The Long Road to Texas

Well, after spending a wonderful week in New Orleans with Faithe, Woody and the dogs we decided to make haste and get to the tip of Texas in time for Thanksgiving, so that we could head into Mexico the next day and have a little more than three full weeks south of the border. Thus, we filled our tanks with po-boy veggie oil and set off, managing to drive almost 800 miles in just under three days along the Gulf Coast of Texas. We spent a night in a state park and a Wal-mart parking lot (no we didn't buy anything from them), before pulling up to El Valle del Sol rv park. Getting veggie oil in Texas proved to be quite difficult, most likely due to the prevalence of bio-diesel production in this area. Good for the environment, bad for hippies trying to save money. Anyways, we spent way too much time looking for decent oil dumpsters and were quite sick of the whole thing by the time we found a couple of good sources. We finally ended up getting about 45 gallons of good looking oil from a chinese buffet. We did however have to pay the restaurant manager $10.00, because the people who regularly emptied his dumpster had begun paying him this amount every time they came to suck it dry. We obliged and snickered at having to pay 20 cents a gallon for fuel, the first time in 4,000 miles we have paid anything for used veggie oil.
Interestingly enough, when we finally arrived at the RV park, it turned out to be a community for "winter texans," mid-western retirees who drive down to southern Texas for the cold months. Erma, the manager, set us up with a nice little place to park our bus at a reasonable rate, and we were even able to make use of the pool and hot tub in the warm Texas sun. The next day we were invited to Thanksgiving dinner with a few hundred of the winter texans. It was like having a holiday with 200 grandparents, which of course, was awesome. It would have been a very lonely Turkey-day in the little blue bus, otherwise. We also ended up having a description of our journey and veggie-bus announced part way through the dinner, so of course there were many interesting questions and conversations after dinner since most of these retirees travelled in huge diesel camper rigs.
As Friday came around, the 90 degree Texas sun decided to hide and allow a chilly 40 degree rain to fall and freeze us, so that we would appreciate the fact that we would be in Mexico for December. During this dreary drizzle we had some unexpected guests drop by the bus. It seems that word had spread around this largely mexican community that there were a couple of kids planning to go down to Chiapas. One local family, made up of Rosie, her husband Jesus, and their son Joshua (don't forget the "J's" are pronounced "H") were so overcome by joy that we were visiting their home that they decided to drop by and let us practice our horrible spanish with them. Before we knew it, Rosie had called her brother in Tonola, Chiapas and gotten the okay from him for us to come down and visit. Also, Josh, who spoke excellent english with absolutely no accent gave us a ride to the bank and then the bus station, where we hopped a crowded shuttle to Reynosa, Mexico, an large industrial city just across the border from Mission, Texas. This family was so nice, we can't wait to see them when we get back to Texas.
Once in Reynosa we had a long wait in a cold bus station for the next bus to Veracruz. We met several nice spanish speaking people, and Betsy practiced her conversation skills, all the while wishing she had a better teacher in college. After 4-5 hours we finally got on our bus, only to find that they had the air conditioning cranked and the bus was even colder than the freezing cold bus station. Thank god we we heading south, because the first several hours of that bus ride sent us into states of hypothermia. Betsy was quite literally curled up in a ball whimpering about how she couldn't feel her feet. After a few hours of this, the outside temperature finally warmed up enough that we were able to stop shivering and fall asleep.

To Chuck and Lynn

Hi Farm Family-
We've been trying to send you emails rather unsuccessfully for the last couple of weeks. We are both very sad to hear about Spike and hope that Gigi has had a quick recovery. What a Hope that the last few weeks have brought you better things. It must be getting rather quiet around the farm as winter approaches. Let us know if you decide to come join us on the road!!

To the flooded jazz land: New Orleans

Betsy and I wandered further down South, via Missouri and Arkansas’ Ozark mountains. It was pretty dry so their magnificent gorge rivers were low, and the waterfalls were mere trickles, but the mountains, caves and river cliffs were all fantastic. A lot of locals were admiring the nice fall “colors” of browns and yellows; it was pretty, but nothing in comparison to our bonfire of colors in NH. After a few very cold nights in the Ozarks we ended up at the First Eden Baptist Church in Arkansas. We got permission to stay the night from a local parishioner and reaffirmed our permission later when the local sheriffs stopped by for a visit. In the morning we went to the worship service and were greeted by the church-folk with open arms, some real southern hospitality, almost everyone in the church came up and introduced him/herself and shook our hands. They were all quite nice. After a sermon about there being no room for common sense and reason in the Gospel, we were heading further south again (with a minor hornet skirmish just before departure).

