Memphis, Clarksdale and Nashville

I was expecting Memphis to be all about blues music and Elvis. Upon arrival in the tourist areas it was the case. But driving around the rest of the city I realised that Project Pat and Three Six Mafia portray a truer representation of what Memphis is really like. We didn't run into any trouble but there are a lot of poor neighborhoods around and trouble wouldn't be too hard to find. At night we were sleeping in our van in a quiet area that looked to be in one of the nicer parts of town. We were woken up by the police at 2am with their lights on and torches being shinned through our windows. I jumped out in my boxers to tell them that there were no signs saying that we can't park there. They said that it was too dangerous for us to be there and we were lucky that we hadn't been car jacked. We were told to follow them and they would find somewhere safer for us to park for the night. I drove around in my boxers following the cops doing laps of the city for a while. In the end they led me into the police station car park. They told me to park amongst the cop cars because it was the only safe place for us to be. I later found out the Memphis is the most dangerous city in America at the moment. They have Melbourne trams in Memphis. This is Elvis's kitchen where he fattened up towards the end of his career. There were so many good cars around.

New Orleans

After a big drive across Texas we finally crossed into Louisiana and made our way to New Orleans. This place is hot!! It was around 35c while we were there. It made for a sticky nights sleep in the van. But this city is great. It's got awesome food, great culture and very vibrant nightlife. You can go out and see live jazz and brass bands any night of the week. I spent a bit of time driving around the 9th ward and other areas devastated by Katrina. It was crazy to see all the half standing houses still being lived in while the rest of the neighbourhood had moved on and had their houses demolished. I was really pleased to see that Brad Pit had started a project to rebuild whole areas with state of the art eco friendly houses for people that lost their homes. The houses all looked different yet kept the same weatherboard look that that you see all around that part of the world. Lots of writers had visited there and there were a lot of places to paint. I didn't have a lot of time on my hands but it seemed pretty chill and there were no shortage of spots.

Utah to Texas

Did a really big couple of days driving from Utah, through Colorado and New Mexico and down into Texas. While in Colorado we drove to these strange, really old indian villages that are carved into cliff faces on top of a mountain. We could see Aspen in the distance and we were around the same altitude. We decided to spend a night in Roswell, the strange town with a so called Alien sighting in the 40s. What a weird place. The have really overdone the alien thing. We went to the alien museum which was more like a school project. Half of the buildings in town were boarded up and the other half sold dusty alien souvenirs. We also went to Banderra, Texas which is the cowboy capital of the world. It was good drinking in the pubs with the cowboys in the 20 gallon cowboy hats and checking out the local rodeo. In the pic below there is a platform in the background that they make a pony walk up and jump off into an overground pool. They call it Aqua Pony. I think the animal rights people would have a field day. If there is one city you should check out in Texas it has to be Austin. There is a really good music scene there with free gigs in most pubs in town. The bars are packed every night of the week, there is great food all over town and a general good vibe.

Road Runner Country

After the chaos of Las Vegas we headed north to Utah. Utah is a hidden jem. Not a lot of people visit there but there are some of the best national parks in the country. It was like being stuck in a real life Road Runner cartoon. I managed to get a few quick pieces done along the way.

Desert Life

We found that everything we wanted to do and see meant that we had to zig zag our way across the USA. So we headed south through Death Valley towards Las Vegas. Death Valley gets it's name from the extreme conditions that you experience there. You go way below sea level and experience some ridiculously hot temperatures and not much grows or lives there. The place is a barron wasteland. We passed through some bizarre little towns and I stumbled across a great little skatepark in the middle of nowhere.



Arriving in Vegas was strange. We drove for 7 hours through desert without really seeing much to being surrounded by Castles, Fake NYC, Paris, Venice and all sorts of tacky buildings and monuments. We pulled into a hotel car park jumped out the van and went straight for the pool. We ended up sleeping in the van in various hotel car parks and using their facilities over the next few days. It's much cheaper that way.










Like most cities in the USA, once you get out of the central part of town it starts to get a bit dodgy. I don't know what was going on here, but they were up to no good.