Final Day In Flagstaff: "Dude, I can play Close Encounters on the healing drums!"

Day 50 (Thursday Nov 11th)
I made it up in time for breakfast again, this hostel was doing something weird to me. Also breakfast was less than a two second walk to get to so that probably helped. Some of the guys from the previous day were headed to Tucson, they were all going to different final locations but all passing through Tucson on the same bus. I toyed with that idea for a little bit but decided I'd rather have an almost full day in Flagstaff before I headed overnight to L.A. on the train. When breakfast was going on there was a woman talking about how things happen for a reason and I could see Kim was interested. He asked if I wanted to join them for a walk, they were going to a sound healing shop, I didn't have any plans so I figured why not. We went there and started playing some pretty sounding tongue drums, then Dimichelle (hippy woman) lay on a table while the shop owner (hippy dude) played some strings underneath her, it was a monochord table. Then he started chanting and singing... it was all very entertaining and I think she was enjoying it which was the main thing. Kim and I got a bit bored while Dimichelle was sound healing her liver so we went to get coffee and hot chocolate. We ended up losing Dimichelle so went walking around Flagstaff, it's a really pretty town so it was cool to explore. We also checked out some thrift stores because I was looking for a 50s outfit for the Back To The Future event, by now Andy had raised almost $200. When we got back to the hostel I found I had a response to my rideshare ad, I called the guy but he said he'd already passed through Flagstaff and I'd missed him by about twenty minutes. I looked him up online and discovered he was a former Hollywood stuntman so I'm sure he would have had some interesting stories, Dimichelle don't know shit! Kim wanted to see the sunset from somewhere good but I told him we only had ten minutes. He managed to talk "Jeremy Beadle hand man" into driving us up a hill... but only the east side of the hill was accessible. Sunset fail! I was starving so we acquired John and the Swiss guy and went out for some Mexican fast food, I had some kind of veggie burrito as usual and John kept making me try his extremely spicy pineapple salsa. We all decided to try finding some live music and went to the wonderfully named Cafe Ole... there was a wonky eyed man doing a solo acoustic set and some of his stuff wasn't too bad. He did a couple of very obscure Beatles songs and also attempted to speak German to Kim and Swiss guy, he failed. He got a bit annoying after a while so we moved on to another live music place, the band hadn't started yet so I decided to make my exit. John was very sad to see me go, he gave me a hug and said I'd brought him out of his shell a little bit. I headed to the station with my $118 ticket to L.A. and boarded the packed train. I chatted with a couple of people briefly, it's a small town so they were interested in my travels. It was a very uneventful train ride and I think I got a couple of hours sleep, only one seat to myself though, very disappointing.

The Grand Canyon - "We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!"

Day 49: Wednesday Nov 10th - "Three Brits and two Aussies walk into a big hole in the ground..."

I got up early at about 8am, had a shower, actually got to have some free breakfast because I was up early enough and then met up with my Grand Canyon gang. We were five, myself, Beau and Travis from Australia, Rob from Manchester and James from somewhere posh. This was James' first time to the canyon but the other guys had gone there the day before. It meant they had a car pass so I got in for free but it also meant they up for more of a challenging hike. We drove around to the east side and found the trail that someone had recommended to the guys. It was about 11am when we began our decent into the abyss. I was almost worried as we were passing knackered looking people coming the other way, the Aussie's were wearing their skinny jeans and almost skipping along so at least I knew they would die first. The views were pretty spectacular all the way down and the windy steep route we were taking meant that the view kept changing. After about two hours of mostly non-stop walking we decided to take a break for lunch. I had a couple of apples, a granola bar and stole some of the guy's bagels and cheese. We made it to our target  rock formation (the horseshoe) at about 2pm but the trail to the top would take too long... so we just went for the direct route. It was rather steep and probably quite dangerous but we all made it up there. I think we all felt a great sense of accomplishment as we sat at the top of the horseshoe saying "we kicked the Grand Canyon's ass!". Then it was time for a casual stroll back up to the top of the Grand Canyon...

