something about wanting a plate, so she stomped over, grabbed a plate and thrust it into his hand before heading back to her bedroom. By this point you can imagine we felt pretty pestilent.

Around 11pm Mike emerged from his room to say goodnight and then flicked the lights off, leaving us baffled in nothing but the dim glow of the TV. And just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, we were told to leave in the morning. Again, Mike told the floor that there was problem with management and we had to leave in a few hours.
We packed up and decided to head to the beach while we figured out what to do and Mike invited himself along. We’ve no idea why though, because all he did was play on his iPhone, follow us around in silence and refuse to lend us 20¢ for the parking meter.

We didn’t know who to turn to. So we ended up driving back down to San Diego, back into the arms of the lovely Val, who took us out for Indian and took care of us all over again.

We then spent a couple of days driving up to Santa Cruz, although I’m not sure how we managed to stretch it out that far. We drove along the coast up Highway 1 through Laguna Beach, Newport, Huntington Beach, LA (again), Santa Barbara, the Big Sur, and some more.

Hoover Dam was the first stop on our Vegas itinerary. It’s not as big as we thought it was going to be. In fact, we were a little under whelmed, so when Fin went on the tour of the power plant I read for a couple of hours in the sun.

We headed to “the strip” afterwards and walked for miles just looking in a variety of casinos and watching the ridiculous shows they put on to draw the crowds. There’s little to do in Vegas if you’ve got no money. It’s a soulless place that strips you of your wealth and leaves you bemused in the cold chaos.

We watched the Sirens of Treasure Island show, which consists of a svelte bunch of half naked women prancing around on boats with half naked muscle-men singing in front of fireworks and explosions – all manner of visual-shocks are covered in Vegas. After this we went to The Venetian to see the indoor canal and Gondola rides they offer.

It’s near impossible to actually cross a street in Vegas. You can only get across half of them by taking the outdoor escalators to the walkways that lead into casinos. You then have to find your way out of the casino, which is a labyrinth in itself filled with mindless bodies slumped in rows of chairs in front of slot machines. They stare, gormless as they push the button to spin the reels. Note that there’s no need to use your arm to pull the lever anymore. The levers are still there of course, but why exert more energy than necessary? Flicking your right index finger will leave you vigour enough to get up and stand at the craps tables.

We walked down the strip to see the erupting volcano outside The Mirage, which spat out fire and water. We walked past Paris and The Bellagio with its dancing fountains (to Your Song by Elton John) before reaching New York, New York and losing our way in MGM Grand trying to get back. We ended up watching a preview of Flashpoint in the Grand and rating it before stumbling wearily towards to the car, trying our best to avoid the drunken horde and slipping on the carpet of sex cards on the way.

On our last day there we relaxed for a large majority of it. We watched some Curb… and Forest Gump, had Chinese for lunch and then headed to downtown Vegas where everything was born from the dust of the Nevada desert. We watched the light and music show on Fremont Street, which is displayed on an overhead canopy that stretches further than five football fields and blasts Queen or whatever band they’re showing above you. We saw a lot of vintage neon signs in Neonopolis and visited Mickie Finnz (as recommended by our host) before heading to IHOP to get some horrendously greasy food.

On our way to Los Angeles we stopped off in a couple of places, namely Amboy, where we saw a defunct cinder cone known as Amboy Crater and what I like to think of as the “Big Fish” tree. It had hundreds of shoes thrown onto it and I’m happy to believe that somehow it leads to the magical town of Spectre. We also stopped at the Bagdad Café which is apparently the star of the eponymous film.

We arrived around 5pm, paid our $25 for entry and decided to set up our $20 Walmart tent for the evening. The camping was supposed to be $18, but the office was closed when we got there so we bunked the charge by leaving before it opened up again the next morning. We watched the sunset over Yavapai Point before driving 50 odd miles out again to get dinner. We ended up at a Denny’s because nothing else was open 24 hours and it was around 10pm by that point. I had a huge meal – so huge in fact, that it came on three plates and the waitress was astounded that I finished it.
That night Fin slept in the tent and I slept in the car because it was far too cold, but all the stars were out and it was so dark that we could see them all clearly. We woke in the early hours to deer eating in front of the car, which was something special.

