Almost 4 years ago I went to Arizona and saw the desert for the first time. I was surprised at how beautiful it was and after my short visit I looked forward to returning to the southwest with more time to explore the dusty, cactus covered hills. I had that opportunity when we arrived back in the States. We decided to take the slower, more beautiful path through the Big Bend State and National Parks in southern Texas rather than heading immediately north to the interstate. The desert once again surprised me with its beauty.
Less than an hour of our Big Bend drive had passed before we decided to park the car on the side of the rode and hike to the top of one of the mesas nearest the road. It was a perilous, beautiful jaunt that lasted until just after sunset. On our way up Mike and I did a some bouldering, and on the way down I fell into a catcus patch and lost my glasses. Mike found my glasses while I began pulling the several dozen cactus needles out of my hand and forearm. I had to use my bandito-hankie as a bandage. It was pretty tough. Ben posted some pictures of the hike in his gallery.
The rest of the trip to NOLA was just as exciting. Ben got pulled over and we were again stopped and searched by Customs and Border Patrol agents. The lawmen in south Texas must have many past successes finding narcotics by telling people that it´s easier just to fess up. We heard that line a few times. The bright spot of our second search was that the lawman made his dog jump in the car window. Once my friend, Dobie, jumped into the window of an SUV and into my lap in the passenger seat. Dobie is a dog too.
After many hours of driving, during which we covered many, many miles and listened to U2´s War many, many times, we arrived in New Orleans. Ben is involved in some sort of pyramid-scheme type timeshare and was able to hook us up with 5 nights in a luxury hotel. I think that this is the first time Ben has been able to use this service though he´s been paying for it for years. The hotel was on Ste. Charles, a little less than a mile upriver from the French Quarter. We were the only guests there under the age of 50, and probably the only guests uncomfortable with the decadence. Within the week we would be back in an environment we were more comfortable - sleeping behind dumpsters. We'll get to that later.
If you´re like me in any non-trivial ways and you ever find yourself in New Orleans there are two places that I recommend you visit: the Iron Rail Library and Bookstore, and Plan B Bike Coop (Iron Rail is a coop as well). Saturday, 3 November, our first full day in town, Ben and I walked over to Iron Rail and read for a while. They've a good sized space and an impressive selection. It was, maybe, the best alternative library I've seen. Plan B is in the same building as Iron Rail, so while Ben read I walked over and talked to the volunteer there about the coop, told him about our shop, and was told that there was a cleaning day and meeting on Monday and that I was encouraged to come. Later, at Iron Rail, Ben and I met some local kids who offered us places to stay, gave us dumpster dived fruit, and told us about upcoming goings-on. We then walked back to the hotel, had a goodbye dinner with Mike. After exchanging contact info and hugs Mike left for Kentucky.
Monday afternoon we returned to Plan B to help clean the shop and to share bike coop ideas and strategies. Their shop is enormous compared to ours! They have most of an enormous warehouse to use, divided into a large shop space and a larger storage space, and have use of the fenced yard for additional storage. Broken Spokes, we've got some new ideas to share when we return to Anchorage. Talk to Ben, he'll be there relatively soon. After the cleaning we stayed for their monthly meeting where we learned more and were well fed. Everybody there was excellent and I'd like to go back sometime and volunteer. Does anybody want to live in New Orleans for a few months?
On our way out of the meeting we ended up in a conversation with one of the locals who, after learning about our travels and telling us of his, invited us to a friend's barbeque. We followed him to his friend's house, which turned out to be home to something like 15 New Orleans kids back in town after spending the summer traveling. Apparently this was not simply a barbeque, but was a somebody's-out-of-jail party. At one point there were three distinct groups of people playing music, one in the yard, two in the house. It was an excellent realease party.
Monday afternoon we returned to Plan B to help clean the shop and to share bike coop ideas and strategies. Their shop is enormous compared to ours! They have most of an enormous warehouse to use, divided into a large shop space and a larger storage space, and have use of the fenced yard for additional storage. Broken Spokes, we've got some new ideas to share when we return to Anchorage. Talk to Ben, he'll be there relatively soon. After the cleaning we stayed for their monthly meeting where we learned more and were well fed. Everybody there was excellent and I'd like to go back sometime and volunteer. Does anybody want to live in New Orleans for a few months?
On our way out of the meeting we ended up in a conversation with one of the locals who, after learning about our travels and telling us of his, invited us to a friend's barbeque. We followed him to his friend's house, which turned out to be home to something like 15 New Orleans kids back in town after spending the summer traveling. Apparently this was not simply a barbeque, but was a somebody's-out-of-jail party. At one point there were three distinct groups of people playing music, one in the yard, two in the house. It was an excellent realease party.
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