It didn't take as long as I'd expected, only about half an hour longer than it took us to get down. However, it was far more tiring than I'd expected and the small rain and snow showers didn't help. We chatted to a few people on the way back up and met a nice couple from New Zealand. At one point we were all chatting to an old American dude and we realised that five of us were vegetarians, we're totally taking over the world! The old American dude said I looked pale, I said I'm from England and I've just been hiking for four hours in the Grand Canyon, he said no more. We also met two guys from L.A and I asked about the possibility of getting a ride there with them. They said it would depend on a couple of things and that I should call them later on. That would have been perfect except I managed not to store his number in my phone when I typed it in, I blame the lack of feeling in my hands. As soon as we got to the top of the canyon it started snowing heavily, it felt very strange. At some points during the day it had been really hot and we'd all been down to just a t-shirt. As soon as we left the car park a mountain lion ran across the road in front of us causing Rob to slam the brakes on and causing the rest of to unleash a torrent of expletives. We'd certainly had a day of bonding and the car journey back to Flagstaff was pretty funny. One funny thing I remember is Travis saying "Do you reckon the Kiwi woman was a babe............... in her past?"

We got back to the hostel at about 6pm and the two French girls I'd met in New Orleans were checking-in. They remembered me, I remembered them, it was rather amusing. The G.C. gang went out to the pub for happy hour, which was actually happy ten minutes because we were a bit late. Still, $2.50 for one pint isn't bad. We then went to another place for food, the Aussie's had eaten there the night before and recommended their bean burgers. I had a green chili veggie burger which was rather tasty. We got a couple of pitchers and had a few pints each, then went for a few games of pool at a pool club. A couple of locals were trying to tell us which local beers to drink and I got the barmaid to give me a taster of each one, that's always the best way. I beat all of the guys at pool and they ended up having a losers tournament. Upon our return to the hostel one of the staff members was recommending a cheap drinks night somewhere, we decided to check it out with an American guy called John but when we arrived there was a cover and the drinks really weren't that cheap. Back to the hostel again! We sat around in the lobby for a bit, reminiscing about our day of adventure, then some rather cute German girls sat down with us and were joking to each other in German. After a while they suddenly asked us all how old we were, then started giggling to themselves again. We tried conversing with them but an older woman came down from upstairs and told the Germans to be quiet, she said she was their coordinator, James thought she'd said commander, we laughed about that (we were tipsy), she was possibly their teacher, we couldn't quite figure it out. We decided this was all too much like hard work and that the Germans were a bit young so we all went to bed.

A quick stop in Phoenix and my first night in Flagstaff

Day 47 (Monday Nov 8th) "I think humans are going to become extinct fairly soon"
After a night of bad news I had to decide what I was going to do. My booked flight wasn't until the evening and I was considering whether to cut my losses and head straight to Los Angeles. I also had the option of going to Phoenix, crashing at the hostel for one night, then heading to Flagstaff and going to the Grand Canyon. With my newly acquired laptop I went to the library. I spent about two or three hours internetting and figuring out what I was going to do. Tony's wife Keri tried to help by calling up the site I booked my ticket through and seeing if I could change the destination for no extra cost. In the end I decided my original plan was the best one, Phoenix > Flagstaff (Grand Canyon) > Los Angeles. On the plane to Phoenix I was sat next to an interesting Chinese woman. She kept talking about the end of the world. More interesting than people I've sat next to before. Once I arrived in Phoenix I got a bus and then the light rail to withing nine blocks of the hostel, it was a scary looking, empty nine blocks to walk on my own but I survived. The lady working there, Mary, was very friendly but they were closing down the common area as soon as I arrived which meant there wasn't anyone around to chat to. Although a French Canadian girl saw my frostbitten (exaggerating) hands and offered me some lotion. It rubs the lotion on its skin...
Later that night when I was checking online I saw that Andy (Goonies friend in London) had set up a Facebook event and was trying to raise money for me to go to the Back To The Future event and that she'd already received almost $100 in donations! Rather amazing! I went to bed happy but it soon turned to despair, I only had two other people in my room and they were both very heavy snorers. I think I got at least a couple of hours sleep that night.

