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As I wrote my 'last' blog post yesterday, i was overcome by the feeling that his was truly the end of the journey.  I watched through a load of video we grabbed whilst on the road and it made me really miss the open road. Looking through the shaky, amateur footage I was reminded of the absolute beauty that surrounded us for the best part of the trip, the freedom of the lifestyle we experienced and the great times, rough and smooth we shared. I put the shots together into an iMovie, which makes a fitting end to my blog. I must admit I shed a tear whilst watching it through.  Its a mix of nostalgic longing, the fact that we both got really attached to that car, which now sits dead by the side of a road in Mexico, and the fact that Jon Hopkins music is powerful and emotive. The first track is jakarta, American Dream, I picked Jon Hopkins next because Danny wanted to go see him in Mexico, we were tired out and thinking about money, but not going to that concert is a tiny regret I have, this compensates somewhat. 

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Final Destination

We got back into London on a grey October morning, after flying through the night without sleeping jet lag was inevitable. With this I suffered about a week, 9 weeks away it seems is most definitely long enough for your sleeping and eating patterns to alter - 5 to 8 hours. One the way home I watched a movie called London - The Modern Babylon. Its a great film and was a great way to ease me back into general society, championing everything that make London great.  A decent full english breakfast was very welcome at the airport, and in the next few days Fish and Chips and a Sunday Roast confirmed to me that we were really back in London.  The first few days back I found myself looking at people in the street with a smile up on my face, as had become the norm for me during my time in the states.  This was England however and people are not meant to interact with people unless very drunk. The way people deal with eye contact is to quickly look at their feet or mobile phone. This became most obvious in at my new Yoga studio. Maybe 30 people standing in a space in complete silence fixated on phones. I looked around, I am clearly strange, I am clearly a bit mental. Yes, one thing I had not prepared myself for was that London England is another new city on my list, another new culture I am being thrust into.  Things are different here, and maybe more relevant, is that I am different here. I make a pact with myself to keep looking at strangers and talking to the odd random, whether they think I'm a loony or not. 

Its great to back here working doing something I enjoy, London is a truly great city. You can do pretty much anything and see so many different things here. I notice how busy the streets are and how high population density is. There are people of all different colours, shapes, sizes religions and creeds here. There is great energy everywhere, I can feel it coming out of the pavements, as I walk around I feel myself getting caught up with the pace, the rush, the grind. I decide I will not get caught up in this for as long as possible, I must try to keep some of the Road Animal vibe alive inside of me.  London is open to your opinions and your way of life.  Its a liberating feeling that you can be anything and talk to almost anyone ( with whom you are acquainted) about anything here. Something you become aware of in the states is that you need to think before you speak.  The wrong words about the government, view points on sexuality, politics, or beliefs in the wrong city could seriously offend. Tolerance hangs in the air of London.

Our next holiday is booked to Spain, for a friends wedding, the best way to beat post holiday blues is surely to book the next one. Today its cold and the dark winter months seem more inevitable than ever, and its a Monday. Today I am missing the open road, I am especially missing New Orleans. That city left an impression on me like no other I have ever visited. Its been loosely arranged that we are going back to finish off the bits of our trip that, thanks to the accident, we never got to do.  We were 5000 miles in, which is pretty impressive, but we had another 4000 to go. Until then, this is the end.....

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Wrapping up

its friday evening now, Becca is at work earning some extra dollars to help towards getting back the cash we had to borrow and spend in Mexico. Sadly, summer is coming to an end. This could be my last blog post, who knows, maybe there will be time for reflection when I get home or the need to talk about another airpot.  Im happy I made it through to the end with my writing, its a different story to the one I expected to wrtie from the beginning. On the whole the road was god to us.  Unexpected things happen,  we came out pretty well off considering. Ok so we didnt get to see Cali and Colorado, two places I was super excited about seeing but the experiences we had and places we have seen, people we have met have been unforgettable.  We are thinking that in a couple of years time we will return to Toronto, together, and start again. This time I want to drive west from Toronto, perhaps to Whilster then down to Vancouver. From there we could drive down west coast and hit Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. I have heard so many great things about Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco and the whole west coast in general. From SF we could go to LA and maybe San Diego. Hopefully the offer of the free cabin on Lake Tahoe we got would still be valid. From there we can pick up as intended this time round, Colorado, Nashville, then into Bourbon Country.  Thats a story for another day, right now I am happy to have experienced the best summer I have ever had. Im pretty sure we are both coming back with different out looks on life and different attitudes, different values and slightly different opinions. We both now have a fascination with indigenous folk from our experiences in Mexico and Arizona, from the book of the Hopi and from watching last night about the Kogi Inidians in Columbia, their story is one I would ask everyone to listen too. 

