Day Twenty Four: Home

After affixing a new tire to Penelope's front axle, we left Louisville at 12:30 on Thursday afternoon.

We stopped at Skyline Chili in Cincinnati for a sample of the regional delicacy,

and then we pressed the rest of the way home.

At 1:30AM we woke Andy up for the final TVP:

Soon after, we began arriving at our respective doorsteps and we called ourselves home.

Pictures from the last few days may, in fact, follow.

Day Twenty Three: Obstacles

We had a beautiful plan in place as evening fell on Day 22, Wednesday, the second to last day of the trip. After an evening on the town in Nashville,

we awoke comfortably late and proceeded two hours north to Kentucky's Mammoth Cave National Park.

At Mammoth we spelunked down into the aptly named caverns, which held many interesting tales of geologic and human history. The gigantic passageways were worn away over millions of years by water, and they have been in use by humans for several thousand years. In U.S. history, they were mined for gunpowder in the War of 1812, and the first non-Native Americans to master their labyrinthine contents were slaves of the cave's owner. These slaves eventually became Mammoth's first tour guides. They offered to burn the names of those they led into the ceiling, for a fee.

Now the National Park Service runs the cave, and we joined over 100 people on a highlights tour.

We intended to camp for the night at Mammoth, but it was only 4:30 when we finished the tour, so we resolved to get closer to home to decrease the drive home on Thursday.

A few phone calls yielded some free lodging with a Kenyon friend in Dayton, but alas it was not to be. We suffered a flat tire on the highway in Louisville.

After installing the donut, we drove around the city's environs for two hours in search of a place that could give us a replacement tire. At 8pm it seemed that every establishment closed before we could get there.

Even Walmart.

So it was an inconvenient time, and now we sit in our motel in Louisville. As soon as we get the spare tire, we will be on the road back to rainy PA.

Days 20-22 Added

My, it is late.

Day Twenty Two: Graceland to Nashville

Today we woke up after spending a very comfortable evening staying at the home of Ferrett's friend Nelie. We embarked for Graceland to check out the realm of the King. We experienced his unique '70s semi-opulence. To give an idea of what I mean by "semi," here's the facade followed by the kitchen:
After leaving Nelie and Graceland behind,

we headed for a Nelie-recommended eatery between Memphis and Nashville known as The Log Cabin. We enjoyed some tasty country-cooking (except for the cataclysmically overcooked veggies) and then made our way to Nashville.

We haven't uploaded the photos from our cameras yet, but we walked around Nashville's Broadway and enjoyed some live music.

I'm sleepy, so that's all. Only two days left!

Day Twenty One: Little Rock to Memphis

We awoke in Dumas, took our usual length of time to shower/git on out of there, and made our way to the capital of Arkansas.

Nearby the parking lot where we moored Penelope, we came upon an Arkansan project that seemed to not be working out so well.

Then, we lunched at an especially sweet establishment known as The Flying Saucer. We sampled some of the 70 beers on tap (all $2.50 on Mondays), and proceeded to the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum.

There, we were overwhelmed with information. Much like the former president's book, his library is brimming with content. Highlights included:

• the various gifts Clinton received over his eight years (like these Russian nesting dolls)

• much correspondence between the president and such wide-ranging figures as Whoopi Goldberg, Paul Newman, Bono, Dom DeLuise, Mr. Rogers, and many average Americans

• and, a life-size replica of the Oval Office, decorated as it was during his presidency.

After our trip to the museum, we briefly returned to our new favorite watering hole

before making our way to Memphis, Tennessee.

There, we met up with Ferrett's friend Nelie, who showed us a great time around her favorite parts of town, which included the infamous ducks from the Peabody Hotel,

and a hole-in-the-wall bar that has been featured in several movies.

Day Twenty: New Orleans to Arkansas

Today in the early morning, we arrived at our hotel (the first of several Days Inns over the next several days) in New Orleans. Much of it was gutted and under construction, and it had the shadiest parking garage this blogger has seen in his brief life. Our first room had a minimally functioning toilet, but our request for a change backfired, as the new room smelled of water damage. We gave up on getting another room and instead elected to endure the odor.

After moving our stuff into Room 2, we took off for Bourbon Street, which we reached circuitously since we neglected to bring a map along. The street was blocked off to car traffic, but was filled with human traffic.

We walked around for a little while, but eventually the incredible humidity and heat got to us and we made our way back to our Canal Street hotel. While Bourbon Street showed little signs of Katrina, Canal Street contained mostly boarded-up buildings, as well as many roped off sidewalks.
The next morning, we arose and journeyed back down the French Quarter in an effort to sample a muffaletta from the original muffaletta creators. Unforunately, their establishment is closed on Sunday, and so we had to resort to a tourist-trap cafe's muffaleta. Still pretty darn good, and the live music was passable as well.

After our brief walk to and from Central Grocery (during which we encountered this amusing scenario--be sure to enlarge this photo and read the sign),

we headed off to the airport to deposit Andy, who left us for Johnson and Johnson, those homewreckers.

Then it was off to Arkansas for us.

We drove to a place about two hours outside Little Rock (Dumas, AR), where we stayed in anticipation of our trip to the Clinton Presidential Library the next day. In the process of unpacking, we let into the van about 7,000 mosquitos that would end up plaguing our journey and providing some in-car entertainment (as we attempted to destroy them one by one) over the next two days.

Day Nineteen: Austin to New Orleans

Much like Day Seventeen, today was a travel day. It was spent on the road to New Orleans. We departed Austin with a TVP that unfortunately omitted our hosts Damian and Amanda, as they were out of town:

We journeyed through a vacant Houston in search of a copy center to serve Jason and Andy's needs. None was found in the utterly empty and closed downtown area: we spied not more than three people on the thirty or so blocks that we circled. Nice skyline, though.


