Start – 4695.3 km
Finish – 4860.2 km
——————-
164.9 km or 98.9 mi

Sensory overload. I can’t think of any other words for what I ran across in the 24 hours I spent with my cousin. I could’ve spent an entire month just simply photographing the inside of his place alone. But there was more. His entire neighborhood and every neighborhood surrounding it…. around every corner there was something there I had never seen. I mean, I HAD seen it, but it was every cliche in my mind.

Had never met my cousin (twenty years my senior) until we met at the hotel the morning before. We talked about it and we may have met at some family reunion a few years back, but obviously neither of us left a lasting impression on the other. Now, I have lasting impression. A good one. Roger (heyyyy, there you are!) has a good thing going on in New Orleans. A very cool, laidback musician’s lifestyle. Only…. it’s difficult to put into words, his world. And maybe it’s best that way. But it’s so uniquely different.

Roger moved to New Orleans around 1990 and has lived there ever since. He’s been in the music business his entire life, working for Allen Toussaint for decades, along with a long list of well-known (and not so well-known) musicians over the years. Roger was such a generous host and just a great guy to get to know. I’m glad we finally to got to really meet. And his world is just surreal. Very cool. I just don’t even know how to describe it. It had such a feeling about it. A vibe. Eh, I don’t know why I’m bothering trying to explain it. I can’t. Hopefully, I was able to capture some of it in the photos and the little bit of video I shot. (I won’t have that video ready for a while.) Roger would’ve let me stay for as long as I wanted, I think. But I knew if I stayed, I would stay there longer than I should. I had to get going.

The night I stayed, we went out for Chinese and then to pick up a friend of his, Sean, another musician. “You guys smell like a couple of fortune cookies,” he says as he gets in the truck. Sean was from the area, had moved out to LA, and had since come back. Great guy. “Since I’ve been back, I’ve been a recording engineer, a studio musician, worked in construction, busboy, electrician’s assistant…” he trails off. “New Orleans.” The whole night… the entire time I was there I stayed in a state of wonderment. I knew this lifestyle in my mind, but I hadn’t seen it. And now I have. Cool.

I don’t think I could really find myself living in New Orleans. I don’t think I could. But I could spend time there looking at it. Forget Bourbon Street, all of that. Down in the soul of New Orleans. It’s blood is rich, it’s heritage on the faces of the people and in the buildings and in the convoluted layout of the city. And let me say right now that New Orleans, hands down, has THE worst roads in the US. Probably. Horrible condition and not fun to drive on a scooter.

And while the internet at Starbucks there was interminably slow, the drivers made up for it on the road going out of New Orleans. I finally left my cousin’s place, took the ferry across the Mississippi River to Gretna, and got on Highway 90 to go to Morgan City where I was pretty sure there was a campground. My god, I thought my death was on that road. I didn’t want to die in Louisiana.

Well, I thought I might die on the road until I got to Morgan City. Then, I accepted the fact that I would die that night. However, as should be obvious by now, I didn’t. The first three people I met in Morgan City were missing one or both of their front teeth. The woman that I talked to in the gas station… I so badly wanted to ask her to just hold her mouth open so I could look at it. I had never seen a mouth like that and it took all I had to not stare at the bottom row of teeth. They looked liked scattered shark teeth. And then one gargantuan front tooth, not a second one to match. Unfortunate.

I got directions to a “campground” close by and as I pulled up, I realized, it’s just a park; a park like you would see in any town. Only at one end, they had RV camping, and at the other, 20 or so tent camp sites, about 1/3 full. My next door neighbors were living there.

“Hey man, you want something to eat,” he asks as he swings his left arm over the bags of food to show me the spread. “We just got back from the food bank.” Worker’s shirt. Unbuttoned. It looked like he had a tan from wearing a belly shirt, except one in reverse where it was covering only his beer belly, leaving his shoulders and upper chest exposed.

“Nah, I’m good, thanks. I just ate.”
“$16 a night to stay here. You can’t beat that,” he says. I do the calculations for monthly living in my head. In Morgan City, you probably COULD beat that. We didn’t discuss it.

I set up camp next to a tent that’s sitting there, flaps just blowing in the wind. Appears to be empty. I imagine someone will show up later and fill it. I imagine it is someone else living at this park. I’m a little nervous. I have an uneasy feeling about things. I’m certain I’ll be stabbed. Screw it. I pass out around 9pm, the earliest I’ve gone to sleep in years. I wake up at 4:50am. Sure enough, there is a pickup truck in front of the tent that sat alone. Embers burn in the fire circle. I get up (I don’t even shower) and I pack and leave. Go to Waffle House, get some coffee and get on the road. I decide I am leaving Louisiana today. Pretty state. But it irks me out and I want to get off of these roads. (No offense to the people of Louisiana, but your state… did you people JUST get cars here? What’s up with your driving abilities? Retake the test. All of you.)

I’m sure the roads are no better in Texas, but I gotta get into that state. I wanna be a cowboy, baby.

Photos here.

Scott’s roadtrip across America is proudly sponsored by Miami Tour Company. For info on the best tours in Miami, visit MiamiTourCompany.com.