When we’d washed up we took the Bright Angel Trail down into the canyon but it was really icy in the shadowed parts of the path and Fin slipped so we went back because neither of us were properly prepared. Plus, it takes a day to hike to the bottom and we didn’t have the time. The canyon is an awe inspiring place though. The rocks are different shades of reds and browns changing constantly with the light.

Once we were back in the car we took Route 66 through twisting mountain roads to a place called Oatman, where we stopped and watched a re-enactment of a gun fight before heading off to Lake Havasu City to see the old London Bridge. Some of you may not know this, but the bridge was originally built in 1831, but by 1962 it could no longer withstand the weight of traffic that was crossing it everyday and so London sold it to the founder of Lake Havasu, Robert McCulloch, who had it shipped over to America brick by brick.

This neck of our journey was a lot quicker than we had planned and so we arrived in Vegas a day ahead of our schedule.

When we set off from San Diego we hit Interstate 8 and drove along the Mexico border. We went through two border controls and were stopped at one because Fin didn’t realise he had to stop. We sat in the sweltering heat while they set the dog on the car and checked our passports. It wasn’t long before we were on our way again though, and for a brief break in the ride the dry earth turned to glistening desert. The sand dunes shone amber in the sun and rolled effortlessly away to make way for barren land yet again, littered with cacti standing tall and waving us into Tucson…

It took us 5.5 hours to get there and we had to track down our host, Otto – who has fire-red, curly hair and a moustache – because we had no credit and the payphone ate my change without regurgitating a call for me. Luckily he text us his address after we’d been there an hour or so and I phoned him from the reception. He and his girlfriend Ashley met us and instantly drove us around town because they had loads of work to do but they wanted to make sure we knew where to go.

Insterstate 8

The first thing we did was eat and then went to a shop called Bookmans, which is a second hand book shop with odds and ends scattered around the place that you can also buy. Then we bought stir-fry ingredients and made dinner for Otto and Ashley when they came back from rock climbing. We were all ready to nap when we finished so we went to Ashley’s place instead of staying at Otto’s because she not only lived down the road, but had a spare room too.

Now, for some reason arriving in Tucson brought on a series of static shocks that still haven’t left us. For the entire stay my hair clung to my hand if I ran it across, one of my cardigans crackled every time I took it off. The taps gave me shocks along with the oven handle, the light switches and the car. This didn’t affect our stay, of course.

On day two we decided to walk to the University of Arizona to see the Tibetan monk, Losang Samten, making the Kalachakra sand mandala, and the Center for Creative Photography. It was about 30°c so perhaps this was a mistake, but we huffed and puffed our way there and back nonetheless. I walked barefoot around the exhibition, which felt liberating as my toes connected with the cool carpet. After this we went to Deseret thrift store and I got some socks, a bag and a child’s cardigan for bargain prices. Fin bought a cap to blend in with the Americans, and maybe to keep the sun off his face too. We also drove up to Old Tucson and later that day we hung out with Otto, Ashley, Alex (m, flatmate) and Alex (f, friend) watching gross videos and a Channel Five documentary on objectum sexuals and eating pizza.

Sand mandala – click for birds eye view

The morning of our third day brought a goodbye breakfast with everyone, which was awesome albeit slightly sickly (crepes and fruit with whipped cream, yoghurt and more whipped cream) before we set off on our 350 mile journey to the Grand Canyon.

Having taken two planes and changed in Atlanta, GA we finally landed (late) at the warm and pleasant San Diego airport last Thursday. Valentin (pronounced Valenteen), our host was there to meet us and we drove to get some Mexican food before heading to his. We had tacos and burritos from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant and ate outside.