The next day proved adventurous. We headed through the northwest corner of Mississippi on our way towards the toe of Louisiana’s boot, New Orleans. Along the way we met some nice folks at restaurants and discussed how veggie oil is pretty cool when diesel prices are at $3.30/gallon. We filled up our tank and reserves on veggie oil from a fried chicken place and drove for several hours, settling down for the night in a National Wildlife Reserve in the bayou of Mississippi. Around ten o’clock we met the park manager, and he told us we couldn’t camp there for the night (the first time this has happened all trip), so we headed out to find another temporary abode. There was a campsite about 15-20 miles away on another highway, so we decided to take a cross road to that highway. The road started out nice enough, and then we started going over some rather rickety bridges, soon enough the pavement turned into a two lane dirt road with some washboards. This twisted through the dark Mississippi woods, past some older shack looking buildings with lots of stuff in the overgrown yards. Eventually the two lane road turned into a one lane road with lots of pot holes and the houses started looking more run down and dark. Scenes from Deliverance and other prejudices about the Deep South swamps crept into our minds as the road started getting rutted and rather affected by erosion. Right around the time that Betsy, who was looking at the map, told us we were heading into a swamp we saw an orange sign signifying that the road was closed. We were only two miles from the highway we wanted to go to, but we had to turn the bus around on the narrow swamp road, being careful not to get caught in the mud on both sides. Otherwise we would have been in a position requiring us to hike through the bayou to go ask for help from one of the unknown creatures living in the shacks (probably very nice people, especially during the light of day). So we eventually made our way all the way back down the dirt path to the dirt road, over the rickety bridges and back onto the highway where we drove around for quite a while more (on paved roads) before finding a nice quiet, well-lit downtown to park the bus in for the night. Needless to say, we’re glad that this doesn’t happen every night.

After the night in bayou hell we made it to New Orleans and the comfort of a rustic little house belonging to my friend Faithe and her friend Woody. Since then we’ve done all the touristy stuff, gone to see some good jazz music, wandered around the French Quarter drinking cheap beer from plastic cups while skirting around drunkards, con-men and scantily clad woman. We’ve had some beignets from Café du Monde and strolled along the Mississippi. New Orleans is slowly recovering after Katrina, mostly due to the tourist district and Tulane coming back on line so quickly. Everywhere you look construction is going on, mostly done by hard working illegal immigrants, who are basically the workforce responsible for rebuilding the city. The return of the St. Charles street car has given a sense of normalcy back to the Big Easy, but all is still not well. The street car only runs halfway down the garden district, after that you have to catch a bus. Many families have moved out of the city, in fact the population is half what it was pre-Katrina. Many who have returned are young people who cannot find jobs in the recovering economy; as a result crime is worse than it has been in a while. East New Orleans was completely decimated by the flood, 19 out of 20 houses were simply bulldozed after the storm. Two years later, perhaps 3 of every 20 houses are there, most people have not bothered to return and rebuild. And why should they, the levees and pump systems are back on line but there is no plan to make them stronger or better. Another hurricane could fill New Orleans up for a second time. There are several signs and protesters around the city shouting out “Make levees, not war.” One wonders what would happen to the future of this city should it be wiped out again.

From here we head on to Texas to store the bus, and then to southern Mexico for a few weeks. We won’t be bringing the computer, so we probably won’t be updating the blog a whole lot, but we’ll still check e-mail occasionally, so keep in touch everyone. We’ll be home on Dec. 15th for Christmas, so hope to see some of you then. In the meantime, we love you all, and don’t worry, we’ll be safe.

Further Down the Mississippi

The title for this blog is a bit misleading as we spent most of the drive between Chicago and St. Louis along the banks of the Illinois River and joined up with the Mississippi shortly before jumping across it (not literally of course- our bus is not much of a jumper) to enter the city. As it's gotten a bit colder the biggest challenge with veggie oil hasn't been acquiring it, but rather getting it warm enough that we can pump it through our filter without blowing our pump's fuse. We've had enough sunny weather that we can usually just let our oil do a bit of sun bathing before filtering. In between visits with family, friends, and friends of the two we still spend some nights parked just the two of us and the bus. Jori cooked us some dinner on the coleman inside the bus one chilly evening. We usually eat right out of the pot to save cleaning additional dishes when we don't have easy access to water or even sometimes when we do.

