Austin, HI hostel on town lake. very quiet, all day wireless $1

the big easy. a few nights of music, booze, and chasing european girls. i'll spare you the details except to say that we did manage to get past all the glitter of bourbon street and into the dirty and gritty of the real new orleans scene. good times~

on our second day there we drove out to a bayou preservation area and took a boardwalk hike out and spotted some gators! we also got a chance to drive around and see some flood and hurricane damage. we got a few personal accounts as well - very heavy stuff. it seems that the whole city is still living in trailers on front lawns. i dropped john at the airport yesterday and drove straight through to houston. not much to report there except that i spotter gas prices as low as $1.99/gallon - of course, i had already foolishly filled up on $2.17. today i knocked out the drive to austin. there's some groovy shops and restaurants in town here and tonight i'll get a look at the music scene.