After something like 18 days on the road, I'm here in Victoria. The drive out here was really cool with the exception of the whole gasoline price thing. My trip went like this...
Left Atlanta on the 11th with a whole crew of people from GA... Kyle, Robby, Amber, Katie, Chris, The Rick to cruise down to New Orleans for some post finals craziness down on Bourbon. Adam joined us there, and we proceeded to hit the Casino and win (and then loose) some money, all the time drinking "free" drinks, so win or loose it was worth it right. It's really amazing how much fun a slot machine can be after way too many Makers and Coke... so much fun.
Of course we also ate some great food and had the usual good times on the town, Chris got "bourbon faced on shit street," Robby and I managed to get ourselves into a 12 or so mile trek after riding all the way to the end of the St. Charles streetcar, but we did get some good snowballs (and sore feet... fucking flipflops), And the lady at the Piano bar at PatO's was really great at playing every Georgia song we could think of (Adam did a great job of supplying us with free Hurricanes too).
There was also talk of flying to Boston to check out the last Dispatch concert later in the summer... Sweet.
From New Orleans, I headed over to Austin TX to see the University of Austin and my friend K.D. that lives there. Of course it didn't even cross my mind that she might still live in the sorority house... I ended up on a couch at A Chi O one night, that was interesting (but not bad... comfy couch). We went down and got some drinks on 6th street, which kinda puts Athens to shame. The bars are really nice, although I think their Bourbon and Coke's were kindof lacking. The Spurs were playing so places were pretty packed and rowdy, It's a damn shame they lost, it would've been fun to see them win.
The next day I went down to San Antonio and saw the Alamo and the riverwalk and all that which was interesting. I was disappointed not to see a "Go Spurs Go" banner hanging on the Alamo, as they were everywhere else. One of K.D.'s friends was nice enough to let me stay at his house that night, as the University of Texas was still having exams, so the sorority house was full of studying ladies that probably would've found it a little strange for me to be hanging around. Nice place this guys house, huge hottub and such, nice people... Definitely want to go visit there again.
Left Austin and booked it accross west Texas, lots of desert, some cool mountains that popped up in rows all over the place. I had planned to stay in a little state park outside of El Paso that's famous for it's rock climbing, however I got there at around 7 to find that the gates close at 6... what a bitch. I drove on into El Paso and ended up at a hotel that also serves as a hostel, I think it was called the Gardner Hotel, evidently the oldest operating hotel in El Paso... The lobby was really nice, all restored to what it used to be like back in the day, however besides that, the place was prettymuch shit. I would not recommend visiting El Paso to anyone.
I got out of El Paso pretty early as I had no reason to hang around. My parking meter had to be paid at 8am, I was gone before then. I drove across New Mexico and Arizona that day, down along the Mexican border there's really not too much to see, lots of Cacti and sand, towns with no bookstore, things like that. It's too bad though, because I know more north in both those states is supposed to be really nice; maybe another trip. I camped along the Arizona/California border at a lake on the Colorado, noone was there so I was able to drive around to the backside of the lake and camp right down on the water. The road to this place went through some sortof military testing ground with tank crossing signs along the road, never seen one of those before.
I got to San Diego pretty quickly the next day as I was on the Cali border anyway, I rolled into town and straight to the beach until my friend Jackie got off work. San Diego was great, I hadn't seen Jackie in years, and it was good to hangout again. She works for TaylorMade and all the folks she works with are crazy fun people, so we spent plenty of time on the beach, and I got to stock up on adidas clothes and shoes since TaylorMade owns or is affiliated with adidas in some way. I stayed in San Diego for something like 4 days, I really didn't want to leave. Such a nice place, and man the climate is just right, not too hot, but not too cold, perfect for chillin with a beer on the beach. Little expensive, rent is about double what it is in Athens (I can't imagine why), still might be a candidate for a place to live one of these days though.
OK, I'm a little tired of typing now, and this is getting really long. I'm going to go do something and finish in a little while.
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