If you have read any of this and enjoyed I thank you, if you found anything useful all the better. I wrote this primarily as a record to myself, something I will always have, a chronicle of where we went, what we did and what happened. There have been too many great experiences in my life that get forgotten or not remembered properly. One thing worth mentioning is London, we miss it, we love it. its out home and I theres truly no city like it on earth. The greatest city on earth? Maybe. 

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Fall

Arriving back in Staunton we took a few days to relax and recuperate. The daytimes went by quickly, sleeping in a lot, the first day back we slept for 22 hours; the night times were spent eating, drinking and catching up with people.  Outside the fireflies had disappeared, but the crickets were still going strong.  The night sky is so clear and much time has been spent star gazing. it feels like the country here in Staunton, there a squirrels everywhere and at this time of they they are busy little critters. Theres a groundhog who comes into the back garden to collect fallen apples, Blue Jays and hummingbirds are also active most days.

At last I had a stable base to catch up with some work, the blog fell to the wayside, but with little new action and a lot of previous experience to digest this was OK by me. We had a few meals out and again I was reminded of the great food out here. I am surely going to miss the generous portion sizes. I enjoyed time out on the porch reading my book of the Hopi, for the first time this trip we could really relax with nowhere we had to go, nothing we needed to do or plan, except our flights back to London.  There has been of course, a few loose ends to tie up regarding the accident. Insurers are not know for paying out easily. The weather here is still just gorgeous even though we are well into the second half of september.  The trees are starting to turn different shades of green, brown purple and yellow but the sun continues to shine and the sky's are clear. Still being able to wear just my shorts and Havianna's around the house and garden makes me happy. The park across the street is an easy option when sun bathing, reading, eating and drinking becomes too much. Feeding the koi carp, ducks and geese never gets boring. Watching the swans we notice just how interesting these birds are with some quirky and magnificent behaviours. We decide that one day we will have a pond with swans. 

I found a BJJ academy 5 minutes walk down the street and I am able to get in 4 sessions during my last week, along with 1 session of boxing and some decent runs around the park.  I was slowly preparing my mind and body for London, where yoga, BJJ, focused work and general fitness we to be indulged in. Valley JiuJitsu is another fairly new academy run by a purple belt instructor Andrew Prickett.  I am invited to train for free whilst i'm in town, the global jiujitsu family takes care of me again. We were staying in an addition to the triple sized famliy garage, a timber frame construction with wooden stairs leading up the side and a veranda at the entrance with tables and chairs. As the addition was not completed, the ceiling inside was completely open looking up to the room. The space was airy and had lots of light. This made it ideal for getting good sleep, and for Yoga, which I did whenever there was no BJJ or boxing.  

For Beccas birthday we made a trip out the the Blue Mountain Brewery, which sits in a valley of the mountains close by to the famous Blue Ride Parkway. Shenandoah hops are from this region and they make some great beers.  We sampled 9 of their present offerings before heading back home to get ready for night at the bar.

Our other major excursion from Staunton was to the Safari Park close to Natural Bridge, Lexington.  If the weather that day had been better, we would have taken a ride over to the Natural Bridge itself, however rain clouds had other ideas and it poured for the whole afternoon. This didn't really affect our experience as there were less people there and the animals didn't seem to mind at all.  The safari park was great fun, an opportunity to be introduced to some beasties I have never met before and put food in their mouths. Before you drive, you buy feed buckets. there are thousands of animals in there, In the open driving section Wildebeest, Camels, Emu, Ostrich, Alpaca, Buffalo, Elk, Deer and many many more! Following the drive around section there are well sized enclosures for monkeys, tigers, tortoise, vultures, giraffe and more.  There are walk in areas where you can get up close to hundreds of budgies, flamingos plus one with pigs, goats and llama. My only concern about the whole park was for the cheetah, the last animals we saw. They are truly majestic, beautiful cats, but they didn't seem to have a big enclosure, They can chase prey up to 3 miles so i don't see how a pen a couple of hundred metres squared would be enough for them to live any kind of life.  Maybe they were rescued in which case i'm sure they are in a better place. With rain pouring down and no staff in sight to ask, we set off home, theres no email address on the site to contact at this point. Anyway 99% of the animals there seemed really well cared for and I would recommend this as a great day out for anyone. 

