This is Mine. This has now turned into my travel blog. sometime i may not make sense and you will just have to bare with me.. staring at a computer screen is a buzz kill. the photos will be mostly mine.

New Mexico

The Enchanted State

We leave fairly early to New Mexico because we know that it is a long drive and it certainly was.
We drove for 11 hours.
Once we are in the car, not much is happening. We fill Sal with Gas, stop to change drivers and take a few photos, When we get to Plains, a tiny town just before the border of Texas and New Mexico i get pulled over by a cop.. it could have been doinf many things, speeding, using my iPod while driving or taking photos while i was driving as Jaymee was asleep and my side of the car was giving my quite a show so i had to get evidence but in the end this small town cop had nothing to do but pull me over for only having one number plate, in America some cars do not have 2 plates and only travel with one but in Texas it is law to have both.. i was a few miles from the border and he just needed to pull me over.. anyway it was just a warning and we found it pretty funny that i was pulled over like 3 days in.
We eventually get to Roswell and stop by a UFO store for a quick stretch and look around before we get back on the road to Albuquerque.
We get in about 9pm and we are ready to have a drink and a shower. We are crashing at a friend of a friends, her name is Laila and she is an artist who is housesitting.
When we move our things in she shows us around and all the paintings that she is working on which i have included in the pictures
we were invited to a 'friends' place for drinks but Laila invited some people over so we decide to have drinks at hers. We have a really cool night, playing pool, drinks, taking about movies and my Australian accent and to tie it all we light a  splif  BUT this time around i am not wasted and limit myself to 2 rounds so i don't pass out.
End the night considerably wasted and get into bed at 4am…
Day 2 in ABQ was good and bad. woke up drunk. go back to sleep. wake up and have a shower ready to head off for the day and Laila is running super late for work because of the late night drinks and in her haste she collides with Sal the Sunfire and knocks the bumper off the back. he is in a bad way and at first i laughed but then i realised how bad it was, he was not road worthy and as you can imagine we had no idea where we were let alone where a smash repair was so i wasn't too happy but Laila rang us back with news that he dad worked at a shop and could fix the car that day so we carefully drive him over and he drops us at a mall so we can hang out till he finishes the work and i guess the good thing about this situation is that we have the opportunity to set out our maps for our trip up to California.
we plan everything down to a tee and it will make life so much easier when we get started.
Laila picks us up and the car still needs a taillight and can only get done tomorrow so we go home and Jaymee, Laila and Peter go for a Hike.. which i should have gone on but i was wrecked and wanted to reply to some Couchsurfing emails.
They get back and we cook an amazing dinner.. and by we i mean everyone but me although i did do the washing. They cooked sugared Salmon with Quinoa, lettuce, carrot, tomatoes, baby spinach, apple, walnuts and Jaymee's homemade salad dressing.. it was so good.

Next day we wake up waiting to here from Laila's dad about the car and when we can pick it up, Hanse picks me up and i get Sal to get back to our trip.
We drive through the day to Colorado.





















1st leg of USA




The infamous road trip.

I land in Dallas and attempt to find Jaymee.
She didn't give me any of her flight details and just by chance i remember that she flew in from Seattle so i look for the arrivals from there.
I was beginning to give up when i saw her come through to collect her baggage.
It has been 2 years since i saw Jaymee and it was weird, last time we were together we planned this trip and now it was happening, the time went so fast and who would've  thought that 2 strangers would make the commitment to travel across the states together. 
Jaymee's friend Chris picks us up from the airport and we head to his apartment to try and sort out our trip.
By a huge stroke of timing and luck we manage to buy a car off one of Chris' work mates for $2000 the next day and after getting very lost in Coppell trying to buy supplies for the trip we map out the next month.

1 State- Texas
We pack Salvador( our trusted and new old car) and head up north to Paris to see the eiffel tower.. now the roads inTexas are intense, the highways were built for military purpose not civilian.
They were built so large so if the the country was to get attacked they could get weapons across the nation with ease and by the size of the roads i do  not want to be here when that happens because they are ridiculous and it makes me scared what a weapon of that size could do.
So you can imagine how 2 girls - 1 who hardly drives and 2 who has never driven a left hand drive on the right hand side of the road start their journey.. messy. we get lost and are making u-turns all the time
 When we get to Paris we discover that it's a small town north East of Dallas and let me tell you not a lot happens there but the people were lovely and when we got to the Eiffel tower a man gave us these  tourist-y pins and then tell us of another thing to see in Paris- a tombstone which has a Jesus wearing cowboy boots.. only in Texas.
On the road again we head down to Austin.The weather was horrible. we hit 4 lighting storms on the way from Dallas to Paris to Austin and it was so bad in Austin that we had to pull into the 1st Motel we could find so we didn't crash.
we settle in for the night.

day 1 in Austin.

Austin is humid, hot and deserted for a weekend.
We check out the State Capitol and while it was a beautiful building we didn't stay long and make a haste exit uptown to a place called Soco and we liked it a lot more than Downtown.
Vintage stores, diners, caravans and neon signs.
We cruise about trying to find Jaymee some cowboy boots… the raw vegan girl that is looking for leather… and generally soak up the atmosphere.
For some reason there is a lot of Mexican artefacts in this part of town, we don't know why but it does allow me to pick up a Day of the Dead Skull that i have wanted since Sydney and that i couldn't get in Mexico- go figure plus some beads i can make a necklace with that was like the one i lost and instead of costing me $50 it only cost me $5.
We have lunch in this cute diner and then head to Hey Cupcake! for desert and find Jaymee a vegan cupcake.. a rare treat.
On our last lap of the joint before we head back to the bridge we finally find a store that provides Jaymee with her Boots. Task completed- we  head back only to get lost on the huge highway and because it was like 30 degrees as soon as get off the fucking highway we go to the pool.
nice and refreshed we get dressed and head out to downtown again as we were told about this Bat thing that happens under the bridge every night at Dusk. Thousands of Bats come out from under this bridge for feeding and while i was looking forward to it i guess i expected to see more bats and they were tiny… our bats at home would be like 3 times the size of these ones.
Next stop- The Broken Spoke, the best Honky tonk bar in texas.
This famous bar is known for its dancing and atmosphere and with 2 rooms dedicated to the famous people that have been there it is living up to its name.
We order a drink and get to the floor after observing the locals.
This kind of dancing was tricky and we did not get the hang of it right away but perseverance kind of paid off and we got the hang of it.. its just a  bit hard when everyone is getting dipped and spun around you and we were dodging everyone to avoid collision.
We don't stay long as we have a long day of driving ahead of us the next day but it was definitely a good night.

















delayed New Orleans















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