Monday March 11, Lafayette, LA to Austin, TX & Tuesday March 12, Austin TX
Our east-bound route
through Austin Texas during their famous South by South West (SXSW) festival
was proving to be both a blessing and a curse. We had heard so much about the buzz of Austin – particularly
around the food and music scene – and were so excited about being there when it
came to life for the festival, though accommodation options were limited and
prohibitively expensive – with even the budget ‘Super 8’ hotels charging
upwards of $US250 per night.
Fortunately we had allowed ourselves to turn to our trusty friend, Air
BnB a few days earlier and had managed to find a more affordable option camping
in a guy’s backyard a few kilometres outside of town. We weren’t quite sure what to expect and arrived to find no
one was home and there was no answer on the mobile phone number we’d been
given. We spent about 20 minutes
wondering what to do until a lady eventually turned up and, despite not having
any knowledge of our booking or how long we were planning on staying, guided
our car through various sculptures, machinery, caravans and other paraphernalia
to a spot in the backyard where we could camp – in between 4-5 tents, an open
air outdoor shower and composting toilet purpose built for visiting
campers. It was quite a bizarre
place but the proximity of the property to the main bus line suited our needs
well and we headed into town.
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| Austin, Texas |
In the absence of
tickets to the actual South-by-South West festival, we set about exploring some
of the many side performances around town. Without much knowledge of any of the local bands, it was
difficult to know where to start so we started off by heading to ‘T-Bird and
the Breaks’ performance – the Austin band we had seen a few nights previously
in Lafayette. The show was
fantastic once again and we had a great night wandering between venues and
being in absolutely heaven with all the delicious food trucks around the
streets (we had heard that Austin was the original home of food trucks and it
certainly didn’t disappoint in that regard!). Austin was absolutely packed and buzzing with a really
friendly, spontaneous vibe - ie.
on one occasion the traffic come to a standstill when two strangers heading in
opposite directions across a pedestrian crossing decided to have a dance-off in
the middle of the street!
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| Making the most of advertising space! Austin, Texas |
The next morning, the
mundane but, by then, somewhat urgent task of doing a few loads of clothes
washing proved rather fruitful as we found our neighbouring washing
machine-user to be a wealth of information on Austin eateries. We walked out of the laundromat happy
in the knowledge that we not only had clean underwear but also an extensive
list of where to go to graze throughout the afternoon! Perfect!
The highlight of these
eateries by far was a place called Hopdoddy – specialising in burgers, shakes
and craft beer using all local, organic and free-range produce. Right up our alley! Following the recommendation of our
laundromat friend, Tess ordered a salted caramel shake, which was just
ridiculously good!!! We spent the
remainder of the afternoon and evening wandering between different bars and the
multitude of private and commercial properties that had been converted into
live music venues during SXSW until wandering the streets started to get
difficult as the crowds thickened with people looking for late-night raves and
we, feeling our age and the effects of being on our feet all day, decided to
retire to our backyard campground to get some sleep.
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| Hopdoddy Burger, Austin, Texas |
Wednesday March 13 & Thursday March 14,
Austin TX to Big Bend National Park
Tess was unable to
leave Austin without another salted caramel shake from Hopdoddy, so dragged
Alick kicking and screaming in for a quick slurp and a bite of Bison Burger
(yum!) before farewelling the craziness of SxSW and hitting the road – with the
best intention of heading to Barton Springs for a soak in the hotsprings (and
hopefully a bit of exercise too).