We entered Louisiana at 7:30,

but a stop at the Waffle House delayed our arrival in New Orleans until very early on Day Twenty.

While eating at the Waffle House, Pete realized that he left a quesadilla in the microwave back in Austin. The rush to depart had distracted him from his breakfast. He'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to Damian and Amanda. What with all they gave us, and we repay them with a microwave full of old quesadilla. Sheesh.

Day Eighteen: Austin, Texas

After a long day on the road and several days of tenuous sleep, the Austin comfort was a little too seductive. On the morning of Day 18, we slept lustily and late. When we finally awoke, as if by habit, we proceeded to a scenic overlook.

It was a pretty view, so pretty that it made us hungry. We sought barbeque.

We got us this barbeque at the County Line, an Austin institution. We split a number of sampler platters and (of course) some local beers. The food was excellent, a fact which appears to transcend species as numerous turtles had gathered around the restaurant’s back dock, waiting for scraps.

It was the highest density of turtles we had ever witnessed.


With about an hour to spare before dinner, we drove downtown and tramped around the state capitol building. In true Texas fashion, the building is one foot taller than the U.S. Capitol and it has a replica of the Statue of Liberty on top (or so we're told).

It also contains a multi-level portrait gallery in the main rotunda,

depicting each of the former governors and presidents of Texas. They are careful to mention that second part, lest we forget that the state was once its own nation. We saw the most infamous and recent gov, but there also were some surprises: like Miriam Ferguson, a female governor who presided in the 1920’s and 1930’s.



The history lesson endangered our timeliness, so we raced off to meet Damian and Amanda for dinner at the Hula Hut. We enjoyed the superior company, drinks, and dinner. At the end of it all, we were fat and sassy from the barbeque and Hawaiian goodness. Into Penelope we piled and we rolled back to home base for a little relaxation.

Time passed, food digested, and by 10:30, we were ready to hit the Friday nightlife. In Austin, the action is on Sixth Street, which teems with UTexas students during the academic year, and which boasts about six blocks of continuous bars and clubs, many with live music. It was easily the most happening place we had yet seen on the trip and we surveyed the scene.

Buffalo Billiards lured us in and we played pool until the wee hours.

Another day under our belts, we retired and went to sleep mighty late.

Day Seventeen: Albuquerque to Austin

The best way to sum up Day 17 is to say that we spent the whole day driving from Albuquerque to Austin. On the way, a New Mexico convenience store exhorted us to join in their campaign against warm bed covers:

The drive lasted all day and well into the night. We messed around for a moment with Oklahoma, but, while in Texas, we refrained.

Very late on Thursday night we arrived at Damian and Amanda’s abode (Zach’s cousins). They were quite generous right off the bat, first staying up to greet us at our unfriendly-to-the-workaday-world arrival time and then offering their beautiful house for a second night even though they would be out of town.

Comfortably, we settled in for a couple of days in the Lone Star State.

Some More Recent Updates

A few more entries have now gone up. Nothing much happened on the most recent day (Seventeen) as we spent the entire day driving from Albuquerque to Austin. We're looking forward to exciting things in the next few days though. So remember the sheep, and keep coming back!

Also: thanks everyone for your comments! We enjoy reading them thoroughly.

Day Sixteen: Grand Canyon to Albuquerque

More details later, but here's a barebones summary ( with photos) of today:

Woke up. Looked at the Canyon more. Looked for California Condors and (mostly) failed.

Left Canyon.
Drove to Albuquerque. Along the way, were introduced to our wine.
Were greeted by Kathleen, Devonna, Ron, and Jim - incredibly generous family friends of Ferrett. They took us out to Kelly's, a local brew pub and sidewalk cafe off Central Avenue (Old Route 66). There we ate delicious dinner and later took in dramatic nighttime view of city courtesy Zach's friend Jenna.


Passed out.

Day Fifteen: Vegas to Grand Canyon

Very early Wednesday morning, we scoped out the multitude of casinos before settling on Caesar’s Palace and The Venetian for some pre-dawn money losing.

Well, all of us lost except for Pete, who seared his poker adversaries as a laser sears steak. They could not adapt to his sleep-deprived guile, and he more than doubled his buy-in in winnings. When the sun rose and the regular people emerged, we decided to leave.

Without a full night of sleep, we hit the road again. Tuesday morning’s rush hour took us over the Hoover Dam and into Arizona on our way to the Grand Canyon.

Sacajawea was convinced that we had to drive way down south past the canyon and then back north to get to the South Rim. Hoping to find some kind of shortcut, we stopped at a gas station and asked for the best route to the “Grand Canyon.” We did not anticipate the major consequences that would result from our omission of the two critical words, “National Park.”

As we followed the route the lady gave us at the station, we became increasingly dismayed as the road quality steadily diminished until we were driving on a dirt road. TIME OUT for a barrage of analogies describing the road. GO!

The road:

• was more crooked than Richard Nixon.
• had more humps than a camel convention.
• had more bends than a SCUBA diver riding a torpedo to the surface.
• made our CD skip more than the winner of a South Philly Double Dutch competition.
• was rockier than Marion Barry fighting Apollo Creed in a quarry.
• was shakier than a dance contest between Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox.

Penelope became increasingly dismayed by the road as well: her clean-cut appearance was sullied.

After a 45-minute trip on the notorious dirt road, we arrived not at Grand Canyon National Park, but at the Grand Canyon West airport. This was of no use to us, as the airport appeared to function primarily to separate tourists from their money. With the aid of a far more helpful guide from the nearby Indian reservation, we eventually made our way back to the proper route to the South Rim. We made it in time to quickly set up the campsite and take in sunset over the canyon: