And we’re going to Arizona...it’s ok, we all have our papers.

This post recounts the day of May 24th, 2010.

This was a tricky morning. It was the first morning where we have a deadline to make that day. Habs Game 4 PM, Arizona time. We were 8.5 hours away. We were passing through 2 time zones though, which helped us a lot time wise. We were all feeling kinda low due to our upcoming long drive, but the anticipation for the Habs game was too strong to keep me down for long. We had a quick grab-n-go breakfast and we were on the road again. We ended up finishing a great audiobook by Nick Cave entitled The Death of Bunny Monroe. And finally, about 10 minutes late, we made it to a sports bar in Tucson, AZ for the game. The bar was fantastic for any sports fan. About 30 TVs and personal speakers at your table to set to any TV sound. The food was pretty decent, I’m pretty sure we had some veggie quesadillas and a garden salad.

The game was troublesome, and I was tired, and I really wanted a win...but it was not meant to be. The stupid Flyers took us in 5 games and ended the Habs’ magical playoff run. And we were only halfway thru the trip! We left with a glum face, well, I had a glum face, Tyler had to be cheery so we wouldn’t bring Bev down, and we went on our way to Tempe. The 2 hour drive was started by an amazing song to commemorate our great season: Les Boys by Éric Lapointe.
We finally got to Tempe, AZ, and my mood improved instantly when the cute receptionist who goes to ASU knew where montreal was, and actually dreamt of visiting our great city. She even spoke to me in French. I missed having a crush on someone... I had her draw us a map of the happening spots in Tempe. We went out. The happening spots, which I guess are normally happening, were not so happening on a Monday, especially after a devastating Habs loss, which I’m sure every Tempian was extremely upset about. We ended up at a bar with a live musician singing some Bob Dylan and I had a Rum n Coke courtesy of the wonderful Beverley. After the drink, we walked a little more throughout the city, really enjoying the Riverfront walk with their string-lit bridges. And tomorrow was to be another day.

Driving today: 10.5 hours

Song of the Day: Les Boys by Éric Lapointe

Album of the day: Beverley singing to Ingrid Michaelson mix...what a great voice...oh, and Ingrid was good too.

Welcome to the Ballpark!

This post recounts the day of May 23rd, 2010.

We ran late that morning, not exactly on the schedule I planned, but we also didn't plan to have Beverly for another week, so...WIN! We got to the Arlington Ballpark with about a half-hour before game time. I was amazed at the amount of cubs fans at the game. I guess they came for the whole series, but I no longer felt that a drive from Montreal was that intense for Texas...unless they all flew, then they're pussies :) We walked to the ballpark from our amazing 5$ parking. One thing that was really cool from "The Ballpark" was that scalpers were not allowed anywhere near the premises. It brought every other ballpark in that category to shame. I bought my Vladdy Guerrero t-shirt and we went to our seats. By the way, at least 20 staff members welcomed me to "the ballpark" on my way to my seat. How nice! Also, from our level, we were able to have a great view of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium...its too bad the talent of a team isn't based on the majesticness of their stadium because the cowboys would be undefeated...but alas, they probably wont make the playoffs in 2010-2011.

They announced before the game started a contest which had a few categories, but only one category would be taken, amongst which were: lived furthest away, best dressed fan, youngest fan, oldest fan, and many others. I figured driving from montreal "to see Guerrero" would be a good entry. Unfortunately, in the 7th inning, they announced 4 11-year girls that had Texas jerseys won the best dressed contest...HOGWASH! Absolute garbage if you ask me. The game also featured 1$ ice creams, which I purchased on a hot 35 degree day. The Rangers went down early 4-0 in the first inning but clawed back as best they could, but unfortunately lost 5-4 in the end. This makes our record for home teams when we attend game 18-7. Bev got badly sunburned during the game, and was red as a tomato. She is officially a red-head in my eyes.

Post-game, they gave free energy drinks, which was great for a tired me about to drive 4.5 hours after the game. But, yet again, we make it without a scratch to Midland, Texas. This was our sleeping stop between Austin and Phoenix. The stop at the szechuan restaurant was great, simply for their tofu soup. Finally, we got to the hotel in Midland, Tx, and we argued with Bev on the unimportance of makeup on women, and that sometimes makeup can make a girl who has beautiful natural traits look pugfugly (pardon my french). She disagreed. And tomorrow was to be another day.

Driving today: 7 hours

Album of the day: The Death of Bunny Monroe Audiobook by Nick Cave

Quote of the day: "Avril Lavigne's vagina must be the fuc**** valholla of all vaginas..." - Nick Cave

The day we watched two hockey games in Austin, TX

This blog post recounts the day of May 22nd, 2010.

We woke up really early for some reason, I cant recall it now. (While writing, I remembered why we got up early. I was supposed to get weighed in at Weight Watchers in Austin, but we got there too late due to traffic and it was closed...So Tyler and Bev spent some time in the Guitar World Store next door) It was only a 3.5 hour drive to Austin from Houston, and we only had to be there by 2PM CT, since Habs played at 3PM ET. Nonetheless, me and T were up by 6 and we let Bev sleep in. I tried to blog that morning but was unable to...never mixing wine and WD 40 again...or was it MD2020...wtv it was, its spiced rum and diet cokes from now on. We took a little gander at breakfast which had your basic orange juice, oatmeal and bagel with light cream cheese. Always a good start to the day. Now, we had two problems: the window and our Ipod cable which start fading on us. So we went to radioshack right next door which had just opened and glory me, 7$ for a brand new cable and we were back on the road. The window would have to wait. We got to Austin at around 1PM and ate at this well-reviewed vegetarian restaurant called Mr.Natural. Simply delicious, such big portions of healthy, wholesome food, a blended iced with spinach and pineapple, all for the low price of 6.30$ plus tax. We then rolled to the car and into our Country Inn and Suites and I tried to schmooze the front desk lady to let us in before check-in. Either there were alot of available rooms or my charm was simply too much to handle, because we got a room like that. *snaps fingers* We watched the game on NBC (love national broadcasting, much cheaper than bars every time to get it on Versus.) Unfortunately, les boys struggled once again to put it in the net, and we were down 3-1 in the series. Not the worst position to be in, i.e. Washington, however, I would have much rather had it been tied.

After the game, we debated for an hour on what to do next in Austin. Live music everywhere, lectures given on political progress and such, theatre pieces galore as well as black and white movies somewhere. And then, magic struck. The Hamilton Bulldogs were playing the Texas Stars about 20 minutes from our hotel, and tickets were 10$. It was a pretty easy sell, since Tyler figured there is no way the same franchise would lose in the playoffs on the same day. So I went to Spec’s via recommendation from Jenn I met in Houston, and whaddaya know, she was right. 2L bottle of spiced rum...*drum roll* .... 22$ tx incl. This country baffles me at times. I stored the prized possession on our hotel safe (jus kiddin) and we were off to the arena.

We might not have had Bulldogs jerseys on, but we were both decked out in Habs gear nonetheless and Bev borrowed the car flag to cheer on MAX PAC, Alex Henry, Curtis Sanford, David Desharnais, Shawne Belle, Ryan White and the rest of the future habs. It was an awesome game, lots of action and fights, and the Bulldogs ended up winning 4-0 (Sanford was not a star?!?) and we got on the big screen in the arena, quite possibly because we were the only bulldogs fans, but most likely because we were amazing. Out in the parking lot after the game, you better believe we strosed “bulldogs” (see definition of strosed in Houston post), and that win took a little off the edge of the Habs loss. We drove back to the hotel and I downed some rum and cokes before getting some much needed sleep. We were to lose Beverly the next day as we’d be taking her back to San Marcos. And tomorrow was to be another day.

P.S. This pic has nothing to do with Austin, but what a waste of paper in our Houston hotel.

Houston, we have Canadians in the building!

This post recounts the events of May 21st, 2010.

Well, well, well, I woke up before my alarm today, at a foreign house, with awesome people, and a farm load of crippled animals(my favorite was Faith, the 3-legged dog). Also in the family was Misty (she hated us, but warmed up to Tyler before we left, Cyclops the one-eyed cat, and Gimpy the 3-legged cat) This house made me want a SPCA or pound animal so much, they were so nice, reminded me a bit of Max's dog Magoo back in Montreal!

And on with the show... so our plan was to go to Houston first to see an Astros game, followed by Austin, and then Arlington on the 4th day in Texas. First of all, Beverly decided she'd like to come to Houston and Austin with us, which was a very spontaneous but always appreciated decision, since me and Tyler's motto is always the more the merrier. We left at around 2 PM after Mike(Bev's step-dad) made us an awesome pancake breakfast. Traffic wasnt as bad as people mentioned, but there was some nonetheless, but what do we care, Tom Tom the navigator can withstand anything! Unfortunately, you need a human to set it, and that human was me, and I set it to the Astrodome...which the Astros havent played there in at least 2 years. Once we got there and realized this was obviously not the ballpark, it clicked that Minute Maid Park was the place to be...and this one was downtown...and the traffic *shudder* impenetrable. We found parking for cheap one block away from the ballpark. We made it just as a kid said play ball!! We bought our scorecards and made our way to our seats, right behind home plate, about 120 rows back. :) The game was great, the Astros held the division leading Rays to 1 run in a 2-1 win. This was my 27th ballpark of the 31 in the MLB. We also discovered a new verb in this game:

To Strose: when hearing a abrupt sound, one must spit out the name of the team that he last saw win in person. For example, a car honks, I would yell Habs, or Stros.

Finally, it was Friday night fireworks after the game so we stayed for 15 minutes of bangs which was not very good, but at least they did it to 90s music. (Im not an ass, I just go to the La Ronde fireworks and they are spectacular). After that, we drove to El Supermercado Wal-Mart (that's right, everything inside was in spanish) and picked up a bottle of wine, followed by a gas station stop to pick up a bottle of MD 2020 (13% and packs a hell of a punch), oh and I guess gas... and drove to our hotel in west Houston. Upon arriving, there were people in the pool, which was surprising since the pool closed at 11pm...but they said they were making their own party rules, which I of course respect them for doing so. I joined them after some pizza, and met a gorgeous girl named Jen. She was from New Orleans, which was still fresh in my mind, and we chatted about that beautiful city over the awful bottle of wine. Finally, the inevitable happened and the hotel manager kicked us out of the pool area. And tomorrow was to be another day.

Album of the day: Bev's Ipod mix

Word creation of the day: To Strose (see above)

Driving time today: 3.5 hours

Quote of the day: "Don't go down to Fannin Street...You'll be lost and never found...You can never turn around."

- Tom Waits singing Fannin Street, while we are on Fannin Street

The day that was supposed to be but wasn't...

This post recounts the miserable day which was May 20th, 2010.

Ok. 5 AM wakeup. Good. Car all packed. Good. Leland ready in the common room. Good. Hunger. Not so good. Decide to drive to Walmart and pick up something for the road. Bad idea. Very bad. Got a flat tire 2 minutes from Walmart. Call AAA, and since it is 5 in the morning, good luck. We walk to Walmart and see if they have any tires to replace ours (we cant keep up our trip on the spare). The closest Walmart that has our tires was in Grosse Tete, LA. About 45 minutes west. The AAA guy comes and tows us all the way there. What a waste of time. Was so upset at this new development that once we got to Grosse Tete, we remembered poor Leland probably still sitting in the common room at the hostel waiting for us. Without cell phones, nor the number of the hostel, reaching him to say we were sorry seemed near impossible.Finally bought 2 new front tires and we were back on the road at around 9 AM. We drove all day, making very limited pit stops for coffee and teeth brushing. We just drove and drove and drove on the endless I-10 freeway, and finally, Houston. Unfortunately, we couldn't stop and watch the game that night since the Habs were playing in Game 3 vs. the Flyers, so we decided to switch up our days, and go to San Antonio first, meet Tyler's friend Beverly, then tomorrow go to Houston, and then Austin the next day. I started rolling down my window to have some "fresh air" and all was good. Rolling it up on the other hand, not so much. The window popped out of its socket and wasn't hanging on by much, especially driving 75 miles per hour in Houston. One hand was holding the window and one hand the wheel, and Tyler was doing the signaling for lane changes. We stopped shortly thereafter for some gas and to try and fix it, but it was a lost cause. (To this day in Long beach, it is still not fixed.) We drove the last 3.5 hours to San Antonio with no open window, much to my chagrin.