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Heading Back

After 2 hours sleep we set off for Phoenix airport, I enjoyed my time in Arizona and feel like theres so much more I need to explore there. We went to Charlottesville VA via Charlotte NC, two very tired bears trying to get home. Becca's black eye, swollen head and scars provided entertainment for us and got some very odd looks from security staff and people in general. Thankfully it looked like her head was starting to get better, at the point we felt blessed to be heading home, alive and well, appreciating the small things more than before. From Charlotte we took one of the smallest commercial planes I have been on, we sat next to the noisy propellors and looked forward to home cooking, country air and no agenda. 

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1 on top of the world

2 mountain panda

3 rain cell

4 the bright angel trail from above

5 elk

6 squirrel 

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The Greatest Place on Earth

It was great to catch up with some rest in Phoenix, Temperatures were very high during the daytime, and without transport, we were very happy to be forced to stay indoors. Like most cities in the US, Phoenix is not a walking city.  We spent the time trying to sleep and eat well, watching TV. There were a couple of fine old pinball machine for me to get aquinted with, which helped pass the time.  Our host, Gray, recommended a good restaurant and we headed out to enjoy our first proper meal for a few days. My New York strip was cooked to perfection with a double roasted potato, the beer was great and I started to feel a little more back to normal.

Saturday came along, and with it a 7am wake up from Gray, so that we could head north up to Flagstaff (2 hours away) then head onto the Grand Canyon (2 more hours).  This would be my 2nd visit to the Canyon, my first was via a Papillon helicopter from Las Vegas, which dropped us into the bottom somewhere near the north rim for some champagne. Our drop off point for the car was by the Grand Canyon Village, in one of the many car parks there. On the run out from Phoenix was saw thousands of the cacti we had grown to love so much. From Flagstaff there is pretty much nothing at all until you reach the Village and Visitors Centre. The whole site is very well managed, lots of parking, toilets, restaurants, cafes and shops. Its very tastefully done and not too touristy. There are wild elk walking around in the car park and the site seems to be at one with its surroundings.  As we walked up towards the rim, I was rendered breathless, I had truly forgotten what a wondrous place this way. The vista goes on and on. The sheer scale is incomprehensible. There are Mesa, ridges, canyons and valleys intertwined around each other. Even just one of these peaks on its own would look impressive, its so deep in most places you simply cannot see the river in the bottom.  We spent some time walking along the rim. The south rim is the most popular destination for tourists, this is where all the facilities are and there are guard rails around for several hundred metres. 

You quickly realise that your snapping photo after photo, there are no bad shots. Your mind starts to ask questions, how was this place formed? imagine how the first people to see this felt. Of course, its formed by erosion from the Colorado River, but to stand and try to work out how this occurred over millions of years is mind blowing. 

We soaked up the view a little while longer and took a short walk around the rim before eating in the grand old hotel there. After lunch we went down part of the Bright Angel trail, just 1.5 miles down, to get a different view and taste for hiking in the area. Descending down the canyon presented different view points, again every sight is breathtaking.  It took us about 45 mins to get down and the same on the way up. It left us a little short of breath but very hungry for more, we made a pact to come back and spend a few days here hiking, biking or horseback riding around this amazing national park. 

After some ice cream and a drink it was time to seek out a good place to watch the sunset, we walked around to the west, as the buses at that time were packed out and with long lines. We found a nice perch before the sun went down to it and soak it up. We walked out onto ledge to get some good shots of yoga poses and leaps. Down the side we saw where we had walked to on the start of the bright angel trail. As the sun went down, perched on our rock we felt grounded and enjoyed the last of the views under the red glow of the sun. 

