May 24, 2008

We spend one more day in New Orleans and take a swamp tour of the New Orleans Bayou. I find the calling I have been searching for: professional alligator photographer.

And then we hit the Bayou Boogaloo for round two.

And then we attend an African American art opening. The paintings are phenomenal and a DJ spins hip hop in the back room. Dig.

May 23, 2008

The day’s activities include: various neighborhoods, pralines, beignets, sausage and alligator cheese cake, the Bayou Boogaloo, the Mississippi Rover, trolley trains, Jackson Park, and an amazing jazz benefit show.

Mississippi River

Fountain

beignet before

beignet after

Ethan and Andrea, trolley

May 22, 2008

Campsite without the tent; dock in the background.

Ethan with the car with the tent inside; dock not in background.

Sloppy photography while driving.

New Orleans welcomes us with Andrea, Ethan’s friend, an instrumental band at the Maple Leaf Bar, and good times all around.

May 21, 2008

We say goodbye to the Econolodge in San Antonio and make our way to Louisiana. I realize that bathroom poet’s live in Louisiana.

Ethan does the day’s driving and I read Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet”. It is quite good and I recommend it to really anyone out there.

“And to be among conditions that work us, that set us before big natural things from time to time, is all we need.”

“I feel as though I had been sleeping for years or had been lying in the lowest hold of a ship that, loaded with heavy things, sailed through strange distances– — Oh to climb up on deck once more and feel the winds and the birds, and to see how the great, great nights come with their gleaming stars…”

We drive for a short while and our Garmin GPS takes us down a road with a bridge that is no longer accessible. The homes, light, grasses, and sky that are presented before us are quite beautiful.

We arrive at our campground in St. Martinsville and the humidity in unbelievable; it feels like the rain forests of Costa Rica. Without moving, one’s cotton shirt becomes soaked in sweat.

We make a pasta dinner, take cold showers, and sleep atop our Thermarest sleeping pads wearing only our boxers.

May 20, 2008

Good morning.

We head to Alejandro’s parents restaurant and meet his father who reminds me much of my father: warm, kind, funny, talkative; a true people person.

We have a traditional Mexican breakfast: scrambled eggs mixed with meat, onion, and pepper, wrapped in flour torillas with special, homemade salsa. Unbelievably delicious. We drink homemade fruit smoothies and I cannot begin to describe how good they are. A big thank you to Mr. Cartegana and his great staff!

We drive around the locations where Alejandro has been making his Lost Rivers and Topografia work, and then have a more formal but laid back interview at Fototeca, where Alejandro works. Both make for a winning combination and we look forward to presenting this content in multimedia form later this summer.

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In the afternoon we see more of Monterrey and it’s landscape.

We eat at a favorite restaurant of Alejandro’s and Chrissie’s, El Torito (The Little Bull). We order Tecate beers and a plate of meat, onion, pepper, salsa, and flour tortillas. Again, the food is remarkable and we eat until we simply can eat no more!

In the evening, we drive to El Mirador, a large hilltop in Monterrey where young people come to make out while American music plays through green speakers. It is quite a spektacle. We make portraits of Alejandro and see another epic sunset. Alejandro says we are good luck because today is one of the best cloud days of the year.

We pick up Chrissie and head for helado (ice cream). The amounts are plentiful and we cannot finish it all!

Our bus was scheduled to leave at 10:30PM and arrive in San Antonio at 4:30AM, but in reality does not leave until 11:15PM and does not arrive until 6:30AM. Make sure to allow an hour or two leeway if you ever head South of the border on a bus.

Ethan and I check into an Econolodge at 6:45AM and sleep for 3 hours until checkout at 11AM.

Alejandro, Crissie, and the Cartegenas: thank you for everything!

note: Days 14, 15, 16, and 17 are sparse in details because I am writing them days after they have occurred and on less than 2 hours of sleep while riding a bus from San Antonio, Texas to Monterrey, Mexico.

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May 18 and 19, 2008

Ethan and I wake up around 9AM and already Lynn is buzzing about preparing a feast: pancakes, waffles, sausage, bacon, potatoes, and orange juice. Sean wakes up a short while later and tackles making the pancakes in various shapes such as airplanes and teradactles.

We eat, digest, lounge, laugh, talk about the events of the previous evening, and pack up to hit the road. Lynn makes a color polaroid of us that perhaps it will be on her Flick (please?). We say our goodbyes and thank everyone for being superb hosts. We had only planned to stay in San Diego 1 night but it was so great we had to stay 2.

