The Triumph of Gasoline

It’s the final map meeting. We’ve come so far, do we just roll up to New Orleans or see the Great River Road through to the Gulf of Mexico? Lake Itasca is 2,350 miles behind us (we’ve had detours) so it seems dumb not to chug the extra 150 miles past New Orleans to see where the small stream we walked across a few weeks ago tumbles into the sea. Let’s see this through, it’s bigger than us. Map meeting over and we’re going to Venice LA where the Mississippi meets the Gulf of Mexico – and apparently they’ve got a big sign that says so.

We take ‘sad face’ pictures alongside the car and pack it for the final time, this is the last days drive, the end of the road, clichés of the road fall like the last dirty autumn leaves. Y’know the scraggy little broken ones.

The interstate through Louisiana is elevated above the swamps for many miles, it is serene, “Exercise your legs – walk with God” is the message of the day. More importantly we are told that the two most-played popular artists on Southern Radio are… wait for it… Elton John and Gerry Rafferty! This is a genuine seismic shock. We silently consider this flying down the flat hot highway to the gulf. Hope Gerry had a rock-solid publishing deal.

At 1.10pm we reach the famous sign in Venice that tells us we’ve travelled the length of the Mississippi River. Our car wants us to know it has covered 2,579 miles as we stop and I fall to my knees in the 104 degree heat and the sweet smell of oil fills our senses. Ashly strides purposefully towards the Gulf of Mexico, she goes as far as she can before oil tanks and industrial paraphernalia block her way. She strides back to the car, it’s silent, there’s no one here.  I’m weeping on my knees by the disheveled famous sign. That’s it, let’s go to New Orleans and get utterly wankered.

New Orleans is a tiny hop back, we’re free. After discussing how many Brandy Alexanders it takes to kill a man the Sat Nav drops us at the Marais Hotel deep in the French Quarter. Read the guide books, just go there and soak it up, it’s a wonderful and resilient city that has taken the shit and risen again and again. So what if the Blues Purists now turn their noses up at the watered-down blues-lite on offer,  you can still hear finer singers at a 5pm show than in most parts of the planet – it’s not 1951 and Professor Longhair now sleeps under the bayou. So what if the food makes you diabetic and obese, don’t eat it, drink big-ass beers and if you don’t get it then go somewhere else. It’s New Orleans.

We obviously get into a terrible yet wonderful state. Ending up in a bar where one of the staff gets barred from his own establishment, a magnificently-breasted woman hits on my wife and I end up photographing the singers arse from outside the window on the street. Imperial Stormtroopers also wander in and drink through straws, we do drink Brandy Alexanders – this is a genuine cultural experience. I drink so much Ashly calls me ‘stroke face’. Classy.

Buy a voodoo doll, buy a shirt you’ll never wear outside of this town, make Facebook friends with scary people, but try and be cool. Be aware of what’s going on even when you’re off your knockers on strange blue liquid. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t bother with upmarket restaurants – they are not like the UK, eat in cafes and street food places. 

We’ve been in the car for 16 days and only now are we ‘on holiday’.