Drive to Ft. Lauderdale

The near 900-mile drive from New Orleans to Ft. Lauderdale was an exhausting 14 hours. To put that in perspective for you, that’s more than half of the length of the US Gulf of Mexico Coast.  It’s almost as far as Nashville is from Baltimore.

We both dreaded this drive –- especially because we didn’t want to leave New Orleans -- but at least one good thing came out of it: after visiting Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were the only two states that I haven’t visited.  I can finally say I have been to all 50 states!  I definitely deserve those bragging rights after those torturous family road trips.

Pensacola Beaches

We made a pit stop at the Pensacola Beaches.  Ayk said we knew we'd be getting to Ft. Lauderdale late when a park ranger greeted us with “Good afternoon.”

Some of the whitest sands I've seen.

That sand looks just like snow.  We have a picture from South Dakota that looks just like this.

Boredom

We were so bored we resorted to watching Reading Rainbow on my phone.  That was actually the highlight of this leg of the journey – aside from the beach.

And you thought you wouldn't see Ped-radio after our Austin post.  Muwhaha!

For food we went to a Waffle House.  I forgot my camera in the car, but I can assure you that you’re not missing much – aside from indigestion.

At 1 AM we finally reached Ft. Lauderdale.  Ayk’s parents were actually worried, since he hadn’t updated Twitter yet.  This concern was a novel concept to me, considering I had to call both of my parents a day after we started for our road trip to tell them remind them we had left.   Parents.

Drive to Austin

Texas: Home to a widely misused anti-littering campaign slogan and a buffoonish president who misused said slogan as a bellicose mantra.

I’m not sure if you know this, but Texas is huge.  So huge that apparently everything is bigger there.  So they say.  In this case, size isn’t everything.  The nine-hour long drive from Carlsbad, NM to Austin, TX is a whole lot of nothing.

More windmills.  The most exciting thing we saw for hours.

To entertain ourselves, I convinced Ayk to wear this spiffy moustache I got from a vending machine in Coachella, CA.

So dapper! Natty Boh would be proud.

Muwhaha!

Don’t think for a second that we kept those wonderful whiskers to ourselves.  He still wore it as we strolled around Fredericksburg, a quaint town a half-hour away from Austin.  If you couldn’t tell by the name, it was founded by German settlers.  We definitely got a few looks.

Flaunting his moustache wasn’t the only reason we stopped there; we also checked out a local microbrew. Makes sense, considering that’s the German’s hooch of choice.  Too bad the beer was disappointing.  A light-bodied IPA sure sounds refreshing, but this brewery forgot to add flavor.  At least we got to walk on the sidewalk drinking it.  So far, Texas ain’t that bad.

Enjoying my beer in public.

We couldn't bear to part with the moustache, so we put it on the car's radio.  We called him Ped-radio.  He became our mascot.  Driving for hours on end will make anything funny.

Wyoming is the worst

Wyoming: Home to sagebrush (the symbol of lifelessness).

Wyoming sucks.  We hate Wyoming with a passion.  If it weren’t for Yellowstone National Park, which is only open during the summer, I’d say that place should be blown to smithereens.  It is the worst state in the country.  Yes, even worse than New Jersey.

Why do we hate it so much?  Let us count the ways …

1. Seeing sagebrush tumble across the highway was the most entertaining thing we witnessed.  That is until we saw sagebrush blowing in the blustery wind, then we almost had a seizure from excitement.

That fence is holding back the threat of a sagebrush attack.

2. Verizon must have no customers there, because we had absolutely no service.  Why bother when nobody lives there?

3. We didn't see any Wyoming license plates until 3 hours into the drive.  That's because the few people who live in Wyoming know how horrible it is.

4. The drive was so boring and repetitive that it looked like a video on loop.

Or just stare at this picture for 4 hours for the same effect.

5. Their idea of a rest stop is a roadside table, which is exactly what it sounds like: a picnic table on the side of the road.  Just a table out in the open on the side of the road with no protection from the elements.  There isn’t even a parking lot for people to stop.  This shows you how much they care about the tourism.  I wish we had a picture of it, but we didn’t realize that it would top the two sagebrush sightings as the most interesting thing in Wyoming.

6. There was so much snow blowing everywhere that we could barely see in front of our car.  Maybe we’d be a little bit more forgiving to Wyoming if we could actually see it.

At least it's a change of scenery.

I wish Wyoming would secede from the union because I’m embarrassed to say that it’s a part of our wonderful country.  Ayk points out if that were true, then Dick Cheney would never have been eligible to be Vice President.  And the world would be a much better place.