A Tale of 12 Cities

13 days and 13 states later, we finally made it to my roommate's home in New Jersey. Here are some things we did. On the second day of our drive from Phoenix to El Paso, we stopped at the notorious Western site of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday: Tombstone. It was 28 miles off the 10, but totally worth it. Tombstone was one of my favorite movies growing up and this was a dream for both of us. Saloon buildings, fake gun duels, it was awesome!

               

                  

 

 After Tombstone, we stopped at "The Thing?" I can't say anything else, if you want to know what it is, I suggest you go.

  

 

 

  

In Texas, we stayed with my great friend, Melia, and spent time at a sweet bar called the Spiderhouse. Melia and I also got tattoos...no big deal.

From  there, we drove to New Orleans. I've never been there so it was inspiring to see what the city endured and how that merely added to the character and life of the area.

    

             

              

   

 

 

Now this was one of the best parts. So we had places to stay every night on the trip...except one. Neither of us knew people in New Orleans that we could stay with, so we began yelping places that were cheap, but also safe to leave Lindsey's car with all her belongings. We were two hours outside New Orleans and nothing was looking good. Every place in the city was either ridiculously overpriced or super shady. Just when we thought we had to succumb to a lousy accommodation with no real connection to us, a man called. 

We called this guy in hopes of us staying in his tree house. Yep, you read that right, a tree house! Our friends stayed there last year and told us about it so we gave it a shot. Not knowing what to expect, but given a generous student discount, we took to the trees for the night. 

We arrived at the house after 9 p.m, not knowing it was 1) on the other side of a janky bridge with no lights, and 2) it was in the guy's back yard. Regardless of any prior expectations we had of trees houses, southern folk or Louisiana in general, this place was unbelievable.

                   

 

  

 

And yes, it was on a blueberry orchard. We picked two heaping bags in the morning as our breakfast.

Next destination: Bonnaroo! We had a few pit stops along the way in Memphis. The first was Lorraine Hotel where MLK Jr. was assassinated; the other was Ernestine & Hazel, a bar and grill that used to secretly serve alcohol during the prohibition and also women in the upstairs brothel.

The festival, however, was the main attraction. It was hot, humid, filthy and awesome. Sure, there were crazy people taking God knows what, but once the music started, everything seemed to make sense.

   

           
   

There's a large list of bands we saw. Our favorite was The Black Keys. Least favorite was Omar Souleyman, which was by default waiting for another band who was late. It happens.
We then made our way over to Washington D.C. Lindsey has never been to this city so we did what any and every tourist does in D.C, visit the Mall and the Smithsonian.

     

We also visited the Newseum! (nerd alert)

and stood in front of pieces of the Berlin Wall

and marveled at all the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs

Lastly, we visited WWII, Lincoln and Washington memorials. We also went to the Holocaust Museum and the National Geographic Society, but alas, no photos of those. 

                  

So there you have it, our road trip.

There were a lot of other things we did, so if you run into us ask us about the bats, the bachelorette party, the tiger, the sweet tea, Abe, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Those are some good stories.

All photos were taken with my Sony Cybershot or Canon Rebel