We got to Beverly's house at around 5PM. The Habs were playing at 6PM CT. We met the folks, lovely people, and ate dinner and watched an amazing display of our Habs at their finest. Post-game, and a few rum and cokes down, the karaoke machine made an appearance and we sang and sang, Beatles, Shania Twain and others...Quite the evening, and to top it off, 3 games of 3 AM Yahtzee! Aww, vacation!
And tomorrow was to be another day.

Driving today: 8 hours

Album of the day: Rain Dogs by Tom Waits

People we have upset on this trip: 1 (Leland the traveling musician)

People that love us on this trip: like 40,000 because we're amazing and Canadian!

Life on Bourbon Street

This post recounts the events of Wednesday, May 19th 2010.

We woke up pretty late this morning, what with the barely sleeping in our room that smelled like someone shit himself and then threw away his pants in the garbage can in the room and all, but we managed to put our Wal-Mart groceries to good use. I didn't much feel like doing anything that morning/afternoon for we were planning on doing Bourbon Street that evening and retire quietly before a long drive to San Antonio, TX, the next day. Obviously, this was New Orleans, and that is nowhere near what happened. First off, we met Ravi, this Indian guy who lives just south of Windsor, ON. Now, I'm going to tell you something about myself that you might not know: I'm in love with the Indian accent. I could not stop laughing, not only for the accent, but this guy was actually funny too. Oh man...We asked him if he wanted to come to Bourbon Street that night, but he wanted to watch the Lakers and the Suns play. We compromised and told him we'd watch the first half with him if he came with us to Bourbon. Me and Tyler decided, since this was to be our last night in NOLA, and that we still had so much of the food we bought at Wal-Mart, that we were going to cook for a select few people that were around the common room. Invitees were: Me, Tyler, Ravi, Autumn (a friend Tyler spoke to on the shit night) and Tim (the hostel manager). On the menu: Sauteed tofu with a mesquite marinade, a side spinach salad with honey mustard dressing, fried spinach and a red bell pepper. The supper was an obvious success, and we were quite pleased with ourselved. Man, the amount of tofu we had was immense, no way we would've finished that à deux...

Reese, one of the hostel managers, gave us a ride to the top of Bourbon St after dinner. It was only around 6 pm, but everyone was drinking outside and there were street performers everywhere. This is pretty much where shit hit the fan and I told myself, "When in Rome..." and got a bucket (around 1.5 L) of beer for 4$. On the other hand, Tyler, my partner in crime for this road trip, decided this day, to be is last day of drinking ever. Quite the city to decide that in, but I have the utmost confidence that he will accomplish his goal. As I returned to my drink, we walked around and saw this beautiful girl sing on Royal and saw strip clubs galore and people seemingly drunk walking aimlessly to their next bar...awww...paradise. Just kidding, but you have to take it all in, right? We got back to the hostel late that night, and Tyler, Leland and I were to have a big day of driving ahead of us. Leland was happy since we were bringing him to Austin to try anew over there, his gig not really working for him down in NOLA.

And tomorrow was to be another day.

Quote of the day:

"Soooooo many good artists in Canada, let's see...Celine Dion, and and and, Bryan Adams!"

