Day 1: South Carolina to Louisiana
Our vehicle- "Pedro",
just before leaving Clemson, SCSunday, June 25th, 1995
Our vehicle- "Pedro",
just before leaving Clemson, SCI wake up in Maryland at my parent's house. It's 7:00 am and I'm feeling a bit drowsy from my sister's wedding last night. The realization hits me suddenly and immediately. Today is the first day of the trip I've been planning for four years.
My good friend Michael Brinker picks me up at 8:30 and we head for BWI airport. Brinker lent me his Berlitz Spanish-English phrase book earlier this week. I've been studying it often and I'm feeling pretty good about my ability to communicate in Spanish. He has come over a few evenings and coached me in my pronunciation.
An uncomfortable flight to Cleveland, and a brief layover. We land in Atlanta at 2:00, right on time. When Sean meets me at the gate, he makes no attempt to contain his excitement at beginning the trip. He has been waiting for an hour, writing in the journal he will keep for the whole trip. We pull out of the airport parking lot at 2:30pm. It feels great to be in the truck instead of on a plane. I am bouncing around the cab in excitement. Beginning this trip is the fulfillment of a dream for me.
The driving passes very quickly in terms of both time and miles. We are fortunate in that neither Sean nor I have a problem driving great distances without rest. We quite literally feel no fatigue from long hours in the driver's seat. This is good, because we plan to drive through the night and most of tomorrow to get to the border of Mexico. This leg of the trip, according to AAA, should take us about twenty four hours. I have a suspicion that we can do it in significantly less.
Our first gas stop is in Alabama. When we're making our way back out to the highway, Sean pipes up: "This truck needs a name. Like Pedro or something." Pedro reminds me of the truck in the movie "Romancing the Stone" (though that one was actually called Pepe). Pedro it is.
I'm a little beat from the flight so we decide that I should drive for a while, get good and tired, then try to sleep first. We pass through Alabama, Mississippi, and into Louisiana. The countryside changes from flat pine forest savanna to gently rolling hills, and finally to wetlands in Mississippi and Louisiana. The vast swamps glow red as a huge sun sets ahead of us. Around 7:30 we come to the junction of interstates 10 and 12 in southeastern Louisiana. We've been on 10W for a while, and were planning on taking 12W to avoid dipping south into the traffic of New Orleans. But we're way ahead of schedule, and there's no point in rushing to the border to spend all afternoon in McAllen with nothing to do.
We turn south on 10 and enter New Orleans around 8:00pm. I have no idea where to go, but Sean directs us to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street. People everywhere. We wander in and out of tourist trap souvenir shops and loiter outside of some larger jazz clubs. Great jazz happens in this city every night. We finally find a small bar called Fritzel's and sit down for a beer.
In the back of the bar the gray haired man playing clarinet is accompanied by a younger black man seated at a piano. They play together well. I toss a couple of bills in their goldfish jar on the way out.
Back on the road, Sean drives while I lay in the back, watching the world go by as I try to fall asleep.