Santa Fe

The next day we travelled to Santa Fe, stopping in Roswell to visit the UFO museum. We paid $2 to get in (far too much) though it was meant to be $5 for what can only been described as a middle school science project. Although, I did learn some new stuff so I can't be too harsh! We then made our way to Santa Fe, which I've added to my list of favourite cities. I had no idea what to expect from Santa Fe but it's actually a really cool, laid back city that reminded me of Sedona. As a city Santa Fe actually has rule that all of their buildings have to be painted a shade of brown to keep in line with the authenticity of the city, which is very much centred around its history regarding the struggle between the Native American and Spanish as to who ruled Santa Fe and these influences can be seen clearly in the architecture. I visited the church of st Francis, the museum of contemporary Native American art and browsed round the shops because much like New Orleans the shops are more boutiques than mainstream fashion shops. For dinner we went to a Tex Mex restaurant as Santa Fe is famous for this type of food. I had a chalupa, which I had never heard of before but it's basically a flat taco with a layer of refried beans, chicken, lettuce, tomato and onion, topped with guacamole and it was the nicest Mexican food ever! We also decided we should probably have margaritas while we were there and for some reason I thought it was wise to order 'the swirl' which was a frozen margarita mixed with sangria which was really nice but I now understand why there was a limit of 2 frozen margaritas per person! x-x

Carlsbad Caverns

We drove from Lubbock into New Mexico, stopping at Carlsbad Caverns. The caverns are natural limestone caves that house over 400,000 bats. It's America do obviously you could get an elevator down but we decided to walk down the natural trail which was worthwhile as you begin to understand the depth of the caverns. We could only go as far as the trail would let us but there was a section called the bottomless pit, which got its name because original explorers believed it was bottomless, however, more recently it has been discovered that the pit us 140 feet in depth. Once we got out we realised the real effect the caverns had had on us as we all felt a little sick mainly due to the temperature drop, outside we had been in 38 degree heat and this dropped to 13 degrees in caverns! After our trip to the caverns we had another cabin night. These cabins were much nicer than the others with less Mosquitos but they were absolutely boiling and again hardly anyone slept because we were all sweating, but that was our last cabin night so no more sleeping bags yay!!!!!!!! x-x

How many states in 4 minutes....

Our tour leader Lana has been creating games for us to play on our long drives just to keep us entertained for a bit. The other day we played how many states can you name in 4 minutes and my American studies degree really pulled through for me here! It turns out I can name 46 states in 4 minutes, missing out only Missouri, Michigan, Florida and Wyoming. Anyway I won a picture of us all in New Orleans and I'm pretty proud of myself x-x

Lubbock

Like I said we are literally just trying to make our way through Texas at the moment and that means driving 7 hours from Austin to Lubbock, which is the birthplace of Buddy Holly and the towns only claim to fame! I was the only person who knew who Buddy Holly was, only thanks to Nan haha! On our drive we stopped at the runaway train cafe which was a quirky little cafe in I don't know where, there was literally nothing around but fields. We then continued on our journey and finally arrived in Lubbock, where we thought we'd have an evening of doing nothing but the town actually had a drive in movie theatre with a diner on site. So we got our camp chairs, pizza, nachos and popcorn and watched 22 Jump Street under the stars. We actually saw a shooting star as well so it turned an evening in a tiny little town into quite a memorable one. x-x

Austin

On our way into Austin from Houston we stopped at a place called Barton Springs which is a massive natural pool of water that you can swim in. The springs were really fun but the bottom of the pool was really slippery because where it was natural a lot of moss etc has grown on the bottom. After a couple of hours sunbathing and swimming we went to a really nice Tex Mex restaurant in downtown Austin before making our way to the hostel. Austin is most definitely one of the places I want to come back to as we only spent one day there but it seemed like a really cool city! Sorry about the short not very informative posts but we're basically just trying to make it across Texas at the moment and obviously making stops at places for only 1 night and not doing a whole lot but driving x-x

Houston

After a lot of traffic we finally arrived in Houston. We had to stay in cabins in our sleeping bags, which pleased none of us. I literally had the worst sleep of my life because I realised that what people have told me for years is true, I'm a very restless and fidgety person when I sleep and sleeping bags do not leave much manoeuvre for that! Plus I was scared to let any part of my body hang out. The best thing about the cabins was that we got to have chicken with salad for dinner and then roast marshmallows and make s'mores.

