New Orleans - The return

So, we're set!

Dave, Mia, Anne-Mette and myself are heading off for New Orleans in just under a week.

It will be fantastic to see the big easy again. Meet friends, revisit great food and music joints, and explore new ones.

A weekend in Monterey CA is planned, to see an old and dear friend from Beijing and take in the west coast. Oh, and some of that California sushi as well.

We'll try and keep you posted on the adventure unfolds.

Garden District detail from our last visit.

Goodbye Rock'n rollercoaster trip! Hello future.

We flew to Seattle and waited there for our next plane. I was feeling a might anxious, since at this time hurricane Gustav was raging back in New Orleans, and Dave had quite refused to evacuate himself, staying fortified at Coops along with the bar-family. He called while we were flying from San Fransisco, leaving a couple of severely drunk messages on Ivans phone, telling us not to worry, and some very cute and boozy stuff about missing me. Ivan laughed all the way through the terminal and going aaaaaaaaaw in our generel direction. We whiled away the hours in Seattle playing cards in front of the airport burger bar, with our wonderful dinosaur cards, purchased in the hotel shop in Utah. We were utterly tired, but had a lot of fun beating each other at 21.

Much time has passed now, and Ivan often sighs wistfully, "I miss our trip!" I miss it too. But other things have been on my mind. After half a year of writing, calling and chatting, Dave got on a plane and moved to Copenhagen. We are living together now and Dave seems to be happy with Copenhagen, in spite of the Danish "spring" weather. Being together again is absolutely great, and we intend to stay that way!

Sea Lions and strawberry cheesecake!

Along the warfs I went and suddenly stumbled upon something that is apparently a major attraction, but which I knew nothing about! The giant bed of sea lions! THis was of course completely awesome, and I hung around for quite a while looking at the big, soft things cuddling up with each other in the sun.

A sign stated that it was not at all ok to be mean to the sea lions.

The sea lions seemed quite capable of being viciously mean to each other though. When not cuddling they spent their time pushing each other off the comfortable wooden platforms, biting, barking and flashing their fangs.

Mostly though, they were cuddling and sunning themselves and looking cute. I was leaning against the railings and feeling very comfortable with the sun on my back, and somehow my thoughts kept turning back to Dave.

I finally shook myself and left the pier. I ventured through Chinatown, heading back towards the hotel, where I was supposed to meet up with Ivan. I had several hours still, so I stopped at a very nice, Italian cafe/restaurant place by the side of the road. I sat down by the sunny window, well placed for watching the San Fransiscans walking by and looked at the menu, with the intention of ordering tea. But my eyes fell on a lush description of Stawberry Cheesecake with a chokolate cake bottom. Graaaaaaarrrrhhhh! They recommended a glass of Pinot with this, and I got both. It was indescribably good. Heavenly. Awesome. So upon finishing, I promtly picked up the menu again and picked a clam and muscles in whitewine and butter dish. OH sweet mother of pearl! When I get back to San Fransisco, Im finding that place again!
Later I met up with Ivan and we had a nice but slightly tired last evening of our amazing journey. The next day, we headed for the airport.

San Fransisco

I have to admit, at our last short stop in San Fransisco, we were both exhausted. Especially me. We turned the Rock'n roller coaster back to the rental company. I think we both would have cried a little, if we werent so stressed out. The memory of leaving our trusty, beatiful black, convertible Mustang behind in that parking basement still makes my ribcage feel strangely tight. It was almost brand new when we drove it out of washington. Now in San Fransisco, oh so many miles and adventures later, it was dusty, slightly ragged and bent-looking. How we miss our car!!!

Ivan had stuff to take care of, so I ended up roaming around the city alone for most of the day. I walked through the steep hilly streets and wondered how one would ever manage to get anywhere when drunk. I imagined that falling over would end in quite a bit of potentially lethal rolling down of hills.

The ground evened out a bit and I came to a lovely street-market. Here I chatted long with an old hippie who had a jewelery booth. We talked of politics and the world and Cabbages and Kings for a while and in the end I got a nice discount on a yellow jade necklace for my girlfriend Anna.

And then on to the warfs, and finally, the sea!

My walk along the warfs was surprisingly peaceful. I encountered a huge gull and an old Chinese guy resting in the shade while fishing, otherwise I was quite blissfully on my own.

Well, it's been a long time now, much have happened and I've finally decided to finish the story of the marvelous rock'n roller coaster trip.