Day 48 (Tuesday Nov 9th) "Las Vegas halfway house? Me too!"
I woke up, showered and stuff, then straight to the internet to figure out if I was going to kill a day in Flagstaff or kill a day in Phoenix. I decided to kill a day in Flagstaff. First I chatted about languages with the French Canadians and a multilingual American girl. On my way to the bus station a cop pulled over to the side of the road and asked me some questions. He asked if I was hanging around and if I had a camera, then I remembered that a few minutes ago I'd seen a guy taking photos of the airport so I told the cop. I uphold the law! I had a salad at the bus station and then got on the bus to Flagstaff. It was a fairly empty bus so I relaxed and enjoyed the ride. Half way to Flagstaff the bus broke down and one dude wanted to use my phone to call the halfway house. He'd just been released from prison in Phoenix and was headed to Vegas, I declined because I didn't have much credit left. He borrowed somebody else's phone and took about fifteen minutes to get it all sorted. You'd think he'd never seen a mobile phone before... surely not. When he was explaining his situation a guy at the back overheard and said "Las Vegas halfway house? Me too!" Then the girl sat across from me broke her phone by dropping it and standing on it. I was on a bus of fools and criminals! The bus was fixed after about an hour and we continued to Flagstaff. I walked the ten minutes from the Greyhound station to the hostel and realised it was going to be a cold few days. I chatted to a couple of people after I'd checked in, one American guy with a Jeremy Beadle hand and one Swiss guy who is one of the most chilled out people I've ever met. I had a cool little room with just two bunks. A German dude called Kim would be sleeping across from me. He wanted to go explore so he got a coffee, I got a hot chocolate and we walked up a big hill, walking across train tracks and going directly up rather than following the road. It was really nice at the top but very cold. I only had layers, not a decent jacket. We were above the town so the stars were really clear and the air was really fresh. We wisely decided to take the road down to the bottom and we heard a band playing The Beatles "Come Together" in a garage. We returned to the hostel and I posted an ad on Craigslist asking for a rideshare to Los Angeles on either Thursday or Friday. Then I asked around about the Grand Canyon tour, it turned out that it probably wasn't going to happen because not enough people had signed up. Two European guys were driving there the next day but they were then driving on to Vegas, I pondered that for a few minutes and then I found out that four guys from another room were driving there, I knocked on their door, introduced myself, and then had a ride sorted to the Grand Canyon first thing the next day!

Colorado Part 2

Day 45 (Nov 6th) "Go Willy!"
Tony picked me up from the hotel. I'd never met him before but it didn't feel like that. We drove around Denver for about an hour trying to find the Denver Mint. They'd closed off lots of the downtown roads for some reason so were struggling a bit. In the end we gave up and drove south to Colorado Springs where Tony lives. We picked up his wife Keri and went to the Air Force Academy. The car got searched on the way in, two locals, a Brit and a dog must look like terrorists in Colorado. They had some planes on display, I did Free Willy on one of them and we got lots of photos. We also checked out the football stadium and the futuristic looking chapel. We then grabbed some cheap pizza and went to eat it at Garden Of The Gods, which is a cool rock formation thing. We dropped Keri off and Tony and I went for one drink and some chatting at a downtown bar. Then Tony took me to a motel and very kindly handed over a laptop that he said I could keep for the rest of my trip. I watched some terrible TV and fell asleep.

Day 46 (Nov 7th) "I conquered a mountain and I didn't even have to climb!"
I missed breakfast at the hotel by about an hour because the clocks had gone back and I was confused. I picked up a veggie sandwich and a muffin on the way to Pike's Peak (a 14,000ft mountain near Colorado Springs). It was going to be my first mountain but luckily we could drive all the way to the top. We stopped a lot along the way to take lots of photos and it took us about an hour and and a half to get to the top. Tony and Keri had warned me that I might feel dizzy and sick at the top but I was fine. Tony didn't have any problems either. It was just a really cold wind and my hands were suffering the most. At the top ofthe mountain there was a fox just hanging around, very cool. After conquering the mountain we went back down to Manitude Springs where they have lots of different flavoured springs. Tony and I tried almost all of them and they were all pretty disgusting. I quite liked Manitude Springs as a town, lots of hippies and lots of shops. Tony then drove me back into Denver and back to the hotel where I'd previously stayed. I took a walk down to Chipotle for some safe Mexican food and then went back to chill at hotel and plan the next few legs of my trip. I got a depressing text from Danielle in Phoenix saying she would no longer be available for hanging with me on the Thursday and that was my only real plan for Phoenix... bummer. I also got a text from Liz saying she wouldn't be able to do San Francisco... bummer. So I spent the night trying to figure out what I'd be doing the next few days. I also got a message from Andy reminding me about a Back To The Future event in Los Angeles on the Friday. It was a re-enactment of the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance with some of the cast and crew, tickets were slightly out of my budget at $300 so I jokingly said to her that I'd go if she could get enough donations from all of my friends.... more on that later...

