Houston, Texas

Texas is miles better than Florida and I defy anyone who's visited both to tell me otherwise. I really enjoyed my time in Texas last year, when I visited El Paso, Alpine and Austin (I thought I'd also been to Dallas, but it turned out to be just a dream, ha ha) and so it was an easy decision to come back. Houston is the fourth-biggest city in the US, behind NY and LA and Chicago. It's not exactly a tourist hotspot but I prefer things that way.

It occurred to me recently that while travelling I devote all my time to leisure and pleasure, and that perhaps it was time to be a bit less selfish and do something good. Time to give something back to society...

So I volunteered as a sample pourer at the Big Brew Beer Festival, in the George R. Brown convention centre in downtown Houston. The festival is aptly named: it makes the Ashbrooke festival look like two tramps discussing a can of Special Brew. I manned the stall for Anchor, a fairly well-known San Francisco brewery, and was responsible for dishing out their California Lager, Anchor Porter, Liberty Ale and Anchor IPA brews, one liquid ounce at the time. This was my first time working behind a bar and I rather wish I'd tried it sooner. Girls coming up from all directions and vying for my attention. Who knew?

My social hub here is the Hay Merchant, just a short walk from the hostel, where Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is $3 a pint during happy hour. There is also a thriving food scene in Houston: my particular favourite is a Greek diner called Niko Niko's. No meal that contains grilled chicken, feta cheese, tzatziki and filo pastry can ever be bad.

Good beer, good food, and - even though it's late October - the sun shines 30 degrees C in a clear blue sky. Houston, we have no problem.

Downtown Houston at dawn, from the 60th floor deck of the JP Morgan Chase building.

Corner of Congress and San Jacinto

In the foreground on the right are the Esperson buildings (1927 & 1941)
and in the background is the BG Group Place building (2011)

My stall at the beer festival

Happy chappy at Houston Zoo

Moon rock at Houston Space Center

Meerkats doing their best 'Next catalogue pose' at Houston Zoo

Florida

Florida is the number one location in the USA for retirement homes. In other words, it's where Americans go to die. Perhaps that's because living here makes you a bit more open to the idea.

It's the 22nd US state I've visited. It's the 10th state in this particular trip*, and it contains the 10th national park of my trip, the Everglades. Colorado has forests and rivers; Utah has mountains and canyons; Florida has a swamp. It may be the world's most impressive and biodiverse swamp, but it's still a swamp. An ugly, fetid, featureless, stinking swamp that you have to pay $10 to get into. But the mosquitos dine for free. Like all humans, I undergo intense discomfiture at any threat to my hitherto unchallenged position at the top of the food chain. See photo below.

I drove my rental car north from Miami and visited Pensacola, Tallahassee, Kennedy Space Center and the Everglades, in that order. Along the way I had two one-night stays in Jacksonville. I couldn't stay in Tallahassee because it was college football weekend and all the hotels were totally booked out. (When I say 'football', I of course mean American football. There was no English football this weekend. On the fixture list it said that Sunderland were playing at Southampton, but I refuse to acknowledge that any game took place.)

None of these places really merit a blog by themselves, hence the state-wide scope of this one. Pensacola and Tallahassee were nice; Kennedy Space Center was great. I gave Disney and Universal a miss as they're not really places to visit by yourself. Florida as a whole? It's a place which I can definitely take or leave.

So I'm going to leave.

(*I've mentioned 8 of the 10 states in my blog: there's also Montana, which I entered very briefly while in Yellowstone, and Mississippi, which I crossed between New Orleans and Memphis.)

Pensacola Beach

Pensacola at sunset 

The old Florida State Capitol building in Tallahassee. It's now a museum.
(The new big ugly one is visible right behind it.)

Saturn V rocket at Kennedy Space Center.
It's still the most powerful machine ever used by mankind.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

Everglades National Park
This is about as scenic as it gets.

Edd vs Food #20
Good old fashioned meat & veg, but posh.
At Pot Roast & Pinot in Pensacola.

