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There are a few national parks and monuments that cost nothing to get in, but you will take a boat tour, walking tour, or similar to see what's what. You can't use your annual pass to pay for those, so I suspect that's why the tours cost and getting in does not.
I am also enjoying your reports. I know they take time, but those of us who can't be on the road right now find that this is the next-best-thing.
Donna
Day 11
Today would be another pretty packed day with a lot of travelling, so we packed up the car, stopped for pancakes and headed to Anniston, AL to see the worlds biggest office chair! I have no idea why I wanted to see it, but it was one of the first quirky attractions I'd seen when planning this trip so we had to stick with it. Again, we tried to head off the Interstates wherever possible, and it was great passing through all the small towns. We arrived in Anniston, and found the big chair, which was everything I though it'd be... a big chair in a car park. But it was pretty cool anyway.
http://i.imgur.com/5e1dFUul.jpg
It was incredibly hot, so we got back in the car and carried on to Birmingham. It was a fairly short journey, so when we arrived we headed straight for the Sloss Furnaces. It's a great old pig iron producing furnace that's been preserved and opened to the public. Everything was on a huge scale, and it was great how much access there was to everything. If this was back at home, everything would have been cordoned off, but here you were free to go nearly anywhere you wanted. Health and safety was a bit questionable, as it would have been easy to fall off the platforms; but I liked this, if you're going to go up there, it's up to you to decide whether you think it's safe and take responsibility for not falling off yourself.
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The history of the furnaces was very interesting, and it was clear how important this place was to the growth of Birmingham. It was very honest with how horrific the conditions were, and how bad the racism was; I can't imagine working in those kind of conditions. The staff there were very helpful and friendly, so I'd definitely recommend it! Next, we headed over to the Vulcan statue; a huge iron statue of the god Vulcan, and his huge bare arse. We paid to go to the top and got a good view of Birmingham and the surrounding area. There was a small museum at the bottom which gave some interesting facts about how it was made, how it travelled around the country, and how the iron all came from the Sloss Furnaces.
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We found a great Mexican fusion restaurant for dinner, then moved on to Tuscaloosa where we were staying for the night.
Day 12
We left Tuscaloosa fairly early as we headed to New Orleans. The plan was to stop about half way, have lunch, and find a batting cage, as we don't really get them at home. Doing a bit of research before we left, we decided on a small town in Mississippi called Meridian. It was a strange little town with brightly painted carousel horses dotted around the place. There was also a lot of derelict buildings, with whole streets being torn down presumably to have new ones built in their place. We found a nice restaurant for lunch, where I had gumbo... or was it jambalaya, I don't remember. I do remember it was very nice! We wandered around the town for a while afterwards, but the heat got to us, so we got in the car and looked for the batting cages. Rach was absolutely awful which was funny to watch, but I wasn't much better. I got the hang of it towards the end and managed to hit a few good ones, but again the heat got to us so we called it a day and decided that we'd try and find another batting cage further on down the line of the trip. Alas this never came to be.
http://i.imgur.com/Wiu7sDcm.jpg http://i.imgur.com/AF4U3stm.jpg
We got back on the road to New Orleans, and eventually started to notice a lot of swamp, and bridges that seemed to span for miles. Our first stop was going to be the Dollar rental place to see if they had any convertibles. We'd tried in Birmingham but had no luck. We also found that phoning and asking any question at all confused the person on the other end of the phone. I explained the situation and just asked if they could tell me if they had any convertibles or not. She didn't seem to understand the question and I had to resort to pretending I was looking to rent the car; so the woman that I had just explained my whole situation to carried on asking what time would I collect it, what time would I drop it off, what insurance I would like and finally gave me a quote... which I assumed meant that they would have at least one convertible. They didn't. So we turned up to the rental place to find they didn't have any either. Ah well, the Mercedes is still nice.
http://i.imgur.com/Ta1keKvl.jpg
We finally arrived at the hotel, which just a short street car ride away from the French Quarter. We were both feeling a bit worse for wear, so just got some fast food and had a quick pint in an Irish bar down the road. We wanted to make sure we were prepared for the next day, as we wanted to enjoy New Orleans properly
I've not given up on this! I've just moved house so have been struggling for time, but I'm still as determined to finish it.
