RoadTrip - Day 4

9th ward- On our way out of New Orleans we decide to drive through one of the sections devastated by Katrina, the 9th ward. We see shells of houses gutted, leaning, demolished, and uninhabitable years now after the tragedy. There is some new construction, but very little. It's a stark contrast to the rest of the city that was surging with life from its residents and vegetation. There's nothing funny or comical to say about this. It was a true American tragedy that the area still has not recovered from. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but seeing the devastation firsthand has added emphasis to the meaning for me.

We leave New Orleans on a somber note, but also with great memories, mostly due to the people. To all our new friends and the city itself, we thank you for a truly memorable time.

LSU for Lunch- After we leave New Orleans we head straight for Austin Texas. On the way though we need to eat, so we settle on Baton Rouge, and more specifically Louisiana State University. We find a little outdoor deli right on campus and eat with the students and faculty. Generally seems like a nice place with nice people but not very distinctive or memorable. Sorry LSU fans. Tim takes a bite of his sandwich and is done. Jake and I are not surprised.

Houston - On the way to Austin we drive through Houston. We read up a little bit before we get there to know what we're in for. It's apparently the 4th largest city in the United States with over 2million peeps and over 6mil in the metropolitan area. With that many people there's gotta be some great stuff going on.

We drove through the city a little before rush hour and saw roughly 6 people. Maybe the other 1.9million+ were still working. The new baseball stadium is right in the city, which is cool, but everything else seemed very sanitized and generic. We were unimpressed so we decided to give it one last shot with a quick drive through chinatown. The 3 buildings that appear to compose all of chinatown seemed very nice. Needless to say our opinion wasn't changed, and I don't think any of us will be returning voluntarily anytime soon. But hey, we could be wrong, it was just a drive by.

The Live Music Capital of the World- Finally we arrive in Austin Texas and check into our absolute best hotel room of the trip. It's a 4 room, 3 queen bed suite in the heart of downtown Austin, all for just 90 bucks. Super 8, you are our new favorite adjective and numeral combination. After we unload all our stuff again, we get ready and hit the city. We make our way to 6th street where a bum gives me parallel parking pointers. We walk up and down 5th and 6th street until we pick out our spot. Our first stop is Nuno's, which has an amazing blues band playing. The lead singer sounds like George Thorogood and the drummer performs a walking drum solo throughout the bar, hitting anything that will reverberate, including patrons' heads. As we enter, a guest piano player is finishing up his set with the band. He's a 94 year old blues veteran who's still rocking. Really cool. After the main band finishes a few sets they invite any musicians in the audience to come up and play. About 30 seconds into the first song they realize the new "bass player" doesn't know how to play bass, kind of an important job requirement. The other guys are really good. Overall it's just a cool experience. Every song is about 10-15 minutes and turns into a jam session.

After a couple hours there we head down the road to our next stop. Another blues band with another great group of musicians. Tim was a fan of the guitar players, but the lead singer was the highlight for me. He sounded like Joe Cocker and looked like Biff from back to the future. For a Monday night, it was pretty impressive. Definitely a place I'd like to come back to and spend a long weekend.