Edd vs Fast Food #5
Arby's
Not as disgusting as it looks. Pretty close though.
The chicken was half gristle, and the beef was of the kind you buy in a £1 packet from Iceland.
They didn't even have wi-fi.

Mosquitoes vs Food #1
Edd
Fatty, quite sweet, with top-notes of ginger. Sometimes cheesy.
Very filling when served on the bone.

Miami, Florida

Miami began badly. The train from Savannah was meant to last 12 hours, 7am to 7pm, but it didn't show up until 9am and then there was an apparent suicide on the line ahead of us. Presumably the police weren't sure it was suicide, because they kept us waiting there for five hours. We finally rolled into the outskirts of Miami at 3am. There was no public transport available, and a taxi would have cost a fortune, and you can't check into a hostel at that time anyway; so all I could do was sit outside the train station and wait for the sun to come up.

At 8am a bus arrived and took me to South Beach. While waiting to check in, I watched Estonia v England on my netbook in the nearest McDonalds. Naturally one is obliged to make a token purchase when hijacking their wi-fi: mine was a McMuffin meal. And then a chilli chicken wrap. And then a McFlurry. (In the circumstances described above, I think I was entitled to a bit of comfort food. Also I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I actually like just about everything McDonalds sell, with the obvious exception of the burgers and the fries).

After a much-needed sleep I went out for an early evening walk to the beachfront. Impressions of Miami from the first five minutes: an obviously gay man pushing a baby stroller containing only a puppy; a hipster wearing earphones and texting while on a skateboard being pulled along by his dog; a brand-new Rolls-Royce convertible on the back of a tow-truck. I took a picture of the latter and was rehearsing a witty caption about the tow fees probably not being a problem, but then I realised it was being delivered, not towed.

It's very hot, and my speed-eating skills have come in useful because ice creams don't last two minutes under the sun here. I got up early to watch that sun rise over the east-facing South Beach on my second morning here (my first morning was lost in a fog of puke-stained hangover).

At first, Miami struck me as more refined and much cleaner than I'd expected. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting. Probably some kind of turbo-charged Whitley Bay; a Blackpool on steroids. But the good impression didn't last. Posing seems to be the order of the day here. People drive convertibles round and round the block just to see who notices them. And there's a young chap in my hostel, in town for a modelling shoot, who does not appear to possess a single item of upper-body clothing. Admittedly if I looked like that, which is to say, if I was carved from bronze-tinted marble, I'd probably take the same approach.

The main drinking area is Ocean Drive, which looks out over South Beach. Endless crowds of people who are neither rich nor beautiful, pretending to be both, and spending fortunes in the process. It's loud, crude, vulgar, seedy and false. There are better places to drink further inland, but not many.

For people who like hot humid weather and loud noise and nightclubbing, Miami is perfect. For me personally, it's the eighth circle of hell. I won't be leaving the way I arrived, because after that fiasco, me and Amtrak are having a trial separation: a 'conscious uncoupling', if you will. (Trains? Coupling? Geddit? Never mind.) I now have a gleaming white Nissan Altima 2.5S with a full tank of gas, at 50p a litre by the way, and I'm outta here.

Downtown Miami

The main beaches in Miami are on a small island which is called Miami Beach.
Technically it's a separate city to Miami itself.

The sun, newly risen over South Beach...behind some clouds.
Stupid clouds.

Edd vs Fast Food #5
Chick-Fil-A
Miserably small serving of chicken nuggets. Doesn't even compare with KFC.
How hard can it be to compare with KFC?
Epic fried chicken fail.

Savannah, Georgia

Savannah is a marvellous place and it's quite unlike anywhere else I've been in the USA. There aren't really any must-see tourist attractions, and I haven't taken all that many photos, because there's nothing especially remarkable to look at. It's just a very chilled and easy-going assortment of top-quality bars and restaurants, with shady tree-lined streets and nice little parks & fountains every few blocks. If anything it reminds me of the nicer small towns in Ecuador and Argentina. And the shade from the trees is very welcome: even in October it's still swelteringly hot here.