Right now we're preparing to leave St. Louis after spending several nights in the secured parking lot of Judy and Bert's apartment complex. Judyand Bert lent us their bikes for a few days and that has been our main mode for exporing the city. (Rat- I've thought of you may times in the last several days as we've visited familiar places.) We visited the botanical gardens, a sculpture park, the art museum, and the Arch.

We also spent a day at a place called the City Museum, which is like a giant playground for adults. It is four stories (inside and outside of the building) of caves, slides, tunnels, ball pits, and any number of other things that you can climb, swing, or slide on. You can climb four stories up through wire tunnels, tubes, and occasional stairs to the cockpit of an airplane and then climb higher to slide down a few stories. Needless to say, this is probably not the best place for those

afraid of heights or small spaces.

Into The Windy City

After saying our goodbyes to the Michigan Argues, we drove for at least an hour and a half (haha) before stopping in Ann Arbor to drop by the Black Elk Co-op, a big house inhabited by just over 20 environmentally/politcally minded vegetarians who share chores, meals, the cost of living, and ideas. We ended up spending a few days wandering around Ann Arbor and hanging out at the coop. Special thanks to Kevin who made sure that we made it to the best live music around during our stay.

From Ann Arbor we headed west toward Lake Michigan. We did a bit of hiking in the woods of a local park and discovered a vine hanging from the branches of a great old tree. It dangled about 75 feet down, all the way to the forest floor. We spent the next half an hour swinging on it before heading back to the bus to make bean burritos and then venturing off in search of a place to watch the first World Series game.

The following day we visited Warren Dunes State Park where we climbed some dunes (who knew Michigan had sand dunes??) and took a brief stroll along the coast of Lake Michigan before heading to Chicago. Chicago is the first big city we've stayed over night in with the bus. Finding a suitable place to park it, where we would not get towed away while sleeping was a bit of a challenge. With a bit of advice from a local "meter maid" we managed to find a place to pull in just a few miles from downtown and quite near to a metro line.

We've done a bunch of wandering around the city over the last few days to see sites like the Sears Tower, Millenium Park and all of its sculptures and gardens, and the Navy Pier. Halloween celebrations have been in full swing and we've noticed some crazy costumes, and been able to hear some scary stories from an assortment of story tellers. We also decided to celebrate our 3rd Anniversary by enjoying some of the deep dish pizza Chicago is famous for.

Niagra Falls: Slowly I Turn

After a spending a week w/ Mikey and Sara we headed off for Niagara Falls. We had a bus full of clean laundry and crossed the border into Canada after reassuring them that we weren't harboring any firewood cleverly stashed away in our little blue bus. It was my first visit to "The Falls" and I have to say, they're pretty impressive. We wandered around the waters edge and surrounding sprawl for much of the day and went into the casino to watch the poker and black jack players. We walked back by the falls in the evening to see the lights and caught the first Red Sox vs. Cleveland playoff game in a local bar before driving the bus into a near by nature park to spend the night. We've been spectacularly lucky when looking for places to camp and haven't had any 3 am wake up calls from the local police telling us to move on. Hopefully this trend will continue as we head south.

From Niagara Falls we stopped by the Butterfly Conservatory before driving west through Ontario and spending a few nights on or near Lake Erie. We took some wonderful walks along the shores and had a driftwood fire on the beach one evening. In Port Dover we met Vince Rossi, owner of Rossi's Place and fellow veggie oil-ite. He was kind enough to share some of his already filtered oil as well as some tea, coffee, pie, and conversation with us. We had a bit of delay coming back over the border as the guards brought the dogs aboard the bus to sniff it out. They were even kind enough to leave an abundance of hair scattered about the bus.

We've spent the last several days visiting with Shelia, Dan, Elizabeth, James, and Joey (of the Argue clan) who live in a quiet neighborhood about an hour from Detroit. One of our main activities here has been eating, though we have ventured out to do some bike riding, exploring, and site seeing at the zoo. We're about to pick up some pizza and settle in to watch the Sox game. Tomorrow we'll say hi to Elliot, back from Notre Dame to visit, and then start heading

towards Chicago. Hope all is well for all of you in the non-vagabond world.