It was hard to keep spirits up after such a blow to our travel plans but we still needed transport and a place to sleep so we had to get back on the van search in Tampa. Luckily we were staying at the friendliest hostel in Florida, Grams Place. If you are ever anywhere near Tampa I urge you to GO stay there! The hostel is a tribute to the Country music star Gram Parsons who is relatively unknown to all but die-hard Country fans but was actually the brains behind the annoyingly ubiquitous ‘County Roads’ (don’t let that put you off!) and was a member of The Byrds and the Flying Burritos. He died of a drug overdose in Joshua Tree National Park, joining ranks of musicians who’s lives of excess have led to untimely deaths. The owner Bruce and his brother are huge GP fans and pictures, news clippings and tribute concerts grace the walls of each unique room. In the five days we stayed there we managed to find a new van for $900 with lots of help from Louis, a retired mechanic who was living the simple life working at Grams and spending his days drinking beer and conversing with all the weird and wonderful travellers who stop by.

The 1995 Chevy G10 was a painters van and came complete with years of workers debris. The side door wouldn’t open, the drivers door could only be opened with a nut-cracker, the passengers window required body-builders strength to open and it had no heating. On the plus side someone had conveniently left some fur covered snow boots just in my size! What they were doing in Florida was a mystery but I took it as a good sign that our luck was changing, they’ve come in very useful since we moved to colder climes. Although it didn’t look pretty the engine was sound and we spent a day doing it up and furnishing it with all the unwanted bedding from Gram’s and after a spray paint tint job to the back and side windows it was transformed into the perfect motor-home, christened the Mong-mobile.

Jimmy and Mongmobile

When we left Tampa we were in high spirits, we had our freedom back and we’d both learnt a lot from Louis about engines so we were confident enough to fix minor things without the highly inflated mechanic costs. Our first stop was Cape San Blas, a beautiful peninsular jutting out into the Gulf; completely deserted and bursting with many varieties of birds and large insects. A brisk naked swim in the morning was the perfect wake-up call.

Cape San Blas beach

We finally left Florida for Alabama, the deep South. I was shocked by the amount of Christian propaganda and anti-abortion signs dotted along the roads (Smile, Your Mom Chose Life! The Womb, Shouldn’t It be the Safest Place on Earth?) but these just increased as we went from State to State so I’ve finally stopped ranting, I was tired of losing my voice. Driving along we stumbled across Blakeley State Park, the battle-ground of one of the last stampedes in the Civil War. There was an excellent self-guided walking tour and again the place was deserted as we hid in trenches and climbed watch-towers, trying to imagine the blood-bath that took place less than 150 years ago.

One of the inhabitants of Blakeley

And one of the visitors

That night we had our first altercation with the Alabama State Police. They pulled us over in the evening where we were looking for somewhere to park up for the night and proceeded to keep us there on the side of the road for over an hour, asking questions and searching the van. When they asked if we had any weapons, I mentioned there was a gas stove in the back but apparently that’s not considered dangerous enough to count. I think they were disappointed to find that we weren’t international terrorists, they were very suspicious of an English and an Australian driving around with Florida plates “very out of place around these parts”. Clearly the officer had never left Alabama and was baffled as to why we would ever want to leave our own home towns. His parting shot was “Who’s is that marijuana in the back then?” and when we expressed bewilderment he laughed and told us he was only joking. HA HA. The night after we were parking on Dauphin Island, another Gulf peninsular, tragically decimated by first Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and then recently Isaac in August this year. We were just cooking up some delicious rice and beans on our little stove (definitely not a weapon) when it was torch in the face interrogation time again. When we said we were heading to Louisiana his advice was not to go, apparently we were likely to get ‘jacked up’ or ‘hammed up’ but we were never sure if these meant robbed, arrested or something worse. Luckily we completely disregarded this advice and headed through Mississippi (not too much to report, lots of casinos) to the infectiously hedonistic New Orleans.

We decided to push the boat out and get a hostel, mainly for safety’s sake as its hard to find suitable places to sleep in bustling cities and we certainly didn’t fancy being hammed or jacked up or off so we headed to the India House hostel near all the action of the French Quarter (we were actually extremely cheeky and spent one night as paying guests and the remaining nights sleeping in the van outside and using all their facilities – thank you India House, we’ll come back when we’ve got money and pay you back!). The famous Bourbon Street is boisterous, boozy and delightfully tacky with sex and cheap thrills on every corner with a bit of voodoo thrown in for good measure. The first thing we did was to get a huge fishbowl of ‘Hurricane cocktail’ whilst walking down Bourbon street (a novelty with the open container laws in the US). It was too big to finish which was lucky as we avoided all the tourist trap bars and found ourselves on Frenchmans where the locals were listening to all the best live music. The next few days were a bit blurry (due to a local tip… try the ‘mind-eraser’) but we definitely had a VERY GOOD time and I’ve got the tattoos to prove it. On Sunday we were lucky enough to be there to watch the New Orleans Saints smash the Atlanta Falcons in American Football. This was the first game I had watched and even though I don’t even pretend to understand the rules now after several attempts from NOLA locals, it was extremely enjoyable, if only to see everyone in such a jovial mood. We caught a ferry across the Mississippi river to the town of Algiers and watched the first half in an English pub drinking pints of cider. The afternoon was spent in a tiny dive bar just off Magazine St with a selection of the funniest and most unique people I’ve met. By the end of the game we were all firm friends, even though I’m pretty sure they were just using us for our ‘cute’ accents. Ever since then the Saints have lost every game, but they’re still my favourite team. I think we need to go watch another game quick to help them turn it around.

Hurricane – and we’ve still got the fish bowl. Awaiting suitable fish.