Colorado Part 1

Day 43 (Nov 4th) "England?... Oh wait! You're British!"
I woke up not really remembering what had happened the night before, just that I'd somehow made it back to the hostel. I packed up my stuff and said good bye to Darren, then headed to where I needed to catch a bus to the airport. I just got to the bus stop in time although it required some running. A couple of French girls from the hostel were also on the bus, they were flying to Vegas. A couple of nights previous I'd booked my flight and because it hadn't accepted my card online and I'd had to wait a day the price had gone up from about $100 to $250. That was rather annoying but I had to go and see Tony! When I arrived in Denver it was just before sunset so when I was on the bus I could see the sun setting over the mountains, that was quite lovely. I arrived at the hostel and it turned out there was a hotel/apartment section to it. The guy showed me a couple of the rooms and I decided it would be nice to have a room to myself for a couple of nights. Denver started expensive so it might as well continue to be. It was only $37 a night which was just about justifiable. I walked to Walgreens to get some snacks, bought some fries, and when I told a woman I was English she said "England?... Oh wait! You're British!"....sweet Jesus.... When I got back to the room I saw a cockroach (which I failed to trap) and then I just watched bad American TV until I fell asleep.

Day 44 (Nov 5th) "I'm in love, dude"
I went to the library to use their computers and try and plan my day. I was only allowed an hour because I didn't have a library card but the lady helped me find an internet cafe nearby. I had a lovely mango smoothie there and booked my flight to Phoenix. Mario called me and we arranged to meet in the evening at a pub called Katie Mullins'. It was a really lovely day so I just walked around Denver a little bit. Most of it looked really pretty because every time you crossed a road and looked south you could see the snow covered mountains between the buildings. Later on I met Mario and we decided upon a food place where I got a veggie burger and fries. We went to a couple of different bars and had a couple of beers each, one was called Tilted Kilt and had Scottish dressed waitresses, another was Earl's where the waitress lady was one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She sat down with us for a few minutes and told us that she'd been to London the week before to see the NFL game and she'd gone to a party with Jon Bon Jovi, rather cool. We drank some vodka and cranberry drinks, then Mario had some mash potato. When I got back to the hotel I fell asleep watching Eraser and woke up to Steven Seagal in his Lawman series, nice.

New Orleans

DAY 1 "Are you Ewan?"
This was the first totally solo leg (uni-pod?) of my trip! Dani took me to the airport before she went to work so I got there at about 7am. It was another short flight but the train to New Orleans would have taken a day and cost more than the flight. There was a cute girl sitting next to me on the plane. I tried to get her attention by being annoying and leaning over when she was doing a crossword. My incredible advances failed... at least for now! We touched down in New Orleans and my research kicked in, I managed to find the right bus and the girl from the plane turned up at the bus stop about ten minutes after me, my research was better than hers... or maybe she grabbed something to eat. She told me that she'd flown from New Hampshire to surprise a friend in New Orleans. She gave me her number (I didn't even ask!) and she said that if her plans fell through then she might arrange to stay at my hostel. I arrived at the hostel, it was a bit of a dive but with a good mix of friendly young people. When I first went into my room there was a dude in there with some whiskey. "That'll wake you up in the morning! Captain Morgan!" was the first thing he said to me after he'd taken a big swig from the bottle. There was an Aussie guy in the room too and I quickly befriended him so we could team up on the other dude if he tried anything funny. The Aussie stepped out for a bit and the black dude told me "I can get you anything. Women, drugs, you name it." I thanked him for his kind offer and quickly ran away to find the Aussie guy. It turned out that Aussie guy was called Darren and he used to be a policeman in Sydney. I think I picked the correct dude to befriend. It was raining all day so most of the hostel folk stayed in for the night. It was a bit of a trek to downtown and most of us were pretty tired as we'd only just arrived or been drinking heavily the night before... or both. Darren and I got speaking to some Irish girls, Lisa and another girl with a crazy Irish name (Eomer?... no wait that's the dude from LOTR). We chatted for a good few hours and were joined by another Aussie. At one point the hostel phone rang and Darren decided to answer it, it was the first time I've cried with laughter on this trip. From what Darren was saying we figured there was a Korean guy called Min-sok Lee on the other end asking to talk to "Ewan". Darren was saying stuff like "This is a youth hostel, you know you're calling America right?" and it was just too funny to hear him try and explain stuff. In the end we decided it was Yu-an and that turned out to be one of the hostel workers, it was her father calling. We only worked that out after Darren had asked anybody that walked by if they were called Ewan. I was actually in bed before midnight in our room with the air-con stuck on 65.

