New Orleans and Beyond

And so we left Enterprise, Alabama to continue our journey west. Good thing too, because a few days later tornadoes touched down in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, all of which we had just finished driving through. Our first stop: New Orleans. It was 80 degrees and muggy when we arrived. Knowing we only had about 12 hours to check things out, we decided to head to the French Quarter. 

We were not disappointed. The architecture and overall feel of this section of the city was truly impressive. In many ways it felt as though we were in a different country. 

We had a fried seafood dinner overlooking Bourbon Street, caught some great live music and had dessert in a fancy hotel where we were able to brush our teeth in the restrooms before bed! As for sleeping quarters, Black Beauty again was the ticket, this time in a public lot along the Mississippi River. Go Tom Sawyer! 

We woke up refreshed and had a small breakfast in a distinctly French café. 

Bourbon Street

After that we booked it across Texas. Literally. We were able to drive nearly 1200 miles in two days, which is a lot for us. 

Reminds us of a Sean Denning-Barnes photo.

We passed through Houston and then spent the night in yet another Walmart parking lot west of San Antonio. West Texas was desolate yet beautiful, and the mountains on the distant horizon revived in us our longing for the wondrous west coast. 

After the long drive across the lonestar state we hit El Paso and also caught a glimpse of one of the most violent places on earth, Ciudad Juarez (if you don’t believe me, gooooogle it). 

At one point about a year ago during the planning phase of our trip I envisioned us driving all the way to South America, and although other, braver souls have indeed taken this route, it was not to be for us. 

El Paso, Texas

We headed north as the sun was setting and arrived in New Mexico in time to locate a sleeping spot for the night, this time on a mountain top overlooking the White Sands Missile Range. We pulled up to a campground only to find it closed. Luckily, the grounds caretaker lived at the entrance and said we could park, free of charge, in his lot. The only catch was that the winds rolling over and down the mountain were gusting to what seemed like 60mph. I think we were probably around 7,000 feet elevation, and we could hear the winds coming for at least 30 seconds before they hit our truck. 

Needless to say it was not the best night’s sleep as there were times I almost felt like the whole truck was going to blow over. We woke early to the wind and decided to just hit the road. We figured we could cook up breakfast at our next stop – White Sands National Monument. After about an hour drive through the barren missile range we arrived at White Sands. The scenery here is simply stunning and entirely unexpected. The rolling white dunes reminded us of the Alaskan winter tundra in a way, and locals were indeed sledding on the dunes to boot! Did you know a few miles north of here is where the U.S. government detonated the first atomic bomb?

Looks totally blue screen edited, right?

Love the contrast of sky and sand.

After a couple hours of hiking and horsing around, we left to drive further north to meet old Bethel friends in Santa Fe and Albuquerque... But we're out of time on our way to the Grand Canyon so we'll try to post Part II as soon as we can in the next few days!