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no one said it would be easy

at how many ‘name' entertainers were available for us to go and watch. Being used to just infrequent visits from famous artists back home, it seemed quite surreal. In awe we stood outside the glittering lights of a semi-seedy place advertising Clarence ‘Frogman' Henry, a legendary blues singer from the 1950s. Later, in a back-street, we found the low-profile Preservation Hall, and enjoyed a wonderful night. The main singer for the evening was an elderly black woman who was partially-paralysed as a result of a stroke. Her voice was a whisper and she could only play the piano with one hand but the emotion she inspired that night was wonderful. It would have been nice to spend some money and let our hair down a bit but we knew that would have to wait, and we had to make do vicariously.

In due time Penelope and Samantha were also extricated from the docks and relocated out to the park. Again this took a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to get three riders on to three bikes as the park was way too far out for buses or taxis. It might be nearly Christmas, but we were finally ready to go. After a heavy frost on 24th December, we left our State park and hit the road, a bit late but happy that the wheels were turning. Almost the first surprise … and learning, was that Baton Rouge was the first town west of New Orleans. The words of Kris Kristofferson’s song ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ opens with -

‘Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train

When I was feeling nearly faded as my jeans Bobby thumbed a diesel down, just before it rained And rode us all the way to New Orleans’

Because the US is humungous, I had always pictured this ride being days long, as that ‘all the way to New Orleans’ is so evocative. Maybe ‘just down the way to New Orleans’ didn’t fit but I couldn’t help but be disappointed. The driver would have barely got into top gear before hauling up and saying “Here you are then, I hope the rest of your life goes well!”

We made an easy 130 miles before camping out, pretty pleased with ourselves. I don’t know why but our tent was a single-skin one with negligible water resistance which was demonstrated to us immediately we put it up, as a torrential rain commenced which lasted for nigh-on 24 hours. This resulted in everything we owned being absolutely sodden, so when the deluge finally eased on Christmas afternoon we relocated to the Sam Houston State Park not much further along our way to Texas. We did this because we knew that toilet blocks in the State Parks usually had heaters. Luckily this was true of Sam Houston and this became our new