Day 13
We got up as early as we could (which wasn't anywhere nearly as early as it should have been), and got the streetcar into the French Quarter, starting with Bourbon Street. The architecture is instantly recognisable, with the iconic balconies. To start, we just wandered around getting a feel for the place. It's not that big so it didn't take too long to walk the main part of Bourbon Street.
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The first place we stopped at was St Louis Cathedral; a mix between the traditional NO and European architecture; the paintings and décor were stunning. Next door was the Calbido, the Louisiana State Museum. We partly went in there to get out of the immense heat, but the inside had a lot of interesting exhibits, and we got a better understanding of how New Orleans was first established. We then headed along to the Mississippi, following the noise of some sort of music. We got there to find a big steam boat with a woman on top playing some sort of piano that played the boat whistles. It was very loud, and quite unique. After a bit of shopping, we stopped for lunch and had a couple of Po Boys, which were great, but pretty soggy and falling apart by the time I'd finished.
http://i.imgur.com/RwSSaL4l.jpg
After lunch we headed to Historic Voodoo Museum, a strange tiny museum with a two or three rooms packed with all sorts of voodoo related historical artefacts and memorabilia. Just along from there was Gallier House; a house built around the turn of the 20th century by a well known architect. It was wonderfully preserved with as much of the original décor as possible. A knowledgeable tour guide showed us around, giving us a history of the house, and describing what each room was, who it was used by, and other interesting facts about it. It turns out the whole house was completely transformed every 6 months to prepare for the coming season; it involved storing all the furniture, covering paintings and fixtures, and covering carpets, and must have been hard work (for the slaves they had, I doubt the Galliers lifted a finger).
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The heat and humidity was starting to get to us (I can see why the Galliers and many other wealthy families left New Orleans in the height of summer), so we decided it was time for a beer. I had a quick look on TripAdvisor to see if there was anything that stood out, and Fritzls sounded like a good call. And it certainly was! Fritzel is a well known Austrian psychopath who locked his family in a basement and did all sort of unmentionable stuff, so it was very odd to be in a bar of the same name (but not named after him... at least I hope not!). I asked around and it turns out a lot of Americans have never heard of the Austrian Fritzel, so I could see why it wasn't odd to them.
The place was pretty quiet, but the music sounded good so we took a seat. We were lucky enough to be there when a piano player called Richard Scott was playing, and he was amazing! We'd just planned on stopping in for one or two drinks, but ended up staying for a good while and even bought a Fritzel's tshirt. We heard Richard say that he was back later that night with his band, so we decided we'd definitely come back for that.
We headed back to the hotel and found a local place for some gumbo, before heading back to the French Quarter. The place was transformed at night to an atmosphere reminiscent of a night out in parts of Amsterdam, with everyone in a party mood, and punters from all the bars spilling out on to the street. We saw things start to change by late afternoon before we left, but the town had hit full on party mode by the time we got back. The atmosphere was slightly rowdy, but without the air of confrontation you tend to find in most British cities, and definitely nothing like somewhere like Magaluf (a bizarre Spanish resort catering mainly for young British holiday makers who want to kill as many brain cells as possible in a short amount of time. Not that I have anything against that, I've been there before and found it an interesting experience, but don't think I'd do it again). There were of course beads everywhere, with people on the balconies throwing them at anyone willing to expose their chest (which were pretty much always men).
The first bar we went into had loud rock music blasting on to the street. Ordering a drink was interesting, they had a range of cup sizes from small, to the size of a small child. I went for the latter, and almost instantly regretted it as the band stopped, and asked everyone to stand up and pay our respects to the brave soldiers past and present that fought for their country (the band were ex army too). They then started singing "I'm proud to be an American" as everyone joined in. This song just keeps following us! I have nothing against being proud of your country, but I just find that kind of thing over the top. If I was out on a Saturday night and the band started saying how great it was to be British and started singing Rule Britannia with everyone joining in, I'd be straight out of there!