On Friday I woke up early to take Val to work so that we could use his car during the day. We went to Pacific Beach, but I was too cold so we went to Balboa Park, which is a marvel of architectural feats. The terracotta mouldings spiral in all directions, working their way up the tiers of buildings. Fresh green palm trees contrast with sharp cacti which coil with a mind of their own, reaching out in an escape to the sky. It’s huge and filled with museums a plenty. When we’d had our fill we picked Val up from work and he informed us that we’d be driving to LA to pick up a marine, before which we had to pick up his friend Alexis who was arranging all of this. So we buckled up and went along. Alexis was astounded when she found out she was riding in a car with two Brits and we spent the rest of the journey comparing local slang. Grant was the marine and he was lovely – he bought us all dinner on the way back.

The third day of our stay was quite mellow, it was also a lot warmer, which I was extremely happy about despite Val and Fin not being too much. Another couch surfer arrived – Tamara the Austrian and after we picked her up we went to eat Vietnamese food. Then we went to get Ben & Jerry’s and I had ‘Dave Matthews Band’s Magic Brownies’ which is blackberry ice cream (although they call it black raspberry) and brownie chunks (huge chunks) and it is the most exquisite thing that has ever touched my tongue. Well…almost. I polished off half the pot and fell into a warm and fuzzy ice dream.

On Sunday morning we were supposed to drive out to Tucson, but we couldn’t get hold of a hire car until Monday, so we stayed another night and went to a Scrabble/Flight of the Conchords marathon, although only one game of Scrabble was played because there were six of us and it proved too testing. We also visited a Hindu temple earlier that day in Pacific Beach, but it was full of white tourists and had a gift store and it felt wholly contrived.

We missed a lot of Mardi Gras because we arrived at 5pm on the day of celebrations rather than 5pm the day before. Fin had to nap, but I’d slept on the train so I took a walk to find a supermarket. The first place I found was a liquor store that mirrored the scene in Lock Stock… where everyone keeps getting shot. I walked straight into a cage and quickly walked out again. I turned in the opposite direction and found a Walgreens but they don’t do anything close to fruit and veg so I headed back. New Orleans is a very segregated city and from the upper ninth to the lower ninth ward the black population becomes denser and the buildings become more decrepit, and although I hate to admit it, I was scared. When I got back the people we were staying with were shocked that I’d gone out on my own, so I didn’t do that again. At the parade earlier that day there were four shootings and seven people were admitted to hospital, so perhaps it was a good thing that we missed it. We did of course get very drunk and head out to Bourbon Street to catch the wind down though.

In the morning we walked to Alana’s house because the place we stayed at the night before was rented and everyone headed home on Ash Wednesday. It was only 20 minutes away, but I was in such a terrible state that it was agony. That’ll teach me I suppose, but the entire city was in the same state so I hardly stood out.

Alana was an excellent host. We were only there for a day and she wanted to make sure we experienced everything. So we walked to the restaurant she works in to have milkshakes and an oyster po-boy. A po-boy being a ‘poor boy’ sandwich in which you can get anything you like. The point of it is to fill you up all day but cost very little. On the way we ran into a bunch of train hoppers that Alana knew. I spoke to a guy called Sal who was barefoot with blackened fingernails. They all carried an instrument and a rucksack. Sal had a harmonica but amid the throng I spied an accordion as well as guitars.

 

Erin’s get-up

We went to see the (Mississippi) river before going back to watch films on her projector. We started with La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, but as it was silent I fell asleep and I don’t think her neighbour Taylor was that into it, so we changed to Monster Road. This is a documentary about an animator called Bruce Bickford who’s a total recluse and I found it captivating.

Alana

We were quite sad to leave New Orleans and felt unbelievably cheated by Memphis. It’s such a relaxing place – it’s easy to get stuck there unless you force yourself out.