The Cross-Country Chronicles: Don't Mess With Texas

When Molly and I were planning our cross-country adventure, driving through the middle of Arizona and New Mexico sounded like a great idea.

But the desert is called the desert for a reason. It's deserted. There's NOTHING to look at.

The mind and butt-numbing five hour drive from Flagstaff to Albequerque, New Mexico was one of shortest drives on our trip but was by far, one of the most painful. If it weren't for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows audio book, we might have stopped to drive cactus spines into our eyes just so we wouldn't have to look out on any more desert.

With the Arizona fires still raging and having burnt a hole the size of Chicago across the state's landscape, its next door neighbour of New Mexico was suffering the smokey after effects. The beautiful watermelon mountains which frame the New Mexico skyline couldn't be seen through the eerie yellow haze that hovered over the city and turned the sun blood red.

Instead, we stayed indoors with our Albequerque host, Carolyn - a close friend of Molly's - and her three, oh-so-adorable kittens. Vegging out on the couch watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall was a welcome refrain from the road. Especially when we had an epic 12-hour drive to Austin, Texas ahead of us.

But with Harry Potter plugged in and a brief, but memorable lunch time stop in Sudan, Texas (where, just in case of confusion, a sign states - America lives here) the drive wasn't half bad. If you can deal with the Vote Out Obama propoganda, of course. We were definitly in root-tooting, gun-shooting Texas.

After a couple of nervous days of waiting, we were able to find a last-minute couch to surf and in doing so, made two new Texan friends in our hosts, Jason and Tyler (both who weren't actually from Texas, but still qualify as Texans in my eyes).

With the boys both working during the day, Molly and I were left up to our own devices on our day off and took up a couple of Jason's local recommendations. We had breakfast tacos (and one of the best creations known to man - bacon, egg, tortilla - thank you, Mexico), swam and sunbaked at Barton Springs - a freshwater spring in the middle of Austin that has been turned into a local swimming hole and an after-swim bevvie at the Daily Juice - a local smoothie institution.

With all the Longhorn cattle wandering around Texas, there's only one thing worth eating for dinner. Meat. So, as a thankyou to our couch hosts, we took them out for what boys like best.

Barbeque.

The small suburb of Lockhart, on the skirts of Austin, is the BBQ town of Texas and definitely lived up to its reputation. We drank, we ate and we polished off every last delicious, saucy square inch of meat. Then we did what you would naturally do after eating two pounds of beef.

We went to the Lockart Elementary School carnival.

Riding The Zipper, a large ride full of twisting, turning carriages which flip upside down and inside out, probably isn't everybody's cup of tea after eating half a cow, but somehow Tyler and I made it through without losing our dinner. Although, he did lose his sunglasses as we were hanging upside down on The Kamikaze. If there was anything that made my stomach turn, it was the sight of the wirey, toothless carnies who were locking me into each death-trap.

After prying through every inch of Tyler's record collection, we threw Creedence Cleartwater Revival on the turntable, cracked open some beers and played Jungle Speed - a fast-paced, card game that involves matching shapes and colours and grabbing a totem pole. Not so great if you've had a few beers and suffer from mild dyslexia.

Molly and I were both a bit sad to leave Austin and our new friends, but with New Orleans on the horizon, we knew the bayous were beckoning.

Ciao for now. xo

The Cross-Country Chronicles: Oh, How Grand

After travelling down the west coast from city to city, finding ourselves in the middle of the Arizona desert with nothing on the horizon but sky and a disappearing road was a little daunting.

And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. Just very long, very open road with the only company being the occasional cactus. About the most exciting thing that happened between Los Angeles and Flagstaff, Arizona was seeing a tumbleweed blow onto the highway. And here's a quick factoid - one does not want to hit a tumbleweed at high speed. As fluffy as they might look, it's as tough and hard as a dried dead bush would imply. Apparently they're the kangaroo of Central America and hitting one will do more damage to your car then you'll do to it. Avoid at all cost.

Seeing the tumbleweed blowing in the wind (and believe me, there was plenty of wind) was about as exciting as things got driving down the I-40. But with the help of some N*SYNC, a little bit of Backstreet Boys and about five minutes of Hilary Duff, we arrived at the Grand Canyon.

I'm sure the Grand Canyon is beyond beautiful, but when there's been an uncontained fire raging in south Arizona, the canyon has a tendency to fill up with smoke. While the haze let up a little as the sun set, it was still difficult to see the truth depth and distance of the canyon itself, let alone take a worthwhile tourist snap. However, there's no denying that sitting on the edge of one of the world's largest natural wonders with my feet dangling precariously over the edge was definitely worth the seven hour drive from LA.

We stayed the night in Flagstaff - a further hour and a half drive from the canyon which almost sent us into delirium - at yet another motel I'd rather forget. Breakfast was at a mexican cafe where our waitress recommended we spend the morning at Slide Rock National Park in Sedona.

We should have left her a bigger tip as Slide Rock certainly made up for our disappointment from the day before. Hidden at the bottom of a canyon itself, Slide Rock featured natural water slides which were carved into the rocks of a stream which ran through the canyon. We spent the morning lying like lizards on the red rock and then slipping and sliding down the watery slippery dip. The water was a bit chilly, but nothing five seconds in the desert sun couldn't cure. And I didn't get sunburnt, Mum.

With Albequerque in our sights, we left Sedona and hit the open road once again. After our morning in the sun, the six hour drive drained our energy dry and if it weren't for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows audio book, we may have never made it into New Mexico - our forth state in a week.

Ciao for now. xo