Word to my homies (no I don't know why I said that either)

In order to get to Oklahoma we had to drive across the great plains. They really are great and plain. Hours and hours of nothingness, just endlessly straight roads and desert. Then we reached the bible belt. We had to stop in some small Texan towns along the way and stay in motels. Due to the lack of funds we normally just check one of us in and both stay in the room, unfortunately two guys going into a room with only one double bed is not yet acceptable in some of these towns.It turns out they don't take it any better when you tell them it's ok because we are brothers.

When we arrived in Oklahoma we met up with a friend Nick knew from travels in Argentina. It turned out to be a very good move; he let us stay in his house, did a BBQ, took us out with his friends and gave us a guided tour of the city. We went to a cowboy museum first and spent most of the time in the kiddies section dressing up. If I say so myself, I make a darn good cowboy! After that we went to the Oklahoma Bombings monument and museum. It's quite sobering to see the damage one person can cause. The night out consisted of some BBQ ribs, watered down beer and far to many vodka shots. After that the people we were with decided to drive us to a bar. Unsurprisingly we got pulled over for speeding, having no proof of insurance and an out of date driver's licence. It turns out however, if you have breasts these violations do not count and after the two girls showed a bit of flesh we were let off with a warning. To be fair, I would have let them off aswell.

We were meant to drive to Austin the following day but we only made it to Fort Worth, which is about half way, as we were feeling so rough. We headed to the Stockyard district which has a kind of wild west feel about it with old Saloons and diners all along the street. They do a daily "Cattle drive" through the street which is a bit of a tourist thing but still quite cool to watch. Once again we pretended to be rooten' tooten' cowboys, I feel we pulled it off.

The next stop was Austin, we had been told loads about how cool the music scene was here and what a great night out it was. I agree with both statements. All the bars have live bands and we went out with a group of randoms from the hostel and had a really good night...... somehow three of us ended up in a random guys car driving to a strip club that was closed and then to a frat party which just turned out to be someone's house and not a party at all. Thankfully all ended well though, he only had eyes for Nick and he didn't rape us and leave us in a ditch.

I'm currently in New Orleans which is amazing. So different to the rest of America, it could be another country. Parts of it almost have a South American party atmosphere. Unfortunately the hostel which everybody recommended staying in was full for the weekend so we ended up in some dirty crack den. Without a doubt the worst hostel I have ever stayed in. We went out on Bourbon Street which is just bar after bar, all with live music. By 3pm most of the Americans had drunk so much they were being sick and heading home; by later in the evening it was mostly tourists drinking 'hurricanes' and being force-fed test-tube shots by big breasted barmaids. Somehow I got very drunk.

We took a drive out to the neighbourhoods which were worst hit by hurricane Katrina. It's good to see that allot of rebuilding has taken place and there are new houses going up everywhere but there is still an unbelievable number of houses destroyed and left derelict. It's hard to imagine what it must have been like a few years ago. We've also been out to the swamps to do some alligator hunting, I fancy myself as being a bit of a Steve Irwin, other than the dead part. We found two, one of which had 9 babies which was really cool, the other one was eating marshmallows which was bizarre as we were in the middle of a nature reserve and they were meant to be wild but at least they weren't eating us. We also saw an Armadillo which chased Nick and almost made me wet myself with laughter. Fun times.

We have a special guest joining us for the last leg of the road trip. Papa Gibb is coming out for the final blast up to New York!

Miss your face, keep in touch,

Gibb