We had a very relaxing day in Paso Robles (I think), where Ivan and I lavishly invested in each our own hotel room. Not many sibling I think, would have made it that far, without developing a desperate need to never see each other again and only call on birthdays in the future. Ivan and I however, had one day to ourselves, and then kept on truckin´. So the following morning, we set off for Highway 1. A long and winding drive up alond the pacific coastline to San Fransisco. We stopped for burritos at what seemed to be a kind of hippie-in-crisis resort that caused Ivan to feel a great uncomfortableness. Out of the parkinglot, up the hill and towards the coast with Ivan's foot very heavy on the speeder! Being as we are from a nation made mostly of coastline, we both suffered severe pangs from being away from ocean so long and so we were greatly anticipating the sight of the pacific. Sadly, the Pacific turned out to be completely hidden in fog.



This was slightly frustrating. We could smell the sea, and hear it, but not a glimps. Well, all the fog was still a very special sight and as we drove through the steeply hilled and curvy landscape, the intense smell of heather covering the hillsides was overwhelmingly wonderful.

Rock'n'rollercoaster theme song

A very rare japanese version of the single
containing the Immigarant song

In the early days of planning we where, once again, very inspired by the 'Immigrant Song' by Led Zeppelin.

For us both this is a recurring facination so it quickly became the themesnong for the road trip to end all road trips - The rock'n'rollercoaster!

The lyrics are more apt and fitting than anyone could have envisioned at first.

The song was written by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin in 1970 on their Iceland tour in just 6 days.

Plant reveiled, in a later interview, that the song is inspired by the Viking mythos and the quest for Vinland (North America) and dedicated to Leif Ericson who found and settled in New Foundland around year 1000. A fitting forebearer of our own exploration of this, still largely, wild and strange continent

The lyrics make explicit refferences to Viking conquest and exploration. The song contains key phraces like these:
- We come from the land of the ice and snow.
- The hammer of the gods.
- Will drive our ships to new lands, to fight the horde, singing and crying:Valhalla, I am coming!
- Our only goal will be the western shore.
- So now youd better stop and rebuild all your ruins, for peace and trust can win the day, despite of all your losing.

I hope it is clear, at least to the persistent reader, how perfect and fitting a theme song we had have chosen, and just how well it embodies the whole adventure!

Please have a listen and feel the rush of the rock'n'roller experience:

Evening and rolling hills

After a good long drive through the desert I removed the pillow from my face and started enjoying the scenery again. As the sun moved lower in the sky and the light mercifully softened, we drove into the San Bernadino mountains. I was instantly reminded of a Frank Zappa song about San Ber'dino jail of course and watched the hills roll by with great interest.


They were very old and softly rounded granite mountains, mostly covered in yellowish grass and dotted with trees. It somehow had a Middle Earth feel to it, a very Tolkien like landscape.



It was very beautiful and as the sun set, it all became soft shadows and gold.


As darkness fell we pulled up at a shabby diner in a little town. Ivan has marked this diner on the map under the name Worst diner in the world! And indeed it was. Horrible food. Just horrible. The locals were friendly though and brought out maps and made suggestions for nice little towns to spend a day in on our way to San Fransisco.

I was a little nervous and thinking about Dave, the man I met in New Orleans. We had been writing to each other a lot after I left and well, I was feeling a rather large pack of bats fluttering around in my stomach a lot of the time. After midnight it would be his birthday and I wanted to do something nice. So after a good deal of brotherly encouragement I went outside the diner and called Coops Place back in NO, and asked the bartender Adam, to give Dave a bottle of whiskey from me. He was happy to help and so Dave received a bottle of birthday Jameson from a blushing and slightly nervous Dane in a dark parking lot outside The Worst Diner in the World in a flyspeck little town out west.

Las Vegas

After our chat with the neighbors of the Shoe tree we continued our drive towards Vegas. it had gotten a little late, and after a few hours of enjoyable evening driving we found ourselves in complete darkness speeding through the emptiness of the desert. Quiet, darkness and more darkness. And then a thin band of light steadily growing in the horizon. It quietly grew in the blackness into a vast, golden shimmering lake of light drawing us in. It was quite spectacular. It grew and grew as we came closer until at last we were engulfed in a bright chaos and the traffic instantly turned murderously confusing and stressful and the sharp vulgarity of it all overwhelmed completely.

We finally found our way into the Flamingo Hotel, a classic Vegas hotel on the Strip, known for mob murders and the related drama. We were naturally tired and just wanted to collapse in our room. But the place was huge beyond belief and felt and looked mostly like an airport stuffed with shops and casinos. After some exhausting confusion and bewilderment we got checked in and found our room.

