We did go through Houston which was big and shiny.
This building with the windows did pop out at me from afar. I decided if I were forced to live in Houston, I'd have to live there.
We drove and drove and drove. The landscape went from flat and dry and dust devily
To lush and swampy...
Louisiana! Somewhere neither of us had been before.
We stayed in New Orleans. Note, if you're driving across the country with pets and want to stay in a semi cheap hotel that doesn't have crazy pet deposits/rules, La Quinta Inns are the bessssst! The one in New Orleans was reasonable, super nice and kind of posh. Like my mom would stay there it's so dang clean and modern.
We stayed near the French Quarter where we hung out the night we got in. It was alright, I'm not huge on crowds of drunk people though so we kind of called it an early night. It was nice being able to carry cups of booze around in the streets though!
The next day we went through the garden row and ended up in what I guess is like the college town part. I can't remember what the neighborhood was called but it was really cute with lots of little boutiques, cafes and non drunk tourists.
Downtown reminded me of SF with it's cable cars, palm trees and mix of old + new architecture.
We also drove through the area that had been affected by Hurricane Katrina. Not to get all political but it made me pretty sad and angry that even after so many years, people are still totally homeless and displaced because of it.
At some point we had to continue our way up the east coast. Not without a pit stop, this is our car with our luggage and skateboards piled up!
Went through Mississippi and Alabama and stopped in Tennessee where Beca and Doug are moving to!! Chattanooga!! Almost ten years ago I had spent a night in Chattanooga on tour with the band I was in and loved it sooooo much that I made Andrew promise to stop there. I don't seem to have many photos but if you're in Chattanooga you gotta find the Stone Cup for nice people + good coffee. It's in a cute part of town (again) with lots of little shops and boutiques and this thing!
My only regret is not going to Dollywood but 1) it was really expensive and 2) we figured out how to sneak in but didn't know what to do with the cats :( I'll just have to go visit Beca and make that happen!
The trip is almost over I swear. From TN we went to visit Andrew's sister in Lexington, Kentucky. I love Kentucky and have spent a lot of time in Louisville but never Lexington. We had a good couple of days off from driving, hiking with his nephew and taking pictures of things like this MANOWAR street sign!! They're one of my favorite bands so that sign made me pretty happy.
Hiking!
Old things in the woods!
From Lexington, our last place of rest was umm somewhere in West Virginia. Where it snowed (in late March) and Andrew had to drive in it for the first time ever (he's from SF).
The rest of our drive was uneventful and looked a lot like this:
Oh east coast ...
Thanks for reading and thanks to Beca for letting me share so many photos! If you want to see more, you can view the whole set on my Flickr ... Beca, I hope you, Doug and the doggies have a safe and fun trip!! Can't wait to be on the same coast as y'all.
XO
Yes, well if you ever sneak into Dollywood please do another guest post because WHAT.
ReplyDeletedollywood is awesome. we were going to go this fall but the price had gone way up since the last time we went. i want to sneak in!
ReplyDeleteall i will say is there is something about a back fence! someday i will make it into dollywood. hopefully with beca!
ReplyDeleteYES!!
ReplyDelete