Swamp Tour

On our way out of New Orleans we stopped at Honey island to have a swamp tour. I will not lie, before we got there I was freaking out and for some reason in my head we were going to be in some canoe sized boat where the alligators were going to jump and eat me but thankfully that's not what happened. However, the boat actually sat about 30 people and had railing so as long you had your hands and fingers inside at all times, you're not losing any body parts! The guide took us out on the boat, then stopped and the alligators swim up to be fed, so it's a bit like a murky sea world even though the guide was trying to tell us these alligators are not trained! What was interesting was to see that people had houses right on top of the bayou with children's play equipment in the back yard which I thought was a bit dangerous considering people have built their house right on top of the alligator's! What I also learned was that Mosquitos do not come out during the day because dragonflies and birds eat them, so I smothered myself in bug spray for nothing. Enjoy my alligator selfies :) x-x

A few photos from NOLA

New Orleans

On Monday we arrived in NOLA and got ready straight away to have dinner on a steamboat cruise. I had fried catfish, creamed spinach and potato wedges and also tried gumbo which is a famous Louisiana dish made of crab meat, various other meat such a beef and sausage in a thick gravy style sauce, it's kind of like stew but spicier and you have it with rice. After dinner we watched a life jazz band play as we made our way back to shore.

Once we had docked we headed to the famous Bourbon street to try New Orleans' two famous cocktails, the hurricane from Pat O'Brians and the hand grenade from Tropical Isle. The recipes for each of these are included but all you really need to know is that they are huge with humongous amounts of alcohol in them! After these we were suitably drunk so obviously it was time for karaoke and if anyone ever wondered what Lady Marmalade or Journey's don't stop believing sound like when people have had ridiculous amounts of alcohol the answer is not very good!!!

After a heavy night we headed out for breakfast and decided to just have a chilled out day wondering round the French Quarter. We visited St Louis Cathedral which is the oldest cathedral in the U.S and then did a bit of shopping. There are a lot of interesting shops as they are all independent boutiques rather than chains so you can pick up some really quirky items. We then went to cafe du monde to order beignets which a famous New Orleans doughnuts without the hole in the middle and from there wandered the French market where there were more shops. Before we headed back to the hotel for a nap we went to the park named after Louis Armstrong and visited the overground graveyard where people are buried in tomb-like buildings normally with their families. I found one gravestone with the surname Webb I know it's a popular surname but whatever it's still weird! What's even weirder is that people use a family graveyard as a tourist attraction, thankfully though they haven't dropped a gift shop on the site yet like they have with everywhere else!

Once we'd all had our naps we headed out to hotel Monteleone to go to the carousel bar, which is literally what it sounds like but we couldn't get seats on the carousel so had to sit at a normal table! I had a champagne cocktail (how unusual of me) called French 007 which was vodka, pomegranate liqueur and champagne. After this we went to dinner at an authentic Louisiana restaurant where I had blackened shrimp and jambalaya which was really good and made a change from fried food.

I'm putting this out there right now, I'm one week in and sick of fried food! If one person shows me fried food when I get back to England it may be your last day on this earth.....

Gospel Church

I know most of you that know me well enough will find this hard to believe but on the Sunday morning we were in Nashville I went to a gospel church service at Mount Zion church, yes this was my first ever church service! The church is bigger than any I've seen and has to huge car parks with an east and west entrance. When we got inside there were cameras filming the service as it is broadcast on their website and on the radio for members who are not able to attend. People were also writing notes as the pastor spoke and some people don't have hard copies of the bible anymore but read them on kindles or kindle apps on iPads etc. Apologies but I don't have any pictures because it didn't feel quite right snapping people at Sunday service!!! I think I have a picture of the church in my camera so you'll have to wait until I upload those pictures when the trip is over!

Country music

So since we've been travelling to a lot of places that are famous for country music I've become a little bit obsessed with it so I've decided to post a few songs that I've come across. Some I genuinely like, some are really weird so I feel like I have to post them and the Wagonwheel song has become our Trek tune. Feel free to check them out, my wifi is crap so I'll post the song and the artist and you'll have to YouTube yourself!

Old Crow Medicine Show- Wagonwheel
Luke Bryan- Play it Again
Kenny Chesney- She thinks my Tractor's Sexy
Joe Nichols- Gimme That Girl

Memphis

After a 4 hour drive we made it to Memphis (and yes I listened to Walking in Memphis as we drove there because it was apt and it's one of my favourite songs ever ok!) When we first got there we went to the Peabody hotel to see the ducks march, yep this is genuinely real ducks that live in the fountains at the hotel that march to and from their rooftop home at 11am and 5pm everyday along a little red carpet!!!! We then drove to the heartbreak hotel and I was gutted to find out that Elvis had never stayed there or actually had anything to do with the hotel apart from the song :( anyway it was kinda tacky as you would expect and there are a lot of crazy Elvis fans that stay there! A pink limousine then took us to a traditional BBQ restaurant where I had BBQ shrimp, mac and cheese and green
beans (it was so nice to see vegetables). After that we wandered to Beale Street, which is one of only 3 locations in the U.S where you can drink on the street, the others are Bourbon Street in New Orleans and obviously the strip in Vegas. Obviously I had a JD and coke because I was in the birth state of JD and it would've been rude not to :P

On our second day in Memphis we were up early to go to Graceland. The house itself was much smaller than I imagined but I guess you have to put it in perspective of the year Elvis bought it which was 1957 when he was just 22. What I also did not know was that he is in fact buried at Graceland along with his parents and grandmother. After visiting here though I've decided that it would be quite cool to own a pink Cadillac and my own private plane, so the job hunting definitely has to start when I get back! 