Honorable mentions go to Leopold's Ice Cream and especially to the Crystal Beer Parlour, which scored the full five stars on all three counts of food, beer and service. The local brewery is called South Bound and their Scattered Sun is one of the best Belgian white beers I've ever had.

I also tried an all-you-can-eat soul food buffet, at a restaurant owned by the ever-so-slightly scary TV personality Paula Deen. What did I make of soul food? Well, I liked the fried chicken...I think I can take or leave the rest of it though. One for the 'been there done that' file. But Savannah on the whole is definitely one for the 'come back here one day with friends' file.

The Westin Hotel. Very plush. Obviously I didn't stay there.

Savannah River ferries on the north shore

Forsyth Fountain, Forsyth Park

World Of Beer, 112 W Broughton St, Savannah.
This is my new home. It's been nice knowing you all. 

Edd vs Fast Food #4
Jimmy John's
A 'Totally Tuna' sub.
Better than Subway, not as good as Quiznos. That's all I can say really.

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is bigger than I expected, with plenty of high-rises looming above the fairly plush Downtown area. I was here just one night, passing through, and the only event of note was a lovely big pile of Mexican food at Jalapeno Charlie's. Not photogenic enough to make it into Edd vs Food but very nice all the same.

It's another quick one today. I try to avoid waffling when I've got nothing to waffle about.

Downtown Atlanta

At dusk, a fairly pleasing coherence of architectural styles and colours. London could learn from this.

Sunrise over Atlanta

Nashville, Tennessee

On the Greyhound into Nashville there was an intense-looking young guy sitting in the front row, totally engrossed in a book.  Eventually he stood, turned round and began addressing the whole bus. He told us that the God of Abraham was dead and had been replaced by the God of Life. Sadly for him, denying the God of Abraham means denying Jesus Christ, and that sort of thing doesn't go down well in Tennessee. He failed to win the crowd over and sat down again in resentful silence.

Although I do like a bit of Gram Parsons and Hank Williams and Emmylou Harris, I can't say I'm as excited about the Nashville scene as I was about Memphis or Muscle Shoals. But there's plenty more than just country music here. It seems almost everyone you meet is in town to play a gig or make a record, and of course names get dropped constantly. ('I'm working with such-and-such...he did the xylophone arrangements for a solo album by the drummer of the band who used to open for Ugly Kid Joe...') It's like LA: everybody wants to be on the scene.

Of course, name-dropping and competitive boasting is a fairly universal thing. Last year in Detroit I said hello to a chap in a hostel kitchen and within about fifteen seconds he had found occasion to mention that he'd once been nominated for an Oscar. I looked him up later and in fairness it was true.

Aside from the record industry, Nashville is also a popular holiday destination for Americans to get drunk and shake their tails to live music. Most of this happens on Broadway and it's a good night out. In the pub where I got the food pictured below, I came across 'layered beers', meaning two different beers mixed in one glass. Snakebite, ie lager and cider, is familiar; as is Black Velvet, ie Guinness and cider. However 'Black Garden' - Guinness and Hoegaarden - is definitely a new one on me. (It's also known as 'Black Hoe', but obviously I'm not about to start yelling that across the bar...)

Broadway. If you like country music and/or beer, then this is the place for you.

Guerrilla billboard behind the Hustler shop on Church Street.
The shop itself is in fact fairly innocuous, like an Ann Summers, but the rest of the Hustler empire isn't.
For example they have a 'Barely Legal' strip club in New Orleans, with special offers for Father's Day. Words fail me.
Details of the campaign are here.

LP Field, home of the Tennessee Titans (American football), with a game ongoing.
The visiting team was the Cleveland Browns, who came back from 28-3 down to win 29-28.
It was the biggest comeback victory by an away team in NFL history.

I think this rollercoaster needs some work.

The AT&T Building. It looks like Batman.

Savannah's Candy Kitchen on Broadway, by far the most impressive sweet shop I've ever seen.