We moved on to Fritzels again to find Richard Scott and the band setting up, so we found a seat, which wasn't quite as easy as before as it had become really busy, and waited for the band to start. Whilst we were waiting we started chatting to some of the people around us, with a couple of girls who had visited the French Quarter and loved it so much that they moved there (or as close as they could afford). One of the guys that was with them (who it turned out later wasn't actually with them, but was a random tag along that had followed them around) was interested in the recent Scottish independence referendum. It soon turned out that his conversation skills had been limited by the amount of alcohol he had drank, and couldn't seem to understand any of the reasons I gave for the Scottish wanting independence, because "we're bigger with lots more states and we make it work", so of course he fully understood the situation. Luckily the music soon started, and it was absolutely amazing. It was exactly what I'd pictured New Orleans jazz to be like, with everyone in the band having their own solo to show off how skilled musicians they were.
After a couple of hours we decided we should see more of the area on our last night there, so headed over to the Maison, stopping in the bar next to Fritzels to get a "hand grenade" that we'd seen everywhere first (a large drink in a glass with the bottom shaped like a grenade); they're certainly not stingy with their alcohol there! We eventually got to the Maison (which was a further walk than I'd anticipated) and paid in. It was a nice enough night club, more like what I'm used to, with the dance floor and various bars dotted around the place. Rach had really been looking forward to having a proper dance, but again the pregnancy caught up with her, so after staying for a while we headed back down Bourbon street, working our way through the bars towards the oppposite end, nearest our hotel. I'll be honest, I have no recollection of getting home, but I do remember it was certainly a night to remember!
...I'll try and make sure the next entry doesn't take quite as long!
Day 14
Today we drove. For a very long time. We went straight from New Orleans to Dallas, and I can't even remember if we made a proper stop. After a good few hours, we eventually arrived at our hotel: the Romantic Inn and Suites. The price had been very good, and reviews pretty positive, with comments of it being rather cheesy. I didn't expect cheesy to include hardcore adult video 24/7 on the tv! The room had a funfair type mirror on the ceiling, and mood lighting which we found hilarious. It was nice and clean though so we were happy enough. After a quick rest we headed to the cinema to see Inside Out, which was good. It was interesting being amongst an American audience, their humour is a bit different to ours as some of the jokes we found mildly amusing had some of them in fits of laughter. On the way home we stopped at a Walmart to get some supplies, and to my surprise I found I was literally the only white person in the entire store. Britain has a lot of multicultural areas, some where the minorities are heavily in the majority, but I've never experienced segregation like that before.
Day 15
I left early that morning to try all of the Dollar Rental places to see if I could swap the car for a convertible. The Mercedes was very nice and comfortable, but we were especially keen to do the part of Route 66 on our journey with the top down. After trying one of the smaller ones, they said that the Dallas/Fort Wort Airport would be the most likely to have one, so I headed over there. After driving through the traffic, I arrived and explained my situation, and found out I was in luck! They didn't just have a convertible, they had a V8 Camaro SS convertible in stock! And although I'm sure it was above what I paid for, they let me have it. And what a car! The first car I owned was a 55hp 1.1L Punto... this was a 400hp 6.2L V8! I nearly crashed and died a few times getting back to the hotel, but I didn't care, this car was amazing! 0-60 in less than 5 seconds is a lot faster than I'm used to. I'm sure I used nearly half a tank of petrol getting back to the hotel, but it was worth it.
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That morning Rach woke to find she was covered in incredibly itchy and uncomfortable hives, and after some research we found it was likely due to the pregnancy, and could stay until she gave birth! Luckily this wasn't the case, but for the next two days, Rach wasn't in the mood for doing much. We tried going for lunch at an authentic BBQ place where I had some of the best food I've ever tasted, in a strange run down type cafe, where again there were no white people to be seen (which didn't bother us in the slightest, it was just a strange observation). It was served in polystyrene trays, and didn't look particularly appetising, but it tasted amazing. There was so much of it too; I tried the bbq beef which was so tender. Rach was struggling to stay conscious so I took her home where we made the difficult decision that she was going to miss the next activity; the Zero Gravity Theme Park.
The Zero Gravity Theme Park is a great little place where they have 5 rides, including the bungee jump, sky coaster, and a 130 foot free fall. We'd been really looking forward to this, especially the free fall, so it was such a shame that Rach wasn't up for it. We decided that rather us both sit inside, that I should go by myself. I got to the park, and it turns out I was the only one there. I had to explain that I wasn't some loner weirdo, but that I'd left my pregnant wife behind whilst on our honeymoon, which made me sound like an even bigger weirdo. But I didn't care, I was at the zero gravity theme park! Except the ride I wanted to go on the most was closed! I couldn't believe it, it was closed until the next evening, when we'd be on our way to Amarillo.