DAY 2 "Pat Benetar in the taxi!"
The day started with making a new friend in Dom, another Aussie policeman who'd arrived the night before and was staying in our room. Dom, Darren and I were all heading downtown so we decided to go together. Before we left the hostel we gained another hosteller in Victoria, a singer from Liverpool. Our group of four headed into the French Quarter by the streetcar (tram). We went down to look at the river and then stopped at Cafe Du Monde for some beignets. They're non-dougnut-shaped doughnuts with a thick layer of powdery sugar on top. I left there looking I'd been snorting cocaine, that stuff got all over the place. Then we went to the French market and then just continued walking, Dom was looking for a specific place and we just happy exploring with him. We ended up walking into a slightly dodgy looking area, it turned out we'd gone a bit far and we were a bit north east of the French Quarter. One woman sitting outside her house took it upon herself to steer us away from trouble. "When you gets to da end of here you gonna turn left, you don't want go dis way, you in da ghetto! I won't tell you wrong." After that delightful piece of information we headed back to the safe area. I'd been told to check out any cemetery so when we walked past one I insisted we go in. They have to bury their dead above ground because the place is below sea level so it makes for some interesting looking tombs and stuff. We came across Marie Levau's grave which was covered with calling cards, jewellery, random stuff and a Macho Man Randy Savage action figure. She was a voodoo woman so people give her cool stuff even though she's dead. We grabbed some food somewhere, I had a big salad. Darren had made a note of a free concert in the park that was going on so we headed there around 5pm while Dom chose to check out some other stuff instead. At the concert they had some blues and some jazz and some scantily clad women handing out info on sporting event tickets. Victoria decided to walk back to the hostel but Darren and I got the streetcar (tram). We had some beers at the hostel, watched a basketball game on TV, chatted with some Aussies, Americans and some Essex girls. Then around 10pm myself, Darren, the other Aussies and the Americans headed downtown. It was a really fun night except for all the walking in the rain, at least it was warm enough that you dried off pretty quickly. We went to a couple of live music bars, one bass player totally inspired me to pick up the bass again, we bumped into Dom and his Brazilian friend, we then went to a bar where we played some pool and chatted up some local girls, they loved the accents. All of us got a taxi back to the hostel and a note I'd put into my phone was "Pat Benetar in the taxi!" so I imagine I was singing along and annoying the guys, "Hit me with your best shot!" (I don't actually remember this, I found the note the next day).

Florida: Days 4, 5 and 6

Florida: Day 4 "Women don't know I'm straight so what's the point?"
The day of the (Gay) Halloween Ball! Huzzah! Dani worked on her friend's wizard cloak costume for most of the day on Saturday. We watched some more Romero movies while she sewed. Then her friend Chris came round and they did some adjustments on his costume. We tried to sort out a pirate costume for me using whatever stuff we could find around the apartment. In the end it was the de-shirting that made it look authentic... and sexy. We'd been drinking ciders for a couple of hours before we left Dani's but I soon sobered up as we rode up the escalator... into a sea of gay men in the most amazing/ridiculous/flamboyant/gay costumes I've ever seen. "Holy Mary mother of God", was all that I could say. It was actually quite a fun night, I got to meet some of Dani's favourite gay men and the only scary part was going to the bathroom. I'm not used to being checked out when I'm trying to pee. The female bathroom was unisex for the night so I was tempted... but my morals stopped me. Needless to say we had a few drinks, chatted with some Balrog costumed dudes and the wicked witch of the west, then we headed back to Dani's. I'd managed to not get my cock grabbed once, which is more than can be said for Dani's friend Chris...

Florida: Day 5 "If I beach it they will come"
We were rather hungover so we didn't do very much. I wanted to see one last sunset so we went to the aptly named Sunset Beach. I'd actually decided during the day that I was going to stay an extra day because I was too ahead of schedule and the flights were cheaper a day later... but who turns down a sunset at the beach? There were tons of dophins knocking about, I was obviously getting quite sick of them by this point. Dani did some shelling, which is where she collects shells, hence the name. More zombie movies, then bed.

Florida: Day 6 "I ain't gettin' on no plane, fool! At least until tomorrow..."
Dani was working on Monday so I mostly slept, watched some movies, slept and when Dani got home we went to Picnic Beach for yet another sunset. This time there were no dolphins but there were palm trees which made for some good photos.