Edd vs Food #19
A bit of comfort food at The Pub, an 'authentic' English-style boozer on 11th Avenue.
Shepherd's pie with beef, lamb, peas, carrots and chive whipped potatoes...all topped with mozzarella.
Since when did 'authentic' English shepherd's pies come with mozzarella?
I'm not complaining though!

Muscle Shoals, Alabama

Even if you think you've never heard of Muscle Shoals, you've definitely heard songs recorded there at FAME studios (eg 'Mustang Sally' by Wilson Pickett and 'Wild Horses' by the Rolling Stones), or elsewhere by their session band the Swampers (eg 'Respect' by Aretha Franklin). I heartily recommend that you spare half an evening to watch a recent film made about both. Also see the lyrics to the third verse of Sweet Home Alabama. That's all for today!

FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals.

Edd vs Fast Food #3
Quiznos
An Italian Classic six-inch sub on Italian bread, and a Tuna six-inch sub on wheat.
It's like Subway, but a bit more expensive and much better all round, especially the bread.
Subway still has its place. But any time you see both, this is definitely the one to go for.

Memphis, Tennessee

Music is a recurring theme in my blog. It's been pretty unavoidable really. Chicago is the home of the blues; Detroit is the home of Motown; New Orleans is the home of jazz. But Memphis is the home of rock'n'roll. Needless to say I have invested quite heavily in souvenir T-shirts.

Here I've visited Sun Studios, a room the size of a garage where Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison all recorded their first hit singles. Did you know that U2 recorded 'Rattle and Hum' there? Also the Stax Museum, formerly Stax Records. (If you've ever seen 'The Commitments', well, basically in that film when they're talking about 'soul' music they're essentially talking about Stax music). Then there's the Memphis Rock & Soul Museum, which has (just as an example) the guitar Elvis took with him to Germany while serving in the US Army. Finally there is Graceland, which I trust needs no introduction...

At Sun Studios the tour guide showed us how the equipment is set up as it was when Elvis recorded 'That's All Right Mama' there in 1954. He (the tour guide, not Elvis) asked for silence and played the original radio broadcast over the speakers. In my tour group there was a well-built man of about seventy, with graying but still-prominent sideburns, and as the music started he broke down silently into tears. Maybe he went there every weekend. Maybe he'd waited all his life to be there.

In amongst all of the above it's essential to include the National Civil Rights Museum, erected around the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968. Stax Records was tightly bound up with the civil rights movement in a way that Motown, admittedly, wasn't. (Berry Gordy Jr didn't want Motown to release 'What's Going On' at all.) It's worth adding that there were white people, not just record label staff but writers and studio musicians, involved at all levels in Stax.

Beale St, which is where everything used to happen in the heyday of the blues pre-rock'n'roll, is nowadays the focal point of social life, or at least tourist life. It's rather like a miniature version of Bourbon St in New Orleans. In truth it's pretty trashy, but I found a club called Rum Boogie with a good blues band and a good plate of red beans & rice.

Memphis as a city is surprisingly upmarket, or at least the downtown area is. Realistically, I think this probably indicates that the authorities have been more successful than in other cities at keeping the poverty confined to the suburbs. Maybe I'm just cynical. But I really like this place and I'm definitely coming back here one day. All of a sudden Machu Picchu and the grand temple at Angkor Wat seem that little bit less important. I've been in Elvis Presley's kitchen. I'm all shook up.

Downtown Memphis, from the rooftop bar of the art deco Madison Hotel.

Sun Studios.

Stax

Stax Studio A.
This is where '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay' and 'In The Midnight Hour' were recorded,
among many others.

A rotating exhibit of the 1972 Cadillac El Dorado, in peacock blue, driven by Issac Hayes.
Fur-lined interior, external gold trimmings, plus TV and refrigerator in the back.
Not many cars had TVs and fridges in 1972. This ride is pimped, y'all.
 

Graceland from the outside

Graceland from the inside.
The 1970s were a brown decade.

