Roadtrip 2009 - Part 3

October 2-10

Since I really had no home/job at the time, it wasn't difficult for Jesse to convince me to embark on my third..yes third cross country road trip to help him move back to NY.

We started out the morning of the second, and drove through to Van Horn, TX where we stayed the night. Van Horn consisted of 483290483024 hotel/motels, and two places to eat...Wendy's and McDonalds. But yet it possessed the ability to change a young man's life. This is where Jesse fell in love.....with the Hampton Inn. Seriously though, I think if he could he would just live there and never walk outside the doors.


Austin, TX
The next day we set out to Austin, where we went directly to Blaise's house, where Cook had been visiting. The first thing we did of course was head out to Salt Lick..the most ridiculous BBQ ever. The parking lot at this place was practically 3839 square miles and even had traffic control. It had an incredibly local and authentic family-like feel to it, and made me feel like we were about to indulge in an experience we could not find anywhere else.





That night we spent out on Fifth Street, where all of the fun was to be had. Unfortunately I did not have my camera available at this time so there's no pictures :( We went to a bunch of fun places and spent most of the night at a club with a DJ spinning Techno mixes. It was a great time!


New Orleans, LA

We spent all day driving before we made it to New Orleans, unfortunately after nightfall. We just got a hotel, and then had dinner at the restaraunt downstairs. We were not so impressed with the hotel because it's TV was facing away from the bed and there were a few unwanted mice vistors! hahaha...kind of funny though.

The next morning we hit St. Ann's Street in the French Quarter. Let me just tell you what we did here in one short word. Ate. We ate so much I wanted to die.


FIrst stop: "Coops" - where we had our go at rabbit and sausage jumbalaya and gumbo. It was a dingy little pub, but the people were extremely nice and the food was good! We couldn't finish it all because it was our first of 3 meals within approximately an hour.


Second Stop: Po-boys. Everybody raved about the Po-boys in NOLA...but honestly, not that impressed. Pretty much a regular sandwhich....haha. So we didn't eat too much of it, because the best was about to come last.

Third Stop: Willie Mae's Kitchen: This was a result of watching the Food Network til all hours of the morning and randomlly seeing this joint on there. We had fried chicken and red beans. SO GOOD. But at this point I really thought I was going to die.



After all of our gluttonous behavior, it was time to get back on the road.

Pensacola, FL
Here we met up with Jesse's good friend from NY, Jon Valdez. We had dinner on the oceanfront, and then picked Mr. Waffle up from the airport. Then we headed over the bridge to Pensacola beach and hung out at a little bar and played pool.



Atlanta, GA
Just had a quick stop in at Atlanta with Jesse's other friend from home, Kim. We had a sushi dinner with all of her friends, and then spent the night at her apartment. I'll have to check out Atlanta again when I have more time!

Obviously we had to stop at a "Waffle House" for waffle.

Charleston, SC
I think it's safe to say we were all very satisfied with our stay in Charleston! It was a little out of the way from the direct route, but proved to be worth it!








This is how rude the boys are to me..stuffing me in the back like I'm an illegal immigrant.

New York City, NY

We finally made it to NY and had the most whirlwind tour ever. Spicy met us in the city and we went everywhere, Seaport Village, Battery Park, Greenwich village, MSG, Central Park, and of course Times Square where Heather was nice enough to get a hotel set up for us at the W. We had an amazing night with a bunch of Jesse's friends in the city, and were back on the plane to SD the next day.