A few days late.

Hey guys,

This blog was written a few days ago, but we've been away from internet contact for awhile.

New Orleans was a grand place. I loved every second of the time we spent there and like Aaron said in his blog: the hotel was amazing. The town itself features a wealth of squat, loaf shaped dogs (corgis, dachsunds, etc.) and even the dogs belonging to street people were glossy and well-kept.
We met a man in a bar that organizes a Husky rescue in New Orleans, and he has his two with him. Here’s a picture of Aaron dancing with Frankie Blue Eyes, at his owners insistence.



There are a lot of odd people in New Orleans, which I’m certain comes as a shock to no one. We saw overly tanned twin-guys that looked like Gary Busey, drunken swaying karaoke singing prostitutes, old men in flowered hats and a lady with fish scales tattooed up and down the entirety of her legs.
One day we walked down to the Garden District to find Jim Russell’s Record store, which turned out to be closed. We did get a chance to stop in a place called the Abstract Bookstore and Café, which appeared from the outside to be a bookstore or café, but inside was filled with chain-smoking drug addicts who smelled slightly of diaper. Turns out that the Abstract is a non-profit center that serves the homeless drug addicted males of New Orleans and we, essentially, walked into their living room. This (understandably) upset one of the gentlemen, who attempted to express his displeasure vocally but was having trouble doing so, as he apparently lacked a tongue or any ability to speak a language.
So that was nice.

I think we could have easily stayed a few more days, but I kept spending money and we had to get the hell out of there before I spent up my college fund.

We drove from there to Austin, where we stayed with Adam and Karyna. They took us to four amazing bars, one of which was in a haunted hotel and we also saw the Hangover at the Alamo Drafthouse. If you haven’t heard of this place, it is essentially a really nice movie theater with a full bar and restaurant and service at your seat. I kinda fell in love with it.
I got to sleep on a couch with Maxwell (one of Karyna’s giant cats) for the first time in over a year, and I spent a good hour rubbing his chin this morning.

It’s notable that upon our arrival in Texas were were almost run off the road by a total maniac with a super-disturbing facial disfigurement (it involves enormous amounts of purple and swelling and jiggling, and trust me, that’s all you want to know).

I’m loving the desert landscape and vegetation as we drive through West Texas, and I’m really excited that the moon is getting full. It ought to make for some gorgeous pictures out in Carlsbad and White Sands AND I can’t wait for Aaron’s transformation into a werewolf to be complete

Right now I’m watching a cloud that looks like a killer whale meander across the giant Texas sky and there is not a chainsaw or mutant hillbilly in sight. All is right with the world.

-Laura

(In the intervening days we've been to Carlsbad Caverns, which was amazing. We camped under the moon on on huge deserted stretch of national land and saw the bat flight and walked the caverns. We took a two mile hike today that didn't seem like it was going to be strenuous, but we did not factor in the fact that it was 96 degrees, uphill both ways in the direct sun and we hadn't eaten since 9:30 in the morning.
We then went to Roswell and saw the 4th of July/UFO celebration parade, ate some nasty Mexican food and I barfed 4 times on the side of the highway... onto my own boots, no less. I feel better now and we are going to spend the night in Roswell at a posh joint called the International 9 Motel.)