Before we set out that morning we had been dealing with the disappointment of the fact that a great wedge of our planned trip had been lost. There was no better way to compensate than a visit to the Grand Canyon. Becca had a baseball cap and some big sunglasses to cover up her wounds, so was feeling much better about life and we thought about our flight home at 4am the next morning. There was still a good two weeks of our time left and we vowed to make the most of it. Not surprisingly Gray visits the canyon whenever possible, one day, we will be back too. Before leaving the canyon we took a look around the Hopi House, a bulding erected over a 10  years ago in the style of a Hopi Indian house. Theres a lot of history to the building itself, a photo of Albert Einstein on the roof with some of the Hopi hangs from one of the walls.  It once housed some of the Hopi indian artisans who would craft pottery, carvings and paintings. Today the place is crammed full of art, I found the contents of the Hopi house fascinating, and bought The Book of the Hopi, an account of the Hopi worldview of life and religion. Even before we reached Mexico I had been thinking a lot about the indigenous peoples of America, that people lived in such ways in such places was amazing to me.  For sometime I had been thinking about the wisdom these people gather over thousands of years. Our civilisation is technologically advanced, but still very young, we are foolish to disregard what these people have learnt. 

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Pinball

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A Place of Refuge

We got rescued from the border by Carole, an old friend of Beccas dads. What we had been through started to feel a little more real, that we had managed to get out in pretty good shape with all our belongings and still owing the Mexicans 90,000 peso. Carle took us to her place in Tucson Arizona, and we got a shower before getting to bed. The next we got dropped at a bar with internet so we could write our blogs, contact our friends and family and grab a much needed beer. I got ID'd for the firs time in a while, I didnt have it. I told the server my story and she agreed that I had a few grey hairs and was probably not under 21 years old. The beer was a Lagunitas IPA, the first hoppy beer I had tasted since leaving Texas and it tasted amazing. The taste of freedom.  After I caught up with my emails and work, USA vs Mexico world cup qualifier was on the TV.  It felt very normalising to have a beer or two and watch some footie in a bar.   We researched a good hospital nearby and made arrangements to collect some cash from a Western Union which had most kindly been donated by one of Beccas family, then head to the hospital later that night after Carole finished work. 

At 7pm we arrived at the University of Arizona Hospital Tucson, a huge facility made famous by the 2011 saving of a politician Gabrielle Giffords life following a gun shot wound to the head. Its world class facility, and a million miles away from the clinic we had been sent to in Mexico. Finally Becca would get the treatment she needed. We waiting 2 hours before being seen, and spent a total of 10 hours there leaving at 5am. She got cat scans, ultrasounds, x rays and more. Thankfully everything was OK. Just a little internal bruising plus the black eyes, scratched stichings and bruisings around her body. 

The net day around 3pm we took a taxi over to Phoenix. One of Beccas old school friends had offered us a place to stay for a couple of day. Before we left we cleaned up the house and i decided to lighten the mood a little by shaving in my moustache and donning a sombrero we had bought as a gift for someone. Soon after, as the taxi pulled up, i noticed some kind of dog trotting down the street. I looked on not believing what was before my eyes. About 10 metres away from me in this quiet suburban street was a Coyote, with a huge rattlesnake in its mouth. He ran off into a nearby bush and started chomping away his meal .I found this quite symbolic, and took it mean the end of something old and the start of something new. The Mexican symbol, is of an Eagle sat on a cactus with a snake in its mouth, its how the Tenochtitlan people knew where to situate Mexico city when it was founded, and to the Europeans that settled there it signified good triumphing against evil. 

Western writer Maynard Dixon called Arizona the "magic name of a land bright and mysterious, of sun and sand, of tragedy and stark endeavour". Our host Carole had some of the imagery from his books on the walls. Arizona is a really beautiful place, and the only state in the union which has the cacti, which i find fascinating. The live to be hundreds of years old, you can guess how old they are by how many arms they have coming off, and they are protected by law. The mountains rivers and landscaped are really beautiful, and you get a great sense of being surrounded by the outdoors. Biking, climbing, hiking and golfing are very popular here and its summer 8 months of the year.  I could get used to this place.

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End of the Road.

So, its with great sadness, pain and dissapointment that I announce the road trip is over. Bert is dead, we are fugitives from the Mexican authorities and are right now not sure how we are getting back to Virginia let alone London.  

