In a big country

25 A.D.

[Taking you all of the way back to Thursday, 5^th July...]

The day started badly when I dropped my sunglasses on the bathroom floor and cracked the edge. Fortunately you can only tell if up close and who wants to get up close to me, right? Exactly. I am now a professional nomad and I have to accept that things are going to get broken. I’ve already had to sew up the bottom part of my rucksack and put a few stitches in the side of my sleep sheet. That needle and thread kit I bought from Poundland was sooo worth it!

Not  great deal happened on our last night in New Orleans, apart from a spirited quest around the French Quarter to find somewhere to eat alligator for a reasonable price. We eventually got alligator sausage and fries in a “po boy” sandwich for $9, but the real steal was a 0.5 litre carafe of white wine for $3 – it was probably weaker than the complimentary shampoo provided by the French Market Inn, but refreshing nonetheless. We were very disciplined and held back on going for the full litre for $5.

An aside –Top Travellers Tip #1 – instead of leaving clothes hanging up in a hotel room for days at a time, use the hair dryer that’s provided!

The next morning (Friday) we stashed our luggage at the hotel and went back to the market so that Tim could buy “tat” – I won’t say what he bought in case they’re intended as Christmas presents for anyone who's reading! We then called at the Cafe Du Monde because Tim wanted to sample the benaits that it’s famous for and which were featured in yet another episode of – yawn – Man Versus Food. Benaits are basically pastry-type things with tonnes of icing sugar thrown over them. I, on the other hand, tried an alternative morning stimulant - anything to shut out the endless references to Man Versus Food!

[Relax, mum, it's just sugar.]

The entire afternoon was spent locked in further plotting and planning for the route ahead – the people in Starbucks looked on curiously, wondering whether we were actually going to buy something. We finally left The Big Sleazy under one hell of a thunderstorm and got a glimpse of what it must have been like when Katrina struck. We drove out of the city on the good old Greyhound, the highway being a bridge flanked by the extensive Louisiana swampland on both sides. As the night wore on we passed through towns such as Lafayette and Alexandria that probably have their pretty spots, but looked forlorn by night. Up until Shriveport, where we changed buses, there was a distinct odour of urine seeping out of the air vents and we ticked off another Greyhound shocker on our already extensive list. Like it isn’t hard enough to sleep on these mobile freak shows anyway!

Upon arriving at Dallas, we saw people everywhere, some of them standing, a few of them sitting, and plenty of them lying around asleep – it was like a BA strike at Heathrow. Tim even took a picture of some old swamp warrior who was snoring in front of us. The journey to Fort Worth was brief and I have to say it was the best terminal we’d been to so far – just a shame we would only be there for a total of ten minutes! It should also be noted that, even though the buses stink of human waste, the Greyhound staff are getting more professional and accommodating the further west we get.

After changing into our “day gear” and brushing our teeth in the Gents, we were met by our latest couchsurfing host, Susan, who’d been kind enough to answer our distress call and save us paying the high hotel prices in Fort Worth. Although she lived 30 minutes drive away in the north of the city, she was good enough to meet us at 7 a.m. and then shuttle us around to get acquainted with the area before dropping us off to fend for ourselves.

Fort Worth is a small city, but it’s not very compact and you need some kind of motorised transport to get around. Visitors go to three specific areas – the Stockyards, Downtown Fort Worth, and the Arts and Cultural District – which form a triangle with two miles between each point. Before we did anything though, we realised that we had just done an overnighter and were in dire need of a coffee, so we walked to...errr...a drive-thru and got our caffeine fix and a delicious breakfast mcmuffiny sandwichy thing.

Fort Worth is a “western American city” and The Stockyards is where it displays its cowboy heritage. There’s saloon-style steakhouses, places to buy authentic cowboy clothes, and an old fashioned railroad train that runs to the next town (if Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid don’t get to it first!) We enjoyed a long look around the area, although the effect was somewhat lost after having already been to Nashville. However, I was excited to hear that the chances of spotting a rattlesnake in the area were pretty high...but we didn’t.

The main draw of The Stockyards is the twice daily drive of longhorn cattle through the area. We were going to catch the 11.30 drive and because of the number of people lining the streets, we took our excellent spot by the kerb 25 minutes before time (it was in the shade – Texas so far was just as hot as anywhere else we’d been). Tim eagerly discussed his plans to dash out in the centre of the road when the longhorns approached and take various pictures before dashing back into line to let the procession pass. However, a woman with a loudspeaker arrived and put paid to his plans when she stated over and over that everyone should remain on the kerb for the entire drive. After such a big build up, I expected hundreds of longhorns for as far as the eye could see, but instead the cowboys drove about eight of them past us, a-whooping and a-hollering as they went. The longhorns for their part looked thoroughly pissed off with it all, as did the large bull who was tethered to the railings and which mums and dads took piccies of their kids upon. I offered to take Tim’s picture, but he wasn’t having it. I think he was still put out from that woman with the loudspeaker.

Tourists get around Fort Worth on “Molly The Trolley”...or so we thought. When we went to leave The Stockyards, out of all the masses of people who’d watched the cattle drive, we were the only two at the bus stop. Did everyone else know something we didn’t? They probably all just had cars. When Molly did arrive, we bought our day passes for $3 and sat down. No one else got on. In fact, the driver, got off and went across the square to talk on his phone, leaving us with the keys in the ignition. We considered stealing it, but decided against the risk of deportation.