Graceland - the kitchen. Surprisingly modest.

New Orleans, Louisiana

All those hikes have been great exercise, but now it's time to give the legs a rest and let my liver take the strain for a while. New Orleans is the ideal place to do it.

All joking aside, I was starting to go a bit stir crazy in the National Parks because nothing was happening socially at all. (While in Yellowstone I picked up a couple of hitch-hikers just for the sake of having someone to talk to. Obviously I selected young female hitch-hikers, for security reasons.) Now I'm staying in a lively hostel, meeting all kinds of people and getting drunk with them, as is my wont. Please note that there are no nightlife pictures below, because expensive cameras and binge drinking don't mix.

My hostel is about a mile or two from downtown: the slow and creaky streetcar (tram) runs 24 hours and only costs $3 for a day ticket. Naturally I have gotten sozzled on Bourbon St, as you do. It's an experience, but I prefer some of the quieter areas like Magazine Street and Frenchmen Street. To use a Newcastle analogy, if Bourbon St is the Bigg Market then the others are Jesmond and the Quayside.

In one bar, called Huge Ass Beers, the plastic glasses hold 32oz - that's about a litre. Sadly I can't tell you about the interesting brews here, because I've been so blotto that I can't remember what they were. The exception is Hopitoulas, which is one of my favourites on this trip to date. At 6.5% ABV, I probably shouldn't drink it a litre at a time. Lesson learned for next time. Probably.

I've explored pretty much the whole of the French Quarter, as well as other interesting areas like the Garden District and Tremé. In the latter I visited a barbershop called True Stylz, where I was the only white customer present, and indeed perhaps the first one ever. They charged me $20, which is the most I've ever paid for a headshave - even more than in Manhattan last year. Maybe I'll try a redneck place next time instead.

There's a huge amount of musical history in New Orleans: in the context of 20th-century music, perhaps more so than in any other city in the world. I've seen quite a few live jazz and blues bands, some better than others. And there's live gospel music audible in the hostel from the surrounding churches.

There are of course also some very prominent social, racial and economical issues on show here. In my life to date I have spent quite a bit of time on the wrong side of numerous tracks, but it was still quite an eye-opener just to walk a few blocks north-west from the hostel. I wish there was something positive I could say, like I did with Detroit last year. It's not for me as a newly-arrived tourist to offer opinions on the rights and wrongs of it all, and certainly I'm not about to start taking 'poverty porn' photos.

On Bourbon St, one ancient trick is for the panhandlers to approach tourists and say 'I bet you $20 I know where you got your shoes...' The tourist accepts the bet, and then the beggar says 'You got them on your feet!' Apparently some tourists do pay up. I had read about this beforehand, so when my turn came, I was all primed with my smug response: 'Yeah, yeah, I got them on my feet'. But then I noticed how old, weary and unwell the guy looked, and immediately I felt like a complete w*nker. Deservedly so.

St Louis Cathedral, New Orleans.
I had to wait ages to get this picture without any fat people or big SUVs in the shot.

A statue of Louis Armstrong, in Louis Armstrong Park

The hostel's on-site pet: a Pomeranian from the rescue shelter. Yes, it's a dog and not a cat.
I got him to pose for the picture by pretending that I was going to feed him.
I'm a very bad human being.

The Opera Guild Home, 2504 Prytania St, New Orleans.
In the Garden District. A fine example of Greek Revival architecture, built in 1865.
Also a fine example of a Porsche 928S, as driven by Tom Cruise in 'Risky Business'.

18

Edd vs Food #18
A 'Mr Biggs' combo at the Rum House Caribbean taqueria, 3128 Magazine St, New Orleans.
Taco 1 is jerk chicken with mango salsa;
taco 2 is marinated flank steak with guacamole and lime cream;
taco 3 is red curried lamb with mint yoghurt chutney and sliced plantains;
taco 4 is shredded pork with savoury mole sauce and grilled pineapple salsa.
Black beans with chorizo relish and sour cream on the side. All washed down with draught Blue Moon.