New Orleans so far

We got into New Orleans pretty late last night after a long day of driving.  I’d only slept about three hours the previous night since I set my alarm for 7am.  We had planned on leaving at 8, but when that high-pitched squeal came out of my phone just as the sun was coming up over Nashville, I did what any idiot does who hates waking up early: I pressed the snooze, allowing myself to toss and turn for another 15 minutes.  I repeated this process until 8:15, cussing at each interval and ultimately leaving myself a grand total of about 7 minutes to shower and pack.  Guess which activity I chose.  (Hint: when we arrived in New Orleans at 8:30 that night, I had fruit flies buzzing around my head.)

However, we arrived, I finally took a much needed shower, and decided to give Bourbon Street a shot.  I went in not knowing what to expect. It was late on a Sunday night, so I figured it’d be relatively dead. I learned a few things.

1) It was not dead.  I haven’t seen it when it’s packed, but if we’d wanted to (we didn’t – we were exhausted), we could’ve partied until early in the morning.

2) A shower was unnecessary.  Bourbon Street is apparently known for a lot of things.  Beads, boobs, beer, and belligerence are what’s advertised, but the smell is something that you’ll never truly comprehend no matter how many Girls Gone Wild infomercials you watch. It was a mixture of horse manure, party puke, and moral deprivation that overwhelms every sense.  Oh well.  If the Jambalaya doesn’t sit well you don’t have to worry about offending anybody.

3) Hurricanes (the drink, not the disaster) are expensive.  Really, New Orleans?  $8 for a fruity drink that offered no noticeable effect? In Elon, an $8 bar tab has been known to send people to the hospital.

4) New Orleans (and probably all of Louisiana) is like a steam room. I thought it was funny when we were talking to a staff member of our hotel today about the weather.  “Yeah, a cold front is supposed to come through tomorrow.”  I jokingly suggested 80 degrees, but it turns out that was fairly accurate.  80 degrees is a cold front?  A cold front in Minnesota can close schools.  A cold front here means I don’t have to go back to the room midday and apply more deodorant.  Awesome.

5) I’ve ragged on Louisiana so far, but it’s been cool as hell.  See the pictures Mally posted below.  We only had one camera on us, so while he was blessing you with that gorgeous photography, I sat on the bench and tried to think of something to say to the girl next to me that wouldn’t paint me as a creep.  I had nothing, so I just stared.  Hey, at least I didn’t look like a creep, right?

That’s all for now.  We’re gonna head out this evening and explore.

New Orleans

Took these today:

Leaving Nashville – Natchez Trace – New Orleans

We left Nashville Today. As Drew mentioned before, we both had our own rooms at the Hutton Hotel, which I have to say was nothing but a great experience. The staff, the rooms and just whole vibe of the place was awesome. Here are some pictures of the hotel I pulled from their website.

Here’s one of us at the bar.

If you ever go there, get the burger. They must have been sautéed in butter, glazed with some kind of thousand island/cream sauce, gently salted, then spit on by Megan Fox.

They were really THAT good.

Me in the lobby satisfied after my burger.

So not only are we funding the trip by exchanging video services for hotels like this, but we are also going to compile those video into a short documentary highlighting some of the best places to stay across the country. There is a chance that the travel channel might pick it up for either their website or on air. We’ll see.

After Nashville, we started our 10 hour drive to New Orleans. The Natchez trace runs most of the distance between the two cities, so we drove down that the majority of the way. It’s a secluded historical road that only has two lanes. I saw it in a book of the top 100 places to see in the world. It didn’t disappoint. There are no stores, shops, gas stations, or anything for over 200 miles. Just open road. We took a few pictures and some video. (Check under the Blue Ridge Mountains post for a new video I put up)

I’m not sure what to say about this other than it is what it is…

And here is just a short video of the road. Nothing too exciting.