The rides that were left open did just about make up for it, however, as they were all exciting. I've never bungee jumped, and I know that it was fairly tame compared to a lot of bungee jumps, but it was just great being able to do that, then go straight on the sky coaster. I got back in the car and tried to work out how to put the roof down, and whilst I was doing so was told I was quite mental for doing so in that kind of heat. It was around 103f, and it was completely different to New Orleans. That had been incredibly humid, but this was very dry. I made it back and told Rach that it was rubbish and she hadn't missed much, which she didn't believe for a second.
That evening, Rach was feeling slightly better, so was up for our next activity; Medieval Times. For anyone who's not heard of it, it's a weird combination of a medieval type show with jousting, sword fighting and tricks with horses (the making them dance kind, not like card tricks); whilst having their take on a medieval meal where you eat everything with your bare hands. It was actually really good! We thought it'd be really cheesy, which it was, but it was also very entertaining, and we really got into it, feeling cheated when our knight didn't win (each section of the crowd had their own knight). It was so much better than I expected, and even the food was very good.
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I took Rach back to the hotel and tried to find a good spot to get some good photos of downtown Dallas, but found it pretty difficult, as it was always blocked by other buildings.
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That's called a Calliope.Quote:
playing some sort of piano that played the boat whistles
A special memory of our trip to England in 2008 was English bacon. We still wax poetic about English bacon, especially from a small sandwich shop in Reading, across from our accomodations!
Loving your trip report, definitely highlighting unique spots across our country. Thanks for sharing your impressions.
Pat
Day 16
Today was a long drive from Dallas to Amarillo, where we'd spend the night before joining Route 66. Packing everything into a convertible was a bit more difficult, but we eventually managed and headed on our way. Our first stop of the day was for lunch at a random restaurant off the freeway that had a big sign on the back of an old truck advertising it, which was handy as there were miles of nothing.
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I had a chance to try my first chicken fried steak, which was actually very good! Despite the fact there was no chicken in it (yes I know, it's steak cooked in the style of fried chicken). We carried on driving for around an hour before we stopped at our next destination; Castaway Cove water park, in Wichita Falls. It was a very welcome relief from the heat, and Rach enjoyed bobbing about in the water. We liked it so much that we went back later that day... after I realised I'd left my GoPro behind! We were lucky to find it in the lost and found (they were actually in the pockets of my trunks or "swimshorts" as Americans call them... a word I could not remember, so after receiving a confused look, I tried to describe what trunks are), and also very lucky as we carried on the journey, as we found out we missed the police with a speed gun by around 10 mins as he wasn't there as I was speeding back to the water park.
Four hours later, we finally made it to Amarillo. There were signs for the Texas Steak Ranch for miles approaching it, which was ok because that was our final destination of the day. It is a strange place which seems to sum Texas up, huge and over the top.
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The Texan Steak Ranch is famous for its 72oz steak challenge, where you have a 72oz steak (obviously) with a load of sides, which all have to be eaten within an hour; manage that and it's free! What I didn't realise is that the table that you have to sit at is on a raised platform in the middle of the large restaurant for everyone to gawp at whilst you devour enough meat to feed a small African country. I decided to just try the mini version, which is a 1/4 the size, and it was still absolutely huge! Very good though.
This was the first part of the trip that we hadn't booked anywhere to stay, which wasn't the best plan as we didn't get out of the restaurant until after 10pm. The first couple of places we tried were fully booked, but we eventually got somewhere, so at least we didn't have to stay in the car.
Next, we join Route 66 so there should be a few more interesting photos, rather than just a mundane description of us driving countless miles though the middle of nowhere. So keep watching for that!
Didn't you check the motel right there at the Big Texan for rooms? I've stayed there and the rooms are decent. When you stay there, they give you a voucher for the breakfast buffet the next morning.
Great report. Loved your impressions.
Yeah, that Big Texas restaurant is quite an attraction!
Mark
I think we tried the Big Texan, but as it was mid-June I'm sure it was full.