When the driver finally returned, he dropped us off in Downtown Fort Worth. The sun was really beating down now and we noticed a distinct lack of drinking fountains. Upon entering the visitor centre and asking where they were, the lady behind the desk gave us two free bottles of ice cold water. Nice. Apart from Sundance Square (yes, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid really did pass through Fort Worth), we didn’t see a great deal out of the ordinary while downtown, but there were some fantastic water gardens, part of which were used in the filming of Logan’s Run (an excellent movie).

A few little facts about Texas:

• It used to be its own country until about 1840.
• Its nickname is “the lone star state” after the lone star on its flag.
• Car dealerships can only be open on Saturday or Sunday, but not both days.
• You cannot buy a drink on voting day.

At mid-afternoon we took the trolley across to the third zone – the Arts and Culture District, but again we remembered that we’d done an all-nighter, coupled with a busy morning and afternoon’s sightseeing. In fact, I was nodding off on the two minute ride across town. Therefore we headed straight to the botanic gardens and scouted round for a quiet spot to get a bit of shuteye. Not wanting to crush any of the pesky crickets or gigantic grasshoppers we kept spotting, we found some rough wooden benches in the shade a little off the main track and lay down to see what it was like to be proper hobos. Believe it or not, I actually slept. The next day I decided my goals should be to eat out of a trashcan and drink meths.

It took a while for us to find our way out of the botanic gardens, possibly we were a bit groggy from the nap, but they were quite extensive, complete with big pond featuring terrapins. There was also a wedding taking place and I would have said nice day for it, but the weather was turning increasingly windy. Susan had told us they hadn't had rain there for weeks, so if anyone was bound to summon it in, it was two daft Englishmen. Also, this was twister country and Susan told us another tale about a tornado ripping through the building she worked in and knocking over an office wall that crushed her desk (fortunately she’d already finished for the day). However, the adverse weather turned out to be just a bit of a windy spell, and the blazing sun returned soon after.

By the time we reached the area where the museums were clustered, it was gone 5 p.m. and they were all closed. Therefore we sent out another distress call for Susan to come and collect us and take us north to her house, which she shares with two cats called Indiana Jones and Mistletoe. Back in Curzon Road medical centre, the nurse told me that if I wasn’t going to get a rabies shot then I shouldn’t stroke anything – man, woman or beast – while I was abroad, but these two kitties were too cute to ignore. And Susan said they’d had all their jabs. She also mercifully said we could shower before dinner, though given what we’d been through in the last 24 hours, she may have insisted if we’d said we didn’t need to!

Texas is M-A-S-S-I-V-E and we drove for ages to get to our dinner destination. It was a funky place called Babes (a family joint, dear readers, nothing more sinister) where they do great fried chicken, but it was so popular that we couldn’t stand the hour’s wait for a table. Therefore we headed a few more miles down the highway to The Golden Corral and discovered somewhere we really should go more often – an all-you-can-eat-place! There were loads of things to pile high on your plate (though unfortunately they didn’t offer doggy bags). I was so thirsty that I’d downed two big cups of Mountain Dew before I'd realised it was choc full of caffeine. Oh well, who needs sleep, eh?

When we got back, Tim and I upheld our part of the couchsurfing bargain. Susan had had her carpets cleaned that afternoon, so her furniture was piled up around the home and she needed two big, strong Laurel-and-Hardy types to move it all back to its original places. So, with the clock having struck 10, we picked up various items and put them where they needed to go, adjusting things if they looked better in other positions – late night interior design made fun! Then it was time for us to retire to the guest bedroom, gently move the cats off the queen size bed, then get the decent slumbers that Greyhound had denied us.

Next morning the plan was to wake up at 7.45 to skype our parents because it was dad’s birthday. We’d timed it to coincide with the start of the mens’ singles final at Wimbledon (sorry, mum, for reminding you about Murray’s loss!) Unfortunately I was awoken a couple of minutes before the alarm by an old enemy from my past who I thought was long conquered – Tim’s snoring! It wasn’t exactly raising the roof, but it was definitely more than simple heavy breathing. As children sharing a room I had struggled for many years with this breathy foe, especially being a light sleeper in those days. But what am I complaining about? I’ve shared a room with Our Kid for 25 out of the 26 nights we’ve been on the road and not heard a peep out of him up until now. Sorry, Timbo!

Susan made us a great breakfast and then offered to show us around Dallas – two cities for the price of one! If Fort Worth is a Western city, then Dallas is definitely an Eastern one – more about money and modernism than traditional frontier living. Of particular note on our journey round the city was the large cattledrive monument, the drive-thru farmer’s market and the grassy knoll where Kennedy was assassinated, along with the bookstore depository he was allegedly shot from (this blog is certainly not the place to get into conspiracy theories!)

I should cut this entry short now, as I’m writing it on the bus and the netbook juice is about to run out. Just to say that Susan was an amazing couchsurfing host who looked after us extremely well during our great Texan adventure and we’ll be writing her an excellent reference for future surfers to check out (not that she doesn’t already have plenty of great references). As for us, well, we were heading for Albuquerque and yet another timezone. But just as our bus was leaving the terminal, a big smile crossed mine and Tim’s lips as, finally, Texas got it’s rain.

 [Thrilled to be back on the Greyhound.]