We were about 8 hours from our end point in LA, and just over an hour from the border. I had driven for 4 hours so we stopped for lunch at a Subway we saw right at the side of the road. We chatted to the servers about the trip and where we would go next. I bought some cured meats from an old guy selling them next to the store where we picked some other snacks for the rest of the trip. Becca jumped into the driving seat and we pulled out to cross the road, back towards to direction we needed to be. The next thing I remember is the sound of a car horn, then a huge smash, the car was spun 180 degress back towards where we parked. The air bags all popped off and i looked over at becca. Her head was hanging down as if she was unconscious, there was a lot of blood coming down from her head. The car rolled across the road towards a hotel, I shouted to brake then we hit a post or something in front of the hotel.  I looked over to Becca there was blood everywhere, she responded to me and then I kind of just snapped into action. I switched off the engine through the dust and haze from the air bags then went round to try and get her out of the car. The door was completed jammed shut so i ran back to other side and got her to put her arms around me so i could pull her out.        I dragged her out and propped her up against a wall. There was a hole in her head about the size of a quarter, not too deep but bleeding a lot. I got some napkins on there and got her to hold them on whilst I ran to boot for the first aid kit. There were some small bandages in there I used in replacement of the napkins, i tied up here hair and tried to calm, her down. I was at this point very thankful for all the first aid training I had got in army cadets, the TA, and various work positions. This was the first accident I had ever been involved in, its all pretty surreal writing about it now. I checked out the other car. There were 3 girls occupying it, they all seemed ok, no blood anywhere but it looked like they were in pain. They had hit us straight on, their SUV looked smashed up at the front and had hit a lamp post. After a few short minutes an ambulance arrived and some police cars, thankfully they were quick. I gathered up all our valuables and jumped in with becca. At this point my mind was racing, what about the car, would all our stuff be safe inside it, what was going to happen to Becca, what about the other car, what about our trip. 

Link to the crash site. Notice the little ridge from the north, the SUV came screaming over here, we didn't see anything. Where it says 'Subway' is where we the car eventually stopped. http://goo.gl/maps/am8Lu

We pulled into a medical centre and she was taken in on the stretcher, I had to wait outside. There were screams coming out whilst she was being stitched up, I phoned Todd at our destination in Cali to let him know we wouldn't be there and contacted Beccas mum.  

We spent the next day and half going between this very basic medical centre, the police station and the judges office in the next town. Turns out we were being held responsible for everything, partly because the other party was local people, but secondly because the rules in Mexico are that we caused the crash because we were crossing the road. Even though the other car was going fast, like very fast, I think about 60mph its not their fault. All they could be charged with was speeding, even if they were doing 200mph we were told, we would still be at fault.  In most  places, I am confident they would have looked at the speed the other guys were doing and they would be to blame.  The medical treatment becca got was not great but the best they could do. The next afternoon found out our insurance was not valid, ALWAYS double check your policy.They only covered us 70kms into Mexico despite us telling them we wanted to drive to Mexico City.  We contacted the British consulate who made great efforts to keep in touch with us wherever we were and liaise with our families and travel insurers. Our travel insurers were also great contacting us on landlines at the different places, at this point my UK mobile phones had been cut off to for using them too much overseas and our US phones had no signals, we felt crippled by having no internet anywhere too. 

The long and short of the whole story involved a lot of waiting around helplessly, finding out Becca was being held responsible for everything was really not good. We went back and forth from place to place, we were told 20,000 pesos would allow us to leave the country so we could get back to the US and talk to our insurers. We managed to scrape together the cash with some help from family and friends sending cash to a Western Union and by drying out or bank accounts.  We were there with little food or drink and Becca was not getting the medical care she needed.  We walked across the border with all our stuff being helped by 2 mexicans carrying all out stuff into Arizona. We were free and now we had to try to get Becca some decent medical care and piece together what to do next. One of Beccas fathers friends picked us up and took us over to Tucson, Arizona. Now we are in a bar/restaurant wit wi-fi and english speakers enjoying a beer and trying to get our lives organised. 

Whilst Becca was inside the medical centre that first day i took a walk outside to find some food. I looked over at a beautiful church in the town centre, 3 boys rode past on horses this was a beautiful little town, the feeling was very surreal. Later that day when we were transferred to the police station some more cowboys rode up. One of them got off, he looked very cool with his hat boots and spurs. This guy spoke English very well and took a liking to Becca being a pretty actress, albeit with a bandages on her head and scratches bumps and bruises. He had lived in Texas and was married once to an American, and had worked in construction in California. This guy, Jose, was pretty much her guardian angel, he took us everywhere we had to go, he came in on his night off. He translated for us and helped us out, at the end, he borrowed his bosses SUV and drove us up to the US border, he found us some guys to help carry the things over the border with us. We got his phone number, gave him a bottle of Makers Mark and said our goodbyes. 

