New Orleans

Contrary to a lot of what we'd heard, the Big Easy was exactly that and no thieving were we subject to, except the Highway Robbery variety for parking Shasta the Nissan Sentra at the Hilton. The room itself, all twin queen, riverside view, big tv and nifty coffee maker and four walls of it came cheap, online and at the last minute. Apparently New Orleans isn't a popular destination for rich nor hoi polloi in late August.

One of our first experiences after parking up was Bourbon Street on Friday night. Filthy smells hung in the air and bits of boa feather stuck on the street. Everybody seemed to be wearing beads. And everybody seemed to be taking advantage of the lax open container regulations that permit street-drinking.

We got a little drunk, saw some great live music, an older gent playing trumpet complimented me on my roadside garage $20 hat and I got all excited when the house band in one joint took a breather and I got a chance to ask the drummer if she was Japanese. I fluffed my lines in a torrid muddle of Japanese and English, she seemed about as interested in me as the dogs the stinking grey puddles here there on Bourbon Street and I got a taste of things to come. In spite of any amount of enthusiasm, perhaps proportionately, not every Japanese person I approach will want to talk to me. Just like I didn't want to talk to every Japanese person approaching me in Japan to practice their English.

We took a look around the grand maisons of the Garden District and pavements laid waste to by tree roots bursting through the concrete, before Champ was overcome by the heat and swooned, spending much of the remainder of the day recovering at the Hilton. I indulged in beignets, gumbo, etouffee. We had a few hours out at a creole plantation. I hunted down a previous residence of William Faulkner, now a bookshop, and the place he wrote his debut novel, 'Soldier's Pay'. Earlier I'd stumbled upon a grand concert with military band in honour of what an incredibly talented singer/song-writer guitarist later described only as the 'unmentionable', the 4 year anniversary of Katrina's visit to New Orleans, instead (the bearded singer/song-writer guitarist) preferring to focus on the anniversary of Michael Jackson's birth and his drummer's 30th birthday.

We bid a hasty adieu to Shasta, some 8,300 miles, several scratches along the front near-side and an ink stain on the upholstery later and took an earl flight up to DC. The road trip, now over, the trip still with some legs.