In the morning we marveled at the view over the palm tree garden in the middle of the hotel grounds and ventured back out into the hotel ground floor. It took us a long time to find our way out of the hotel and into the street. When we finally got there, I regretted it imidiately. The heat was a hitherto unknown agony and the light was horribly sharp. There were people bustling everywhere, music blaring and flashing lights and everything enormous and polished looking. We went to see Caesars Palace, which Ivan thought was really rather awesome.

I didn't like it much, and was increasingly getting the feeling that Vegas didn't agree with me. I clutched my coffee and tried to avoid looking at bright surfaces.

We took refuge inside and walked around for a long time in a sort of mall with casinos in it... inside this building, they had a plastic Rome with a painted canvas sky and even worse a plastic Paris.



It was perfectly hideous. Ivan had the mental capacity and stability to laugh at it all and even thought some of it was kinda neat, where as I just felt increasingly sickened. Sensitive and a victim of my imagination as I am, I felt like I was walking inside a tremendous, bloated, squelching, money-devouring monster.

After perusing like this for a while we settled down at a black Jack table and started gambling. Our two dealers were very nice and good company and people with trays started bringing us booze. I slowly started feeling comfortable and we ended up spending most of a day gambling and drinking and having a great time of it. I fairly quickly lost the money I had alloted to gambling, but Ivan kept it going all day and actually managed to come out even in the end. All the while we talked to the other gamblers and generally had a gay old time.


Apart from the gambling which was good fun, I must admit, I couldn't stand the place. Ivan enjoyed it though and appreciated the grandeur.

The next morning, we got our bags into the car and got ready to take off. I was getting a rather bad stress reaction to the place by now and couldn't lift my eyes from the floor without it hurting them. I got in the car, pressed my pillow from the Austin Holiday Inn down over my eyes and and thankfully let Ivan drive us back out into the desert.

The Shoe Tree

after trudging back from our hike in the Narrows we got in the car, which was packed and ready and headed towards our next destination... Las Vegas. Shortly after leaving Zion and driving through a rather thinly populated area, we past something strange by the road. Ivan stopped and I went over to take a look.

Shoes were hanging from all the branches. Apparently this is a recurring phenomenon in the States. I really thought the thing looked kind of creepy and menacing. I mean, look at it!

A little further down on the other side of the road, was a couple in the garden in front of their house. The man was mowing the lawn and the woman was taking the dogs for some evening air. Ivan told me to go ask them about the tree and so I did.

The woman complained that she was terribly tired of that tree, because people behaved most irresponsibly on the road in order to see it!! And they constantly used their driveway to turn and go back to it. But, she said, she was sorry to come off all angry and asked me, where I was headed. Ivan came down and the husband joined us. We spend half an hour having a nice chat about our journey, and the cruise to Europe they were planning and how it was living in that area... They were nice people, just like most Americans we have met. Ivan suggested they set up a booth with brochures about the Shoe Tree and lemonade, in order to make a profit from the annoyance. They thought this sounded like a neat idea, but didn't look too keen. We said our goodbyes and continued on. It had gotten a little late, but we felt its always worth taking out some time to chat up the locals.

Zion - the Narrows

We continued on the shuttle to the last hike on the route - and the starting point of the Narrows. In this part of Zion the river cuts a deep path through the mountains, which loom very high above on both sides.

For a long time we walked along beside the river, appreciating it immensely every time we got in the shade of the mountain sides.

Even though the heat had really started to wear me down, it was a pleasurable walk and the landscape was stunning.

The light sent back from the cliffs was soft and pleasant, but the direct light was blindingly sharp, making the greyish stones and pieces of dead wood by the riverbank looked like giant piles of bleached bone.


At last we came to the point where the trail stopped and the river-hike into the Narrows began. To move beyond this point one had to walk in the river itself. Ivan climbed on top of a boulder sticking out over the river and made a heroic speech of his intentions to go forth into the watery depths.

On a rock just below him sat a cute little forest critter. It didnt care about us at all.

It even climbed up on Ivans speach-rock while we were still there. Complete disregard.


We descended into the river. The view down along the Narrows was breathtaking and getting into the water was vastly enjoyable.

As I have mentioned, the day was horrifically hot and the shade and the coolness of the water was just magnificent. Never have I been so happy about the feeling of water running into my boots!


Getting our body temperatures down like this was very refreshing and we felt energized enough to hike trough the water in the Narrows for a while.

Of course the river bottom was very rocky and the going was slow and something of a balancing act. After a few near falls we ventured on holding hands to steady each other, a rare and for our friends Im sure highly comical sight.





After wading and splashing along happily like this for a good while, we turned back and enjoyed the soft color-change as the sun sank lower behind the cliffs.