Day 17
Today was another very busy day, where we planned to see as many of the random Amarillo attractions as possible before taking as much of the old route 66 as we could on the way to Albuquerque. We started off by trying to find somewhere for breakfast. This took a lot longer than planned, and after driving around for a while we ended up in IHOP.
It was early afternoon by the time we eventually headed off, and the first stop was the Slug Bug Ranch; a tribute to the more famous Cadillac Ranch. Unfortunately it was the complete opposite direction to Albuquerque, but was worth going; it was a strange sight seeing these VW Beetles randomly buried in the ground. It was also next to an abandoned garage, which is something we'd been looking forward to seeing (that kind of thing, not just that particular garage). I'd heard about ghost towns, where towns have been abandoned because of being bypassed by the Interstate, and although it's obviously a shame that things have got so bad that people have had to just up and leave, I like the eerie feel of it.
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Next was Combine City, which I thought was going to be like the Cadillac Ranch, but with combine harvesters. Turns out it was just a load of old combine harvesters in an overgrown field. I'm sure it would have been better if it wasn't so overgrown and we could see better, but we were lucky to find it; there's no place to really stop so we just pulled over at the side of the road.
...I've just looked again and it turns out they were buried like the Cadillacs! I just couldn't see at the time because of it being overgrown. I've just realised I've said overgrown a lot. Overgrown.
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Overgrown.
I'm sure after that we tried to find the giant legs that are apparently in the area, but we couldn't find them. I think you have to know exactly where you're going, and you can't drive up to them, so we gave it a miss and put Jack Sisemore Traveland into the sat nav to go and see the R.V. Museum. When we first arrived I wasn't sure if we'd got the right place, as it was just a big R.V. sales lot, but after asking we were told that the museum was right around the back. It was free, and actually pretty interesting. They had stuff like the R.V. from the film R.V. with Robin Williams, and a pretty good collection of Harley's, including some very rare ones, such as the Confederate edition, which you won't find in any of their records as it's considered un-PC.
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The final stop on our way out of Amarillo was the famous Cadillac Ranch. There were a lot of people around, but we managed to find some spray paint someone had left and find a car that nobody was crowded around to leave our own 'tag'. It was a pretty amazing sight, seeing these Cadillacs sticking out the ground in the middle of a large dirt expanse. The cars were all surrounded by mud and puddles, which seemed odd as everywhere else was bone dry.
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That was the last of the "quirky" attractions, so we got on the road to Albuquerque. We took the Interstate, but came off and went along the old Route 66 where possible. We followed the I40 which had completely replaced the 66 (for this part I'm not going to be 100% sure about anything I say) until we got to Adrian; a tiny town in which the 66 separates from the I40 briefly, and is where you'll find the midpoint cafe; a small cafe which as the name suggests, is exactly at the half way point of Route 66. We stopped for the customary photos, and had something to eat in the cafe. It was a nice place with lots of 66 memorabilia, and some nice deserts!
http://i.imgur.com/V52UMqvl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/vwMoRmCl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/yj8DpAUl.jpg
Another point we came off the Interstate was at Glenrio, where there were a few abandoned buildings. There was nobody else about, so it was definitely quite eerie. We found a sign that pointed to Old Route 66 and decided that would be the best way to go, but we didn't realise how old the route was! The road was cracked, and was lined with countless abandoned houses and garages, with one house still occupied with a very clear NO TRESPASSING sign. I think it might have said something about them owning the surrounding buildings too. The cracked road soon turned to dirt road, which carried on like this for a good while. There were still abandoned houses all the way along, but we started to think maybe we were heading down a dead-end. We eventually came across some occupied houses, and the road reverted to the paved variety, until the road just stopped.
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That last picture is the sign that we suddenly came across; I guess that's the end of that road then! So we went back to a turn off that wasn't too far back, and rejoined the I40. We switched between the interstate and highway wherever we could, and managed to see some of the strange things that line Route 66; I can't seem to find any photos of them, so I'm not sure which was this time, or the next time we were on Route 66 further along.
We finally made it to Albuquerque some hours later, so just dropped off our bags at the hotel and went out for dinner. Managed to find a nice Mexican place which was a small family run place, but had some great food. There were various different levels of spicy sauce that they let us try first to see what suited us. After a long day, we slept well!