In the afternoon a few of us went down to the Civil Rights museum which is locate in the motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. It was a really interesting museum that I could have spent hours in but we only had a limited amount of time. There was a lot of information to take in as it covered African American history from the beginnings of slavery way back in the beginning of colonisation of America right through to the election of Barack Obama which is a time span of about 400 years (I've never been so thankful to have background knowledge on a subject)! What was interesting about the museum is that the 1st part of it is located in the motel where MLK was assassinated and the second part was in the building where James Earl Ray was standing when he shot MLK. You couldn't stand directly in the spot where Martin Luther King was standing but you could stand about a foot away from where James Earl Ray was standing which was kind of creepy and I'm not totally sure I enjoyed that part at all. 

For dinner we went to what was advertised as a traditional fried chicken restaurant, all I'm going to say is I'm counting my blessings that I haven't got food poisoning as I write this in the van the next day! We then went to watch the Memphis Redbirds play the Reno Aces at the Autozone park, it was nice to sit out on the hill and just watch some baseball but it was a very slow game and I couldn't quite work out if it was because they're evenly matched or were both just not very good, but whatever I had fun.

Now a 7 hour drive to New Orleans....

Nashville

Saturday we spent the day in Nashville where I learnt that it's not a cliche that the people who live there wear cowboy boots and daisy dukes!!! First I went to the country music hall of fame which was really interesting but there was only 1 Dolly Parton dress and I feel she deserves more :P After that we found "the district" which is the strip of Nashville and went in a bar called Honky Tonk Central where a live country band where playing and taking $20 requests! We also got to watch the first half of England's game in the bar (bit of a waste of our time watching that to be honest) and people were so confused as to why we were interested in the World Cup haha, we're definitely not England anymore! For dinner that evening we went to the Wild Horse Saloon where we had traditional southern food, I had fried chicken, mac and cheese and 'slaw. The saloon then had a live band and
line dancing lessons so we had a go at that as well. It's much harder than it looks and it comes so naturally to the locals, you could definitely tell we had never done it before! We only had 1 night in Nashville but it has been one of my favourite places we have been so far :) x-x

Virginia

Yesterday we spent most of the day travelling & managed to get caught up in 2 accidents, one where the people had been cut out of the car and another where the car was on fire so it took us 3 hours longer than it should have to get to our stopover in Virginia! However we did stop at Foam Henge which is a fake Stonehenge made of foam in the middle of nowhere in Virginia, despite how weird this is, we had a great view of the Appalachian mountains. We also did our first Walmart stop where as usual we saw an array of interesting people and found 1.5l bottles of wine for under $9!!! As we were staying out in the sticks we just had a pizza party yesterday evening and played a few drinking games so it was all very chilled. Now a 6 hour drive to Nashville....

Washington D.C

Hi guys, sorry I haven't posted anything I've been really busy driving 310 miles and the need for sleep over took the need to post :P so Thursday we spent the whole day in D.C and I went to the Washington monument, the World War II memorial, Lincoln memorial, the White House, the Holocaust museum and the Capitol building. Obviously this is only a handful of things you can do in D.C and it's definitely on my list of places to go back to! 

In the evening we went on a monument tour to see the city all lit up, which was amazing! Apologies for the cheesy pic of me looking at the Washington monument (bottom right) but I was enjoying my little love affair with Washington :)  

Philadelphia!

This morning we went to Philadelphia and visited the liberty bell and independence hall. Then ran up the Rocky steps (it's really easy, the film was definitely over exaggerating!) We then went to Genos and Pat's which are famous rival Philly cheese steak places (I had pat's) probably the greasiest food you'll ever eat but mega yummy! And now I've just arrived in Washington......

Well just a quick update to say I'm here and so tired even though it's only 8pm! Had the dodgiest walk to Burger King ever but we'll skip over that part. Up at 6am tomorrow to actually start travelling so hopefully my posts will be more interesting :P x-x

Hi guys.....

Hi everyone (or my family who are the only people reading this)

Basically I have set up this blog so you can all see what I'm doing everyday while I'm away, rather than making you sit through ALL my photos when I get back or you having to look through a Facebook album with about 5000 photos in it! :P However please feel free to still look at my Facebook/Instagram photos and like them so I feel popular!!!

I'm going to try and post at least once a day but sorry if this does not happen! See you all in 6 weeks :)

Charr

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