Both having forgone a morning bath at our campsite, our attempts at
‘getting clean’ were foiled time and again, as we discovered that not only were
the hotsprings closed for renovation, but our second option (the swimming pool
at Lockhart State Park) was also closed until May! It seems that in Texas 25c isn’t quite warm enough to
warrant going for a swim! After
this minor frustration, we decided that the best way around it was to eat some
more, so made a bee-line for the small town of Luling where Alick had had a
recommendation from the local Budweiser rep to try the BBQ. We rolled into Luling City Market BBQ
with much anticipation – unfortunately only to find that they had sold out of
everything except sausages! We had
a quick sausage and decided to wait the 25 minutes until the ribs would be
ready, and in the meantime make a few calls to book in some accommodation for
our nights at Big Bend National Park…
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| Texas BBQ, Luling City Market, Texas |
This was the first
point during our trip where we started to feel as though our ‘no planning,
arrive without a booking’ policy may have fallen foul… It turned out that all this week in
Texas is Spring Break, so all schools and universities have a week
off…resulting in all of the campsites all over the state being pretty much full
up. Big Bend were clear that all
of their sites were full, and none of the State Parks between Luling and Big
Bend were also full… With mild
anxiety in our bellies (quelled a little by a brace of huge and delicious BBQ
ribs), and no idea where we were staying that night, we set off westward once
again… We soon found ourselves
whizzing through beautiful hilly countryside, teeming with rivers and birdlife
everywhere. So amazingly different
to both the marshy swamps of Louisiana, but also the desert landscape of
northern Texas…
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| Old mechanic workshop, Texas |
After a few hours
driving, we stumbled upon what has to be one of the most quintessentially American
experiences of our trip so far.
Shortly before reaching our psychological goal for the day (the town of
Junction), we saw a small truck-stop on the side of the I-10 and decided to
pull in… On driving around the
side of the fuel pumps we saw a sign reading ‘Free showers & parking, good
food, and pretty (old) waitresses’.
We knew at that moment that we were going to stay there that night! It was an amazing experience – complete
with a real route-66 style diner (burritos and lemonade all round), showers
with a huge sign stating that only truckers were to use them (thankfully we
managed to put on our best trucker faces to get into the showers and no one
questioned us), and the constant growl of semi-trailers rolling in and out of
the car-park… Despite the noise,
we slept very well and were back on the road by 8am, continuing the drive West.
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| Route 66 Truck Stop |
Having spent the last
6 or so days in Louisiana and southern Texas, we had become very accustomed to
being surrounded by lush greenery – either the swamps of LA or the Texas
hillcountry – but as we went further and further west, we began once again to
see the table-like shapes of mesas rising out of the desert – in many cases
capped with hundreds of wind turbines, spinning in the hot southerly breeze. Turning south off the I-10, we passed
through numerous ranches, and the temperature continued to climb… Eventually arriving in Big Bend
National Park, we were thrilled to hear that one of the campgrounds had 5
spaces left – which would be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. This campground was over 60 miles from
the park entrance, so without further ado, and with a few butterflies in our
stomachs, we decided to take the risk and drive through the park in the hope that
one of those sites would be still available. Soon into the drive we realised that it didn’t really matter
if there were no sites – the scenery made the drive worthwhile as an end in
itself. We soon found ourselves
winding over switchbacks and being dwarfed by towering mountains on all sides,
with turkey buzzards circling overhead as though waiting for us to become
stranded easy pickings for them!
Our nervousness and
spur-of-the-moment decision making paid off in the end, as we rolled into the
Cottonwood campground to find a beautiful shady site available… It was quite a relief to know we had a
place to stay, but was also a nice validation of our no-planning approach to
the trip (which as many of you will know is very far from our comfort zone!). To cool off we headed down to the Rio
Grande, and had a lovely swim in the cool waters, looking across to Mexico on
the far side of the river.
Refreshed and very relaxed, we headed back to the campsite and chatted
with other campers, watched the gentle Javelinas (massive guinea pig-like
animals) graze around the tents, and listened to the woodpeckers (and myriad of
other birds) go about their evening business. We went to sleep with the amazing star-lit sky in our eyes,
reflecting on how lovely it was to be back in the bush…
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| Swimming in the Rio Grande River, Big Bend National Park |
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| Javelina, Big Bend National Park |
Friday March 15th, Big Bend National
Park
Waking up Friday
morning Alick had been hit by a bit of a cold, so we took it a little easy and
didn’t get going as early as planned.