We just got into our hotel in New Orleans and like what we see so far. We’re gonna go walk around French Quarter tonight…

Nashville – thoughts so far

Mally hit on most of the funny that happened last night.  I’ve got to agree with him that even though there are some complete crazies here, this place is great.  I never in my entire life thought I’d say this, but I had a good time last night in a bar *gasp* listening to live country.  “Shut up, Drew.”  No, for real.  I’m not kidding.  Usually whenever I hear some Garth Brooks drivel, I immediately want to get into a fistfight over a game of pool, down a bottle of Jack Daniels and then whip it at a mail box from the back of a pick up truck.  But not last night.  Also: bonus points to anybody who can find this chain of events in an actual country song.  I know if you look hard enough you’ll find one.

But the people here are extremely cool and laid back.  Much friendlier than up North (sorry, Minnesota).  I walked into Church’s Chicken this morning (to bring myself one step closer to heart failure) and was about to place my order when the cashier starts laughing at me.

Me “What?  What’s so funny about a number two combo?”
Cashier “You got the purdiest eyes I ever seen! (why this was funny, I don’t know)
Me “Thank you?”
Cashier “Oh my god, you makin’ me nervous!  Hey, Deborah!  Come look at this boy’s purdy eyes!”

Seriously, half the staff came and talked to me while I waited for my order.  I was sketched out, but it was funny nonetheless.  It’s nice to know I have options.

Nashville, TN

Nashville, Tennesee. This place is nuts. We went out last night to get some food and a series of events unfolded that makes us believe there are some pretty wacky people here. We were about to get into a cab, when a homeless person approached Drew. The exchange went like this

Homeless man: hey man… You got any money?
Drew: no I’m sorry.
Homeless man: you got any money!?
Drew doesn’t respond
Homeless man; I know you can hear me!
The cab starts to pull away.
Homeless man: bitch!

I’m sitting in the back seat of the cab and I can see Drew is uncomfortable in the front seat. I get a text message. It’s from drew.

This cab smells like a dead animal.

I lost it and tried to make up an excuse to the cab driver as to why I was laughing so hard but my excuse was basically incoherent because I couldn’t think of anything and made the situation even more uncomfortable. We get out of the cab and walk into the convenience store across the street from the hotel. A woman enters the store on her cell phone screaming her face off. She continues to shop around like she is talking at a normal volume.

Woman: You tell her to not even think about getting pregnant tonight! She better not! She better NOT!

While this might paint a bad image of Nashville, the city is quite the opposite. It seems like there are some characters here, but everyone we’ve met has been nothing but nice. The southern musical vibe of this city is incredible. Every bar we walked into had a live band that was better than most live performances I’ve ever seen. I think country music might even be growing on us. You know you’re in the south by the way when every bar has this sign hanging on its window.

On another note, before we left Asheville for Nashville, we made a stop at the Biltmore. It’s big.

Hutton Hotel

So it’s 7:20 in Nashville, Tennessee.  Right now I’m sitting in a room at the Hutton Hotel, fresh out of the shower after a nice shampoo and an apricot body scrub.  I’m wearing a velvet robe and slippers, watching Family Guy, and sipping a Busch Lite.  What’s wrong with this picture?

Certainly not the Busch Lite.  That ghetto swill is par for the course for a 23 year old on a road trip.  Every single thing else is wrong (but so right) with this picture.  We’re funding this entire road trip by shooting video for hotels and other companies along the way to fund our exploits.  When Mally (who suggested this) called me a few months ago and told me he got us each a free room at Nashville’s Hutton Hotel, I was obviously impressed.  I planned on using couchsurfing.com for my accommodations.  Little did I know how nice of a place I’d be staying.  To think I’m sitting here right now when a few days ago at Sean’s place I was sleeping on a couch and using the lone roll of toilet paper as a napkin while I snagged leftover’s from his fridge.

And that’s another thing.  This place rivals Patrick Bateman’s condo, but the toilet paper is one ply.  You’d think they’d have embroidered silk handkerchiefs, but… I’m just saying…

Going out tonight in Nashville.  Should be an excellent time.

Asheville

Mally’s already beat me to it, but I’ll add a few words about Asheville.

First and foremost, it’s a very nice city.  When I thought Smokey Mountains in North Carolina, the first things that came to mind were Deliverance, inbreeding and moonshine.  Turns out I was wrong about the moonshine — that’s mostly made in Kentucky.

