Good riddance louisianna

Sorry it's been a while, but except for a small number of cool individuals, louisianna sucks. Starting with our departure from new Orleans here's the story of the land of a thousand biting insects: we rolled down route 61 for about as far as we could on day 1 of this leg of the trip, until we found an oil pipeline/ refinery and we camped out just beside it. The spot wasn't bad, but we did get harrassed a little by a curious armadillo. Next we pushed for a day to a town called sorrento and walking into a dollar general we met Laverne. Laverne was really excited about our trip and invited us to stay with her and her husband Jitter. Jitter is a hell of a cook, and let us try his crawfish fettuccini which had 15 lbs of crawfish in it. In the morning we took off again towards what happens to be the cesspool of America (at least as far as people go). I'm talking of course about Baton Rouge, translated from French: "let's let the Americans have our rudest people and have them carry on the Parisian tradition of being a stuck up prick whenever possible". Fortunatley Josh had a freind in town from his airsoft site who helped us out so that was one cool thing, and there's a fantastic skate shop called Board Lords in the mall of louisianna. So we gladly left baton rouge (or tried to) only to find out the bridge over the Mississippi river is not passable on foot. Luckily after about 4 hours of waiting by the bridge somebody let us hop in the back of her truck and took us to the other side. We rode into a town called port barre where we met Sandy who took us in and cooked us dinner and made us cookies and brownies and such. After staying with her we skated up to chicot state park. Chicot wasn't a bad park except raccoons and biting insects. I've never been bit up this bad before. There are literally hundreds of bug bites on each of us. It wouldn't have been so bad but we were stuck there due to rain storms. After 3 days in chicot we headed up to kincaid resevoir up in the kisatchie national forest. We camped out there for a night with the usual bug bites and such (deet doesn't work, louisianna bugs treat it like hot sauce). Then it got worse. The roads we were directed to take (F U google) led us down dirt roads for two days. Luckily we ran into Casey, who took us down into town where we met a bunch of cool people (Jessica you are drop dead gorgeous). We took off again in the morning from where we met Casey and headed north west as far as we could go in a day and we made it to a few miles west of Converse louisianna. There we grabbed cheeseburgers and threw on our reflective gear to go find a place to camp. After 10 more miles we ended up camping next to a boat launch. And finally the next day we rode north to logansport out of louisianna!!! A few miles west of logansport (like 15 or so) is a town called Tenaha Texas, and that's where we got the worst hotel room ever. We thought bug bites were bad by the river, but this hotel room had so many bugs it was ridiculous. Anyway that almost brings us up to date. Y'all take care

Who Dat??? Long Way To Skate!!!

So a week in New Orleans is not enough. You could live a lifetime in that city and still not be satisfied. Everything from street performers to roaming artists and people who live only to breath New Orleans. Immediatly upon reaching Canal st. We saw streetcars and marquees advertising the seductive lifestyle of the city, drawing us in like the smell of a fresh baked pie in an old cartoon. More hotels than you could shake a stick at (all of them booked up due to jazzfest) and sounds of city life intertwined with jazz bands and street vendors. We trekked a few streets down to a small local skate shop for a new set of hardware for josh's board and in the process met a new freind, Joshua, who ended up getting permission for us to stay with him, at a very cool house with David and Roselynn, a very cool old musical couple who've been married 50 years!!! For the next week Joshua showed us not only the obvious tourist sites, but also the cool unknown spots in the city. On our second day in town, our freind Stuart aka Stuartini the Magnificent arranged for two tickets to the last day of Jazzfest for us, which was incredibly cool! We got to see everything from blues and jazz to Indian dancing to creole music and and even stuff like Juvenile (a rapper) and the great BB King himself! Over the next few days we rode our boards and sometimes bicycles around different areas of town and tried to find out what Nawlins tasted like. We had muffalattas (great oily sandwiches) and po' boys and all sortsa different Cajun delicacies. We got to see many different art displays like a mural done on a building in the bywater area by some new yorkers and some "junk shops" containing various antiquities mixed in with local artists work. We walked down to the industrial canal and hung out by the levy there to play with joshuas dog Betty and we got to go walk under a pier and took some fantastic pictures. Of course we went through Bourbon street as anybody would, but it wasn't like a central point or anything. We tried various Recipes of bread pudding all over town as well as other dessert foods and so forth. A few days in Joshua introduced us to a fella named Railroad Bill, an older guy with a mind that rivals the best in the world. Railroad Bill and I had a few discussions on history of different subjects and I've gotta say I feel smarter having done so. Sadly our time in Nawlins had to end at some time, and on the Saturday after we showed up we took off up the road again, this time camping next to an oil refinery (bah!) and making our way towards Baton Rouge. But that's another story. I'll post up soon (not another week I promise). Y'all take care