Making it out of the campsite at around 10am we drove the 30-odd miles
from Cottonwood campground up to the main Chisos Basin visitor centre, from
where we planned to do the South Rim hike (around 20km). After buying a map and checking out the
suggested route with a ranger, we set off into the rapidly warming day… As we joined the trail we were given
some pause for thought as we passed big signs warning that both mountain lions
and bears had been sighted in the area, and that hikers should take care… Of course they also gave information on
what to do if we found ourselves face to face with either animal – don’t run,
don’t lie down, make yourself look large – these seemed OK; it was the “don’t
look scared” advice that we were most worried we wouldn’t be able to
follow!! Needless to say we didn’t
need to worry, as for the next six hours we found ourselves walking through
beautiful mountainous terrain hardly meeting any other hikers, let alone bears
or mountain lions…
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| Big Bend National Park |
It was a stunning
hike, once again reminding us of the incredible beauty of the US, and certainly
stretching our expectation of what Texas would be like. As we hiked up through the valley the
flora around us changed with the altitude, and then changed again as we crossed
over the ridgeline – making so clear the impact that the sun has on vegetation
in such dry parts of the world.
The views from the top of the South Rim were simply breathtaking –
looking down over the Rio Grande and across to Mexico was incredible.
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| Big Bend National Park |
After finishing the
hike we once again made the beautiful drive down to the river, and had a lovely
refreshing dip before going back to the campground, having an early dinner and
heading to bed….
Saturday March 16th, Big Bend to El
Paso
We set off from our
campsite mid-morning and with minimal fuel in the tank decided to take a
‘shortcut’ along an unpaved road to get to the exit on the north-western edge
of Big Bend, which would take us to a town called Terlingua – famous for having
a sister ghost town a few miles down the road. Again going off the beaten track was highly rewarding, with
us enjoying a beautiful drive but also an interesting stop at a long, low house
that an old man and his family of 14 children had lived in in the desert until
he was 106. It was incredible what
respite from the heat of the day we found on stepping into the low, wattle and
daub structure – the effectiveness of good design before air-conditioning!
We made it to the gas
station in Terlingua, and then set off to explore the ‘ghost town’…which didn’t
prove to be so ghostly, but had a great little coffee shop that made delicious
breakfast burritos, iced coffee and had free wi-fi! It was a lovely opportunity for us to stop, recharge and
quickly jump online and check out what our next stop would be…
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| Cemetery, Terlingua Ghost Town, Texas |
One of the things that
we had been trying to do on this trip was to go to a few places that we had
never heard much about, but which sounded intriguing (or at least looked it on
a map!). For this reason we were
both quite keen to check out the Texan bordertown of El Paso. So after getting our fill of burritos
and jumping online, we hit the road West, taking the scenic State Route 170
along the Mexico border to the town of Marfa. If anyone reading this blog is planning a route West from
Big Bend, and are thinking about taking the 170, we can firmly say DO IT! The drive was one of the most memorable
that we have done on this trip. A
times perched seemingly on the edge of a mountain, the road twists, turns,
humps and dips its way along the Rio Grande, with so many amazing vistas and
views that it is impossible to describe.
Arriving in Marfa is also a fascinating experience, the town holding a
slightly strange identity as essentially a ranching town, but dotted with small
art galleries after a group of New York artists decided to establish an artists
community there during the 1970s.
Indeed, around 30 miles out of Marfa as we passed through the tiny town
of Valentine (population 271), which with its dilapidated houses and
tumbleweed-strewn streets certainly looked to have had better days, we were
surprised to see what appeared to be the Marfa outlet of Prada just on the
outskirts of the town! It turns
out that some artists from Marfa had built the faux-store (it contains pieces
from a mid-2000s collection of Prada) as a comment on consumerism; the ‘store’
will never open, and serves as a luxurious juxtaposition to the harsh country
and hard lives lived by those ranching in the fields around Valentine.
After an uneventful
drive north we eventually met Interstate 10, which was to be our main route
west almost all the way to Los Angeles from that point on. Eventually rolling into El Paso at
around sunset, we made our way to the #1 Urbanspoon recommended eatery, Crave
on Cincinnatti St. Indeed it was
very good and after a michelada and some ceviche, we left tightly clutching a
recommendation from the bartender of another good place in town and headed off
into town… Unfortunately that was when we discovered that El Paso essentially
only seems to have one decent restaurant, and we had already found it… We rolled up to the recommendation to
find it was a cavernous Mexican chain restaurant, with no atmosphere and even
less attraction to us. We promptly
moved on and found a small shack in a car park where we got some decent tacos,
before heading back to the Cincinatti St area, finding a place to park the car,
and heading into a little bar for a margarita… Before long we headed back to the car (which we had
surreptitiously parked on a residential street) and bedded down for another
night of hoping not to be woken by local police wondering what we were doing
sleeping in our car….