But no, in all seriousness it’s nothing like I expected.  Very cool city with a lot of history.  After we checked into our hostel yesterday afternoon, we headed up the Blue Ridge Parkway up the Smokey Mountains.  Excellent views, of course, but what surprised me was the change in altitude.  Now I know why Invesco Field at Mile High has such a huge home field advantage.  We didn’t even make it to the highest point (not even close in fact) and we had the shakes.

Last night was more of the same.  Went out bar hopping and met some people.  Passed out relatively early.

EDIT: I own at Cornhole (or Bag Toss — whatever you want to call it).  I could fund my entire bar tab if Mally still wants to bet drinks.

Blue Ridge Mountains

To me, today was really the first day of our road trip. Before this we’ve been going in and out of friends places, which has been great, but from here on out, we’re on our own, exploring places I’ve never been to and figuring stuff out for ourselves. We arrived in Asheville, NC yesterday and checked into a local hostel for the night. When you check into a hostel, you have this image lots of young adults hanging around, looking to make friends. After we checked in we were instead greeted by an old man in a Teflon jumpsuit that closely resembled “Blue” from Old School. He and another older woman who had locked herself out of her room were the only other people there besides us. The place was clean and it was also right in the middle of downtown so you couldn’t beat the location.

Downtown Asheville

Downtown Asheville

Drew

After we checked in, we drove into the Blue Ridge Mountains, which were incredible. The roads looked like they were straight out of a car commercial. We took a few picture of the drive and some time lapses. I have video too, so once I edit it, I’ll put it up on this post later.

Here is a short video of some of the footage we took on the drive. I think the song is appropriate.

After the drive we headed out into downtown Asheville and hopped from bar to bar. The downtown area was great and all of the people were really nice.  It’s a very hippy/earthy town, which works here up in the mountains. So far, it’s our favorite place on the trip. Today we’re going to check out the Biltmore Estate (The house from Richie Rich) and then head into Nashville.

North Carolina

We left D.C. for Greensboro, North Carolina this morning. The drive was longer than we thought, but there was one particular highlight that I found amusing. Drew was on the phone with his friend from back home, and I rolled down the window to get some air. The wrangler is like a wind tunnel once you reach speeds over 50 mph. I spit out the window, which I know is a very attractive quality to begin with, but as soon as that happened, drew abruptly stopped his phone conversation and slapped his hand to his neck. “I gotta call you back.” he said to his friend. He never did find the wet patch on his neck, so either he imagined the whole thing or it was never found. Very amusing to watch.

Another really cool trait about the wrangler is that when it rains and two guys sit in there with the windows up, it smells like a sweaty gym locker. After driving through a serious rainstorm, we made a brief stop at Elon to talk with some of our old professors and then finally arrived in greensboro for some late night dinner.

We leave tomorrow for the blue ridge mountains. Not sure where we’ll be staying tomorrow night, so that makes things interesting. After that its off to Nashville for 3 nights.

D.C.

Drew and I started the day off by exploring Georgetown, which I’ve heard is one of the best areas. I would definitely agree. It reminds me of Boston a lot.

Then we took a drive past some of the monuments. I’ve seen them all before, but Drew hasn’t so he snapped a few of these.

I’ve been to D.C a couple times before and and it’s been better every time. I like it here. We’re staying with friends from college outside of of the city in Virginia. We wound up getting into a pretty heated game of Shuffleboard at one of their local bars. The only reason Drew wrote that it was unsuccessful was because he lost. Spoons and I were partners and we embarrassed everyone else all night. Well… as embarrassed as you could make someone by winning at shuffleboard.

Me, Drew, Dan, Patrick, Spoons.

Some Shuffleboard action shots.

You can see the intensity

It was a great day overall. I think it will take a couple more days to get used to living out of a suitcase, but we’re adjusting. Some other good news I got today is that we’ll be exchanging video services for a 3 night hike in the grand canyon towards the end of the trip. The hike takes you to an oasis waterfall in the desert called Havasu Falls. There is a picture of it below on an earlier post. We’re actually exchanging video services with many places along the course of the trip, but I’ll talk more on that another day.