Big Texan 4th of July

When it was time to set off, we took the westbound route towards Texas. Once you arrive to Texas, the cars get even bigger, speed limits rise and the bullet holes in the road signs multiply.

Galveston at the Gulf of Mexico is a medium size Texan coastal city. It's a beach resort designed for cars and their drivers. If you're walking at the beach boulevard without a car, you'll propably be honked at for being silly.

Schlitterbahn is a waterpark which has a weird fetish for german language. It's so popular that even the amoeba, that eats peoples brains in these type of water installments, can't dilute the desire to have a schlitterrific time here.

 

Houston we have a problem with the traffic.

While we were heading to Austin, one clear sign of us getting closer was when the co-driver stopped navigating and started drinking booze from a paper bag.

So what are all these people doing here? Are they waiting for the president to arrive or is there about to be a perfect solar eclipse? Even better. There are millions of bats about to leave from under the bridge.

Some US Army soldiers were refreshing their combat training skills at Austin at the eve of 4th of July.

 4th of July celebrations works as an excuise for some to wear a gape instead of pants.

 

Austin's 6th street was the party hub for the restless souls. Whole buildings all the way to the rooftops on the street are dedicated to live-music and clubbin'. The party on this street doesn't stop by itself, so police will empty the street when it's time to go to sleep.

Group pictures with random people never fail.

Massive fireworks were displayed at the end of the 4th of July evening. Thousands of people were gathered to the shores of the Colorado River to have their paper bag beers and some picnic -type eatables. Also some patriotic wind instrument music was played at the backround. Very American moment indeed.

Amarillo in the northern part of Texas has a restaurant called Big Texan Steak House. This place should have a Michelin star, because it boldly fights back against the global vegetarian uprising. It sure is wrong in many ways, but sometimes it's better to embrace the wrong things in life in order to fully understand them.

The canyon of Palo Duro lies in the panhandle of Texas. It's the second largest canyon in the US and it's weirdly hidden from it's surroundings. You'll be able to witness it's magnificence just when you're about to reach it's edge. When you reach the bottom of the canyon, there's some wonderful wildlife spotting available for you nature lovers.

Nawlins

From Memphis we moved south towards New Orleans. Along the route was a small town called Vicksburg. According to the research it had some potential of being a great destination. Unfortunately you shouldn't hope too much from every stop you take.

If I get a comment someday, I hope it's going to be to this post telling me what kind of fish is this in the pic and what killed it.  

Top two sights and the only sights in Vicksburg were the Casino Boat and a battlefield drive-thru. The Casino Boat is a nice venue, but be aware that the doormen are all dyslexic and can't read english from other countries driving licences if the date of birth is mentioned in a slightly different spot then in the local one. Ancient battlefield drive-thru is like a wildlife park / safari without any animals. Both attractions I enjoyed very much.

Vicksburg served as a nice time-out before the next epic party capital of the Deep South, Nawlins.

If you were looking for a nice relaxing city holiday with your grandma, you made a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Nawlins is a place for the once-in-a-lifetime party pilgrimige. We had no trouble with this fact and that's why this blog post contains mostly party related incidents.

Just like Katrina did few years ago, we flooded the street of New Orleans with our bold party attitude.

Epic party dudes like the Green Goblin served as an inspiration to us all. We learned our moves from the very best US has to offer.

When you spot Akon on the dance floor, you're propably just about to have sex.

The feeling when you realize you're competing with a guy who swallows swords.

If we say regular toast is like a paper plane, Muffuletta is the space rocket of all sandwiches. It's contains more ham then an average family has on their christmas table.

In the streets of Nawlins you are unstoppable. Even the traffic cones serve for your amusement.

Honky tonks of Tennessee

After the Blue Ridge Parkway and after a city called Asheville, which is on the south end of the Parkway, the road got pretty boring. It's basically highway traffic, trucks, gas stations and hamburger joints hundreds of miles until you reach Memphis.

At long drives like this you must learn the art of driving with cruise control. When you reach the experienced level you can do it like this - without legs and from the backseat. 

The best thing about American food is that everything comes in a form of junk food. Even a salad is served with a couple of pizza slices.

A vacuumed pickle was propably not the smartest choice of snack from the gas station, but at least you might enjoy the junk food a little bit more after this.

About halfway from Asheville to Memphis was a city called Nashville, which is known as the music city of the US. Some other city might disagree with this statement, but it sure had plenty of musical shit going on.

In fact, the city is so musical, that some people give away free music for people who have no music.

During daytime, the best activity in Nashville is a water bottle race down the steps of a governmental building. The trick is to have just the right amount of water in your bottle to have the perfect momentum.

The best activity during night-time is honky tonking, which is just an other word for getting wasted.

There was a certain honky tonk dance, for which every local knew the steps. It was almost as common as diabetes in these neck of the woods.

There is no such thing as collective responsibility. Someone left the trunk open at the parking lot of Graceland.

Graceland, the museum/home of Elvis Presley covers Elvis's personal stuff as extensively as Louvre in Paris covers the art and history of France.  

Baseball games are an exception to the rule, that the focus should be on the Budweiser, and not on the ball.

Elvis might be the king of rock'n'roll, but horsemask is the king of all masks.

Stupid street drinking rules don't apply at the highstreet of downtown Memphis. The citizens have this one street to drink freely from open containers. Now I understand what it means when they say US is the land of the free.

How would you feel about wearing a blue wig, playing drums in the middle of a dance floor and getting the attitude from a black dominatrix? If you're into that sort of action, Memphis has just the right nightclub for you.

Blue Ridge Parkway Drive-by and Shots at Virginia Tech

When it comes to nature and scenery, The Blue Ridge Parkway across the Appalachian mountains is one of the best drives in the States. Even a urinating pic taken here could be made as a beautiful painting.

This would be a better story if our car actually broke down, but it was too perfect to do that. Anyway, we were mentally prepared and quietly hoping for the car to broke down.

There was some ridiculously awesome nature sights along the way. For example the Natural Bridge blew ones mind. Another thing to see here are the caverns, which descend deep into the mountains. The guides have some cute tricks on their sleeves, so don't be afraid of the dark.

If you listen to the nature and explore the forests respectively, you just might be so lucky to spot some wildlife. Most of the wildlife spotted was splattered across the hood of our car, but some were spotted alive and well.

If you happen to find yourself hungry in the Appalachian wilderness there are no Waffle House or Dunkin' Donuts here, so be sure to bring your survival kit with you. This kit should include at least few packs of beef jerky and some soda cans.

There is a dilemma included in the curves of the Parkway drive. The more fun you have with the curves as a driver, the more you wake lynching mentality among the fellow passengers.

We spent an interesting night at a small student town called Blacksburg. It's known for the Virginia Tech University, which is known for one of the horrific massacres in modern times. First impression of this town was rather dull and quiet, but after some strolling around the city, our party detector suddenly started blinking and beeping. We ended up in a student party and after the first drink, we couldn't find a way to stop consuming alcohol.

We had some difficulties getting back to our motel after the party, because our motel was tens of miles away and the town didn't have any available cabs. Hitching a ride from a pizza taxi by ordering a pizza to our motel didn't work out so well. Finally we saw a vehicle parked on the side of the road with people in it and decided to pay them some bucks to get us back to the motel. One could think, that this was the end of it, but we were possessed by evil forces and started drinking again at the motel parking lot.

Next morning we acted like nothing had happened and life moved on with a headache.

Appalachian Mtns are not all about scenic views of forests, there are also peaks to conquer. This was said to be the highest, 2037 meters. It's worth visiting, there's lots of fog and coffee to be bought at the top.