I sit in what is possibly the worst chair in El Paso and wait for Marloes to wake up. The chair still functions as a chair, but since the time it was stolen from El Paso State's (go Miners) library in the mid seventies its red leather seat back has disintegrated into a mash of stuffing and cow hide that gives no support to anyone.
It fits the roadside motel we stayed the night in perfectly. Simply titled Budget Hotel it follows the manual for broken down inner city motels to the letter, but despite the lack of water in the pool out front the AC in the room kept us cool, and for that we are grateful.
Hot is the buzzword for this first week on the road. Hotter than Mexico I'm told. We've sweated out sweltering days and nights in Memphis, Natchez, New Orleans and Austin. Thrice we've slept in the van.
The first night out we parked on a side road in a dodgy section of Memphis just west of Beale because Shawnea at JJ's said it would be safe. It was safeish even though sometime around 4am I heard a discussion outside about whether the van was a worthy vehicle to jack and go ridin in. The answer turned out to be no.
In New Orleans we parked in the Garden District and slept amidst the grandeur of those big houses which cover blocks and blocks of the city east of downtown. Grandeur doesn't cool things off very much and I kept expecting the police to shoo us along.
The second night in NO we broke into a state campground just south of the river on route 90. Break in is a bit dramatic but we did have to find the night entrance which, in the dark of 11pm, looked like an invitation to get lost in the bayou. We didn't get lost but we couldn't find the actual campgrounds, so we just parked in the big lot next to some cabin.
The other three nights we broke out the tent at various state or county parks until we hit El Paso and splurged for a room. Now we head north to Denver and relatives and mooching floor space.