Sunday March 17th - Wednesday March 20th El Paso to Tucson,
Arizona
Waking early in the
morning in the streets of El Paso, we decided to move the car straight away to
avoid residents noticing our car and headed to McDonalds to spend the morning on
some long overdue online catch-ups before grabbing some lunch at a much-talked
about local café (L&J’s) and jumping on the road towards Arizona. As we again found ourselves in dire
need of a shower, we decided it was more than time to stay in a real bed that
evening so called ahead to make a booking at the Road Runner Hostel in
Tucson.
Soon after leaving El
Paso (and passing through yet another US Border Protection checkpoint) we found
ourselves driving through scrubby tundra and desert. The wind was picking up significantly, blowing Jemima around
quite a lot – making overtakes of trucks quite a challenge! Around 50 miles out of El Paso a sign
by the side of the road with flashing yellow lights warned us to tune in to the
radio for updates on road hazards and dust storms… It was a worthy warning. The further west we drove, the wind became stronger and
stronger, picking up lots of dust with it. We soon noticed cars all around us with their lights on,
trucks flashing their hazard warning lights, and the speed slowing
significantly. Warning signs on
the side of the road advised drivers to exercise caution, and the voice on the
radio continued to warn us that visibility may drop to ‘zero’; and to under no circumstances
stop in the driving lanes… We soldiered
on, driving as gently as possible (many of the trucks didn’t seem so slow down,
making it quite scary as they kept overtaking us!) and after a few hours
emerged out of the desert, into clear air and mountains to the north… Needless to say we breathed a big sigh
of relief and kept on driving into Arizona…
Arriving in Tucson
after the dusty drive was a welcome relief and we found the city to be
absolutely beautiful. The hostel
staff at the Road Runner were really friendly and we quickly settled in,
showered and wandered up the road to a pizza (and craft beer) restaurant for
dinner. After a good night sleep
we woke early and stretched out our post hiking pains at a local yoga class,
before spending the arvo wandering around the Sonora Desert Museum (really more
of a zoo) amongst the incredible backdrop of the Saguaro cacti on the desert
landscape. A particular highlight
of the desert museum was a raptor free-flight session where we were able to see
a Barn Owl and a Peregrine Falcon show their agile hunting styles, followed by
a group of Harris Hawks which had learned to hunt as a pack – typical of Harris
Hawks in this area, but unlike almost all other raptors around the world. Other highlights of the museum were the
rattle snakes, coyotes, humming birds and the otter!
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| Mountain Lion, Sonora Desert Museum |
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| Barn Owl, Sonora Desert Museum |
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| Lizard, Sonora Desert Museum |
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| Desert Landscape surrounding Tucson |
Heading out for dinner
that evening, we found the Tucson streets to be slightly sleepy on a Monday
evening – though we were able to find some delicious mussels and cocktails
alongside lots of recommendations of some new restaurants that have opened up
in the city – that we discovered are open every night except Monday!
After checking out of
the Road Runner hostel on the Tuesday morning and hitting the road with full
intentions of heading towards California, we got somewhat distracted by a local
brewery – Thunder Canyon – and, after Alick got talking to the manager, we soon
had an appointment to meet with the head brewer at their main brewery just of
town. Kyle, the head brewer, was
incredibly generous with his time and in addition to showing us around the
brewery, shared his background and story on how he came to be in the
industry. Next thing we knew it
was 5pm and, realising we hadn’t been remotely successful in our efforts to
leave Tucson that day, headed back to the Road Runner hostel to see if we could
re-check in! (All private rooms were booked but we managed to get a couple of
dorm room beds). The staff at the
hostel thought we were absolutely crazy but were most amused.
That night we treated
ourselves to an amazing dinner at ‘Penca’ – one of the restaurants that had
been recommended to us the previous evening – and were once again blown away by
the awesome food and wine scene in Tucson. So delicious!
