New Orleans, Lake Charles (Louisiana), San Antonio (Texas) and Carlsbad (New Mexico)

Got a long one for you today, it may or may not have photos depending on whether the internet holds out and the time it takes to write...

We had a free day in New Orleans after the night out (which was exactly how you'd expect a night out on Bourbon St to be...), so in the morning we took a steamboat ride along the Mississippi. At New Orleans the river is 200ft deep, and so wide it can fit lanes and lanes of ships along it as well as moored up US Navy boats. Its pretty impressive. From the river you can see the sugar refineries and the plantation homes along side each other, once again it's New Orleans' strange mix showing it's face. The afternoon was spent doing some much needed laundry and repacking our bags. Everyone has the same problem... we aren't trying to fit any more in but for some reason all our stuff seems to have expanded by about 3 times so every few days we have to do a total repack to get it all to fit in!

The morning after we had a 'lie in' and set off at 10 for our swamp tour. It was brilliant, we saw an alligator really close up and spent about 2 hours out on the Louisiana swamp. Quote of the day has to be, in your best southern drawl, "Y'all wouldn't think it, but turns out gators love marshmallows."
The rest of the day was spent driving down to Lake Charles and the National Park down there where we were camping that night. It was right beside the swamp and FULL of rednecks. "Y'all got a permit for moving that table?" is a close second on the quote front, said by a man with a proper mullet who arrived on a pickup, music blaring, with 2 girls sat on the back drinking Bud Lite. Amazing.

We finally crossed the border into Texas, the Lone Star State, after lunch and arrived in San Antonio. As we were driving through Houston we hit a rainstorm again, with thunder and lightening too this time... take a look at the picture below showing the visibility through the front windscreen! We visited the Alamo, and the Riverwalk then did a bit of shopping, unfortunately there were no cowboy boots to be found for under $100 so the search continues... Juli is going to try and find us somewhere soon because we can't pretend to be cowboys without them! On that night we headed out for a bit of line dancing at the Crazy D Saloon. There was no line dancing (boo) because of the basketball match, but there was karaoke taken very seriously by mustachioed old cowboys in boots, hats and checked shirts.

And that finally brings us to today, the longest drive day so far... we set off at 8am (Central time) and arrived at 5pm (Mountain time)... thats 10 hours driving as we've changed time zones again, it takes THAT LONG to get half way across Texas. San Antonio didn't seem very Texan, however on the drive over we saw some very stereotypical Texas landscape just before we entered New Mexico, so that was good. There were those oil pumps and everything. Tonight, we've set up camp in the middle of nowhere... there are just small bushes and the odd cactus for as far as you can see outside of the campsite. The plan is to go to the drive-in movie tonight, it doesn't really matter what to see, the fact that we're going to a drive-in is enough for me! We have popcorn and snacks and we're gonna sit out in front of the van under blankets :D can't wait!

love you all lots and lots, xxxxx