We depart San Diego around noon and drive for 21 hours straight. Yes, 21 hours straight with only stops for gas, once to eat dinner, and once to eat a much needed breakfast that would end up destroying our stomachs.

Ethan and I take turns throughout the 1,300 plus mile journey. I drive the first leg of the trip, he drives the second leg, and we alternate the last 2 hours every 30 minutes due to exhaustion. During the night Ethan manages to avoid hitting what is either a bobcat or a coyote. Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz, and Cut Copy give us much needed energy during the final 2 hours of driving.

We arrive in San Antonio and make our way to the Greyhound station to purchase bus tickets for Monterrey, Mexico. With a couple of hours to spend before our 2:05PM departure, we walk around the downtown river front, see the Alamo, drink iced teas, bootleg wireless, and grab a sandwich at Subway.

Behind schedule, our bus finally begins to board at 2:50PM and it is a complete mess. We are the last two people allowed on board before the bus closes it’s doors.

Ethan sits next to a woman wearing a black blouse, sea blue skirt, and small, thick hoop earings. Her skin is fair, smooth, and her hair tones of gray. She looks to be in her early 50s. I sit next to an older woman, perhaps in her late 60s. She wears a floral skirt with dark greens and desert oranges, a shamrock milkshake green blouse, and the viens on her hands rise and fall like small, reversed canyons. She takes off her patchwork jacket. “Caliente?” I ask. “Si… mucho,” she responds with a smile.

We arrive in Monterrey around 11PM, meet Alejandro and his wife, Chrissie, make our way back to her parents home in the mountainside 45 minutes away. It is simply beautiful. They give us a warm welcome, we chat on top of the roof about our lives and photography, and the city of Monterrey illuminates the sky in the distance.

May 17, 2008

We wake up, eat breakfast at a local restaurant a short ways down the street, come back to the apartment, and then make our way down to a beach where months earlier there was a fatal great white shark attack.

Later in the day we eat meat, fish, and shrimp tacos that are unbelievable. In the evening we head to a hip hop show where Blackalicious and Pigeon John produce an experience of epic proportions. This was also caused by copious amounts of alcohol being graciously fed to us by Sean and Tom.

May 16, 2008

Drive to San Diego to stay with wonderful friends, Lynn and Sean, from college. We arrive in the evening, Lynn make’s a backyard fire, and we make smores. Yes.

May 15, 2007

I pack up my tent at 9AM, make oatmeal and drink orange juice for breakfast, and head down the famous Route 1 as long as I can.

In Noyo I head East along Route 20 and pick up Ethan at 2:30PM in Sacramento, We drive and meet Timothy Briner around 6PM.

With Timothy, we drive to Samuel P. Taylor State Park, toss the football around, and buy hot dogs, firewood, and beer. A couple of meat and alcohol delights later, we find great insight in Timothy’s project, Boonville USA, which he has been making for the past 9 months. Only 2 days ago did Timothy finish the project.

Soon he will meet his girlfriend in San Diego and together they will drive around the US for 1 month. Sounds like a great way to end an epic 9 month journey filled with photographic and personal exploration.

May 14, 2008

I leave Florence, take Route 101 South, and first drive through Oregon Dune National Recreation Park.  The dunes are massive and at times literally stop feet away from the highway.

I stop for gas along Route 101 and the gas attendant, a spunky woman in her late 30s, tells me that I need to stop in Port Orford.  I take her advice, stop, and make postcard pictures.

I continue along Route 101 and drive through Redwood Nation Forest.  As one would assume, the trees are massive and stretch for hundreds of feet into the air.  The tree trunks are bigger than Ethan’s Mazda Protege.

I take Route 101 to where it intersects with Route 1.  The first part of Route 1 is by far the windiest stretch of road I have ever been on in my life; 10 and 20 mph switchbacks for maybe 20 miles or so.

I finally make my way to where Route 1 and the coast meet each other, and am greeted by a Top 10 sunset; beautiful.  Postcard pictures, wide eyes, and deep inhales and exhales.

I arrive in Union Beach Landing around 8:45PM and set up camp in the afterglow of the sun.  I pay $10 for a campsite and sleep 20 feet away from where the Pacific Ocean meets the 70 feet cliffside.