Wednesday March 20th & Thursday
March 21st – Joshua Tree National Park
We proved to be much
more successful in our attempt to leave Tucson on the Thursday morning – making
an early exit from the Road Runner hostel (leaving as the staff were calling
out ‘see you again this afternoon!’ after us), crossing the California state border
and working our way to Joshua Tree National Park…
Our drive to Joshua
Tree national park was overall uneventful; taking a route that avoided the
Phoenix traffic took us through some great countryside, before we found
ourselves crossing the Colorado River, and the border into California… Mountains soon began to appear on
either side, as we whizzed along the interstate on the southern border of
Joshua Tree National Park. On
arrival in Joshua Tree we were lucky to find a campsite at the Cottonwood Springs
campsite, and decided to spend the afternoon hiking up to Mastodon Peak. We inadvertently ended up taking a
longer loop walk than we had originally planned – which turned out to be
beautiful and well worth the extra mile or so! While there are no Joshua Trees in that southern part of the
park, the many cacti and other desert shrubs continued to impress us with their
beauty (and their resilience against the harsh, dry conditions!). Returning to the campsite that night
Alick set up the BBQ and grilled a Bison steak that we had bought the day
before in Tucson – a delicious way to end our first day in California…
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| Alick's delicious camp cooking - Bison steak, Joshua Tree National Park |
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| Enjoying dinner, Joshua Tree National Park |
The next morning we
woke early and set off on the 11.6km hike down to the Lost Palms Oasis. As we passed other hikers on the trail,
we soon realised that we were in a National Park much nearer to a major city than other National Parks we’d visiting
on the trip– and a major Californian city at that! While we were kitted out in our usual hiking gear (complete
with poles, hydration packs, boots and long pants) we met other ‘hikers’ in
short shorts, singlets, bright running shoes and sporting an overall designer
look! Despite this we were once
again lucky to have the trail pretty much to ourselves, with our only company
the ubiquitous birds of prey, lizards and cacti….
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| Joshua Tree National Park |
Following our morning
hike we packed up the van and drove north, crossing everything that we would
find another site in one of the campsites in the northern area of the
park. We had met a lovely family
early in the morning (who had incidentally spent lots of time in Australia and
actually named one of their daughters Sydney!), who had warned us that given it
was Californian Spring Break, there were not many sites available – but also
gave some great recommendations on which campsites to try first. Driving north into the park we soon
found ourselves surrounded by the famous Joshua Trees – technically overgrown
yuccas, and now deeply reminiscent of Dr Seuss books! We learned that the Joshua Trees had for many years been
classified as a giant member of the Lily family, but had recently been
reclassified into the Agave family, after the Lily family had been split into
40 different plant families due to its size. The Joshua Trees were reputedly named by Mormon pioneers, who
thought the arms of the trees were representative of the outstretched arms of
the biblical figure of Joshua, guiding them on their journey westward.
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| Joshua Tree National Park |
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| Joshua Tree National Park |
Again we put our faith
in our good fortune and made our way to the Ryan campground, first on our new
friends’ list. On arrival we
realised that there were only 20-odd sites in the whole campground, and pretty
much all were occupied… We found
one which had a tent pitched in it, but no booking chit indicating it was
booked for that night. Taking a
bit of a punt, we went ahead and booked the site, thinking that it was likely
that the owner of the tent may have left it up for the day to dry out and was
returning to pack it up and leave later in the day… Of course there was always the risk that this wasn’t the
case, and that we had muscled in on someone else’s campsite, but we decided to
cross that bridge when we came to it…
With our accommodation
for the night sorted (albeit a little precariously!) we set off for an
afternoon hike on the Lost Horse Mine trail. Setting off in the peak heat of the day, it felt a times as
though we were walking into a furnace – the sense of which was heightened
further by the fact that we were soon surrounded by blackened stumps of Joshua
Trees and scorched hillsides all around.
Walking through this harsh landscape, passing deserted mine sites and
the remains of miners cottages, we found ourselves reflecting on how tough life
must have been for the fortune-seekers who came to the Californian desert
searching newfound wealth…
As we drove back to Ryan
campground, having been a little apprehensive in case we found ourselves in a
confrontation over the site on our walk, we both started to feel positive that
everything would work out fine.