All the time through this Becca was technically under arrest. Because we were Brits they didnt handcuff her or lock her up and I could be with her most of the time. We were guarded everywhere and even slept with the police next to us.  Theres much more to say about this, right now this is all I have the energy to write about. its here to answer the inevitable questions from everyone for the time being. Check Beccas facebook or blog for her story, links are further down this page. 

I want to mention how lucky we were. If the other vehicle had hit us on the door Becca would be seriously hurt. All the police and nurses paramedics etc even the magistrates were very nice to us and all good people. Things could have been very different. We are here now with all our belongings and we are alive and fairly well. 

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Beyond Mexico City

Following our exit from mexico city we noticed some odd noises with the car. Our trip up the mountain gravel tracks had broken poor Bert by wrecking one of the engine mounts. Dissapointed, we stopped off in Toluca, about an hour outside of the city, at a Ford garage.. The staff there were fantastic, driving us down to a hotel for the night, next to a shopping mall with restaurants and everything we could need whilst we waited. Fortunately the part came in the next morning and by 6pm we were on the road again with the car running as sweet as ever. 

Our next stop would be Matzalan, where we had intended to stay the previous night. The hotel staff had been very understanding and transferred our reservation to the next night. The drive was long, made longer by crossing another time zone. Its disheartening to see the ETA on the GPS getting close to 20 minutes, only to realise the clocks on your phones and in your car are now an hour ahead of where you really are. We were driving late at night again, which is not ideal, arriving at the Best Western hotel at 4am. Although everyone warns against driving at night, the roads are mostly deserted and if you have a decent chain hotel, you can be sure its in a nice part of town on one of the main road in so theres no problem. We has passed through several military, police, and environment checkpoints on the way and felt we were getting use to the hazardous roads. At the checkpoints, always drive very slowly, they may or may not expect you to pull over. I got in the habit of winding down my window and saying good evening / afternoon to the soldiers, usually when they realise you are tourists they dont ask too many questions. Again, knowing basic spanish in this situation makes this much easier. 

We woke the next morning to beautiful beaches and sea views combined with great weather.  We had a fine breakfast in the hotel, and I had my first actual conversation in Spanish with one of the waiters. Previously I had been talking at people and not normally able to understand what was being said back to me. It felt good.  this was a slice of mexico we really wanted to sample more of. Alas, we had to push on towards to border.  We had a military friend we wanted to see who was being called out to service, so we had a deadline to make. Our next stop would be a Holiday Inn in Guaymas about 400km from the border. We made it there without any problems, the journey was a little boring and we were getting a bit weary or travelling non stop. We got a good 7 hours of sleep and set off for the border after a free breakfast.

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The Bribe

On our way out of Toluca we had the wind in our sails, the car was back on the road and were headed for the border. We got to the edge of the Toluca, and I saw a police car. This car was unlike any other I had seen. It  was white and yellow and looked brand new. I had a sinking feeling and thought, "please dont pull me over". He tailed us and the inevitable happened. The lights went on and we were pulled.

Over to the window came the sweetest little cop. He was beaming from ear to ear and I spoke a few lines of my basic spanish. The usual lines go liek this, "hello sir, good afternoon" "im sorry sir I dont understand very well what you are saying, I dont speak much Spanish, we are from London England and we are tourists here". He asked where we had been. "First Mexico City, then toluca, now we are going to Matzalan, but we have been driving for 5 weeks in the USA". After a couple of minutes he asked me to get out. He told me there was a problem. Apparently its not permitted for us to have all out stuff on the back seat, ie the cool box, bags and general things. They all had to be in the boot. For this crime I had to pay a fine of get a ticket at the police station. I asked how much? 500 pesos he said. We just wanted to get on and picked around in the car looking for cash. I reached in my pocket to give him a 100 and he seemed very happy. There was another 100 stuck to it so he said 200 200 yes. I gave him his lunch money and smiled at him, laughing a bit to myself. He left very happy and I considered I had just paid £10 for 6 minutes of entertainment from this money hungry little bobby. Bemused, we carried on with the journey and for the last time I decided to change my blog name, and reverted to Dont Pull Me Over. 

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Our last night in New Orleans, I met this young troubador fellow who had something to say about ice cream sandwiches and beer