Diridon

Atlanta: graffiti

Some tags around Atlanta. More up at http://picasaweb.google.com/mattbsimon/AtlantaGraffiti#

Walkabout: Atlanta

Thanks to Leah for driving us all around this beautiful town for a tour and neglecting her scholastic duties.

the most terrifying lunch I have ever experienced

MLK memorial

not entirely sure what this is depicting

they see us rollin', they hatin', part 2

Railway graffiti, part 2

Highlights of tags on the rails. More up at http://picasaweb.google.com/mattbsimon/RailwayGraffitiPart2#

NOLA to Atlanta

It felt good to get back on the rails after a week hiatus, even considering the search Kam and I underwent by an Amtrak cop. Apparently, young backpackers are the faces of extreme danger.

mugs of unmitigated terror

We're in Atlanta now, staying with Leah, my old roommate Rebecca's sister. We're novelties here, based on our clothing, which strays from the button-up shirt, baseball hat and faded jeans. Flannel is unheard of here unless it's Halloween and you're a lumberjack. These people are going to flip for the bigfoot shirt.

Walkabout: New Orleans

Kam and I are close to perfecting a new form of travel by way of bars. It's a fun and novel way to get recommendations from locals. Just stop into a watering hole and ask the bartender what he or she would do with the day outside of work.

Yesterday, while our host Wendy was at law school getting all learned, we began our walkabout at the Avenue Pub and met Vicky, a "50-year-old barmaid" and one hell of a woman. Though her house didn't survive Katrina, she did, came back, and rebuilt it. Even her cat is tough. It survived alone for 6 weeks in the flooded home.

Vicky is camera shy, but this is her cigarette

She pointed us across the street to the Please-U Restaurant for po boy sandwiches, which were so good we almost passed out. With a name like Please-U, how could it do anything otherwise?

Please-U Restaurant

We then continued to wander for most of the day. I personally was floored by the beauty of New Orleans. We didn't have nearly enough time to give this place justice.

Highlights are below, more at http://picasaweb.google.com/mattbsimon/WalkaboutNewOrleans#

Alternative transportation: Austin to New Orleans, part 2

We were warned not to travel through Houston and Beaumont due to fuel shortages, but I-10 is the only viable route to New Orleans. We looked for an extra gas can, but it seemed like thousands of other people before us had the same idea. So we just burned through.

It looked like about half of the gas stations that we saw were closed, and the other half had lines around the block, sometimes supervised by police. Considering the size of the storm, it seems like Houston is quickly getting back on its feet. Filing into Houston on I-10 from Louisiana was near-continuous string of emergency and utilities vehicles, hundreds and hundreds of them in a swarm.

The damage stretched from Houston to well into Louisiana. I don't know much about hurricanes, but that seems substantial. Let's hope these people can get back to 100% soon.

More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/mattbsimon/AustinToNOLA#

Alternative transportation: Austin to New Orleans, part 1

With rental cars sold out and trains and Greyhound stopped due to Hurricane Ike, Kam and I became desperate for transportation from Austin to New Orleans. Though Austin is a fantastic city, we needed to hit the road and get Kam back to Raleigh for his trip to Pakistan.

So we decided to move to New Orleans. With a ten-foot truck it was cheaper than a flight, not to mention this trip is about exploring America. The problem when we arrived at the rental place was that they were out of 10-foot trucks, but we could take a 16-footer for the same price. Because what we needed was more space.

From an ecological standpoint, this is savagely irresponsible. We feel guilty about it. But our travel by train offsets this one environmental blemish.

And we made it without incident, perhaps due in part to the horseshoe placed on the dashboard, shown below. It was either put there for this purpose, or somewhere there is a horse in a lot of trouble.

Behold

I'm not one for buying new clothes. Many of you are aware of that. But now the above shown shirt is in my possession, and I am infinitely proud of myself. The pothole in my heart left by the loss of my fancy future watch (see http://diridon.typepad.com/diridon/2008/09/rip-fancy-futur.html) has been filled with the concrete that is the bigfoot shirt.

Questions I have entertained so far:

Is that a wookie?
What? No, it is a bigfoot/sasquatch.

I'm not sure why that shirt exists, where did you get it?
From a man on South Congress in Austin.

What is going on with that shirt?
Everything that is good and right in the world.

Walkabout: Austin

Selected pictures from a jaunt around Austin. More at http://picasaweb.google.com/mattbsimon/WalkaboutAustin#

Cupcake-dispensing Airstream

Uncommon Objects antique store

Uncommon Objects antique store

Amy's ice cream

Community gardens with Ila

Bug and Emily needed to pick up some plants at the community garden yesterday and brought us along. A nice lady named Ila showed us around a bit.

Highlights below, more at http://picasaweb.google.com/mattbsimon/AustinCommunityGardens#