We’d been so lucky to have been met with nothing but hospitality and
smiles on our whole trip, it felt really unlikely that we would find ourselves
in strife on our final night…
Indeed our gut feeling was right.
We returned to find the owner of the tent still there (it appeared there
had been a mistake made by the rangers who had removed his chit from the
booking pole), but also very open to sharing the site with us. It was very typical of our whole trip
that what could have been a slightly tense and potentially uncomfortable
situation turned out to be an enriching and thoroughly enjoyable
experience. The owner of the tent
was a man in his late 40s who, having been working at a bank for the past 15
years, had decided to take a ‘pre-retirement’ year off, and travel around the
USA by road – being joined at various points by his sixteen-year-old son. His aim was to visit every National
Park in the country by the end of his year off, before returning to South
Carolina and following his dream to become a paramedic. We found our conversation with John,
and hearing his stories about life and his adventures so far, truly inspiring
and exciting. It really cemented
our conviction that as we move through life, we want to do everything we can to
continue to travel, meet new people, and share new experiences. If you want to read more about John’s
adventures, he is writing his ‘Out Of Office 2013’ blog, which you can read
here:
http://www.2013ooo.blogspot.com.au/
Friday March 22rd –Sunday March 24th:
Joshua Tree National Park – Aliso Viejo, California
On Friday morning, we
were packing up our little van one last time, and were approached by yet
another curious fellow-camper attracted by the bright colours and lurid
decals… After chatting with him
for a few minutes it turned out that he was a musician, who had come to Joshua
Tree for some inspiration (describing it as ‘one of the most beautiful places -
in fact probably the most beautiful
place in the world’!). He has a
band called The Co-Op, and gave us one of his CDs (called Winter Sun), which has been on high rotation ever since…
After one last hike in
Joshua Tree National Park on Friday morning to see the stunning views from the
top of Ryan Mountain, we made our way towards the coast, via a quick stop off
in the Desert Hot Springs to account for our lack of showers during the
previous three days! The Desert
Hot Springs proved to be quite a bizarre experience as the springs were located
inside a big hotel where we had to work our way around dozens of highly primped,
leathery bodies who appeared to have taken up permanent poolside residency, in
order to get ourselves immersed in the lovely warm pools. It was late afternoon when we
eventually arrived in Aliso Viejo
- a cute new suburb on the outskirts of Laguna Beach and home to Tess’
extended family Aly and Christine MacGregor and their adorable 2-year-old Abbie
– who greated us with a warm smile and immediate demonstration of the functions
of various objects in her toy box.
Abbie quickly grasped some concept of the extended family relationship
(referring to Tess and ‘Uncle Jo-Jo’s sister’ and Alick as ‘that man’) and we
commenced a delightful few days exploring Aliso Viejo and the surrounding areas
with the MacGregor family – including delicious home-cooked tacos, sampling
local craft brews, experiencing
the different cultures between Huntington, Newport, and Laguna beaches,
receiving some much-needed clothes shopping advice and assistance from
Christine, getting our first tastes of both buffalo wings and Peruvian cuisine
and being introduced to the game of Mexican dominoes (a highly competitive
contest with the MacGregor household).
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| Alick and Abbie |
Our arrival in Aliso
Viejo also meant it was time to return our trusty campervan Jemima to the Jucy
rental office – a slightly sad farewell after all the fun and adventures she’d
led us on across the South West of the country over the previous month!
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| Huntington Beach, Los Angeles |
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| The beautiful MacGregor family, Aliso Viejo |
Before we really had a
moment to process what was happening we were in LA airport boarding our plane
to Australia and a strange sensation came over both of us that we had blinked
when boarding a Doha-bound plane in Melbourne last Melbourne and all the
moments since had flown by in an instant.
We seriously couldn’t believe our time had gone so fast (though
thankfully had arranged to fly straight to Byron Bay to give ourselves ten days
in the sun, surf and Blues and Roots festival to adjust to the shock that our
trip was offer and start to process and reflect on some of the amazing
adventures we’d had).