Gators, Casinos, and the Big Easy

First allow me to apologise it's been a wild week! We've been going solid and haven't had the battery in depth story action lol. So, where to begin. Upon leaving jeromes we encountered that old issue of really enjoying a place and not wanting to leave, and we got a late
start on the road and didn't even make it out of Alabama. We rolled until dark and ended up camping out behind a church and not even pulling out the tent or bed rolls. We figured an early start was a good idea and had a solid day of skating through a little bit of rain and made it to the Mississippi border by about noon. A few miles down the road we were hurting for water and stopped at the only place around which ended up being really cool. At Gulf Coast Gator Ranch and Tours we got to see and even hold alligators and take an airboat ride around the swamp. We found out that gators love marshmallows and that they can grow up to 19 feet, though the biggest we saw was 16 feet, which is still huge. They gave us directions to a convenience store down the road with great chili cheese dogs and after loading up on chili cheesy goodness we carried on. The next town was called Pascagoula, a town known for it's ship and oil rig building industry. Josh scouted around the area and we found a camping spot under the bridge and even though it was a little windy it was a good spot. That next morning was a great skate: nicely paved roads with decent temperature and plenty to look at. We skated through a small city called ocean springs and then across the bay into Biloxi. Now Biloxi is a casino town and this becomes apparent as soon as you get halfway up the bridge. Immediately after the bridge are three casinos, the Isle, the Palace, and the Grand. Thanks to some intel provided by a freind and fellow traveller, Sean "Rickshaw" Robinson ( rickshawusa.blogspot.com ) we were able to find a spot in a field between them with power and water. Sean has been riding his rickshaw across the country with his dog Coop in the back and has had the good fortune of meeting some of the same cool people as we have. In Mobile he met Bucky (the bartender / photographer) and got to see some cool things in Mobile thanks to Bucky. Anyway back to the Biloxi part of the story. We skated around Biloxi that night and took pictures that I edited with an app I got that can apply different lens, filter, and developing techniques to make the iPhone camera capable of some incredible pics. From Biloxi we took off down the boardwalk and sidewalks along the beach through Gulfport all the way to waveland which is next to Bay St. Louis. waveland was ground zero when hurricane Katrina hit back in 05 and the damages are still very apparent. In neighborhoods that used to have houses everywhere there are now maybe two or three in a block. There are still stilts but not houses, since they were washed away by the storm. The plan at this point was to go to buckingham state park and shower up, but unfortunately that wasn't an option: it wasn't open yet. Damages from Katrina wrecked up that park so bad that it's 5 years later and it's just getting ready to open. Due to our unholy stink from sweat and road grime, we needed showers, bad. We stopped in at the travel express inn and we got s special rate because they were cool people. We stayed overnight but upon awakening Josh was sick and it was raining so I paid for another night. That day I got to know the cleaning lady and decided to cook dinner for her since she was hurting for money. I made a big pot of chili with fresh ingredients and a new secret ingredient (spinach). The next day we took off again towards New Orleans along roads heading through the bayou. With some luck and ALOT of pushing we made it into Nawlins and got to roll around the French quarter. While taking a break we ran into Joshua (not trip Josh) and he ended up finding us a place to stay, buying us dinner, and hanging out with us. I'm gonna cut y'all off here and do the next post starting from this point in a few days so that nawlins stories stay together. Anyway y'all take care