- Ravi discussing Canadian singers

Drinks consumed today:

5 (dont ask what size they were)

Song of the day: Rid of me by PJ Harvey

Life on Magazine Street

Sorry for the delay folks, but i'm back in black.

This post recounts the events of Tuesday, May 18th, 2010.

We woke up with wicked headaches that morning, not really, but that's what people say when they drank lots the night before. We were actually quite well. We went to the New Orleans Wal-Mart, which surprisingly, is like any other Wal-Mart anywhere. But, we were in a hostel, and that means, cook for yourself time! Also, not many meat-free cajun places in New Orleans. We picked up the breakfast, lunch and dinner of champions: Organic Flax Cereal with raisins, soy milk, spinach tortilla wraps, 2 packages of family size spinach (recyclable with #5 plastic), yogurt, 3 bell peppers (tri-color pack), 2 packs of tofu (firm and extra firm), mesquite marinade and some honey mustard dressing. Happy with all our groceries, we returned to the hostel and labeled all our stuff, not that anyone would take it anyways. We decided that day to walk all the way up Magazine Street, known for its little shops, nice restaurants and many antique and art stores. It was a beautiful walk, despite the 90+ degree heat, just under 4 miles long, and at the end of it, just like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, a Whole Foods. We bought our veggie dogs that we couldnt find at Wal-Mart, which has always been our pre-hockey game meal. We also found a place that would show the Habs Game #2 vs. the Flyers.

We got back to the hostel, another 4 miles later, and we started our meal to get ready to watch the hockey game. Leland, our friend the traveling musician, was in the common room chatting up a storm, and we left abruptly after eating our dogs.

On our way to the place we wanted to watch the game at, winds were picking up and it looked like it was gonna pour. This waitress named Tiff (really really cute) at a resto-bar called Jackson was putting away the outdoor chairs and tables and she saw my jersey and asked us to come in to watch the game. We complied. 10 minutes before game time and we were making friends the bartender Stephen, and since we were the only two customers at the time, even the chef like us and brought us complimentary strawberries stuffed with goat cheese. Delicious. We watched the atrocity of a game, not as bad as Game 1, but not much better. Before leaving, we thanked everyone for being so awesome, and we told them we'd call them from San Antonio after a Game 3 win.

We got back shortly after to our hostel, where a gathering of people in the common room were going to go see a local brass band at the Maple Leaf bar. We all got 3-4 beers each for the walk/trolley ride (drinking in all of New Orleans is legal in streets, stores and public transports). The band was simply fantastic, I was in the front row all night and couldnt hear a thing when I left, but I didnt care. It was a fantastic show. I met a few people in the bar that were from Winnipeg, Worcester, Fredericton and others. A town of tourists, this New Orleans.

Not realizing how far the trolley had taken us, we started walking back the hostel from the bar. We walked about 10 blocks before realizing we'd never seen these streets before, so we flagged down a cab. It was a Moroccan driver, and he was also awesome. Drove a cab in the Big Easy for the past 20 years. He laughed at us for even attempting the walk, especially tipsy, for it was in reality around 50 blocks to our hostel(not NYC blocks either). We payed the man and went to our room.

Now, we arent very picky about hostels, but when we opened the door to our room, a certain stench was in the air. We saw that a new guy was in the room, and the AC was off. I woke him as asked if we could turn it back on, and he said no. I then asked if he was cold, and that was the reason he turned it off, and he said no. Seeing that we were getting nowhere with our new smelly friend, Tyler and I went to sleep on the couches and chairs in the common room, with a drunk swiss girl on facebook and a tired Brazilian girl called Gabrielle, who was outraged beyond belief when we told her of our situation.

And tomorrow was to be another day.

Walking today: 10 miles

Song of the day: Wanted Man by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Quote of the day: "I wish I was able to make balloon animals." - Leland, traveling musician

P.S. It did pour for 15 minutes that night, and apparently, Magazine street can get bigtime flooded, like 3 feet deep of water.