Jpatrickm

Left Atlanta today and arrived in New Hampshire. I’ll actually be staying just across the border in Maine. I’ll be here until March 8th. It’s cold here. It’s amazing how the temperature can be so drastically different with only a 2 hour plane ride. It was probably about 65 in Atlanta when I left at 11am and now in Maine it’s about 10… if that.

It was a great week and went by kinda quick in retrospect. I still need to post the small number of pictures I took along the way. I thought I had taken more, but the reality of it was that we were driving so much that I just didn’t take many shots. When we weren’t driving we were either sleeping or bar hopping so I ended up not having my camera in my hand most of the trip. Oh well, there are adventures you capture on film, and some you just laugh, remember and keep to yourself.

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Finally arrived in Atlanta, GA tonight. It was a great trip across country. I had trouble finding an internet connection at each stopping point along the way so I wasn’t really able to post any updates. We left San Diego on Monday afternoon and headed east on Interstate 8. By midnight we were well into New Mexico and heading toward El Paso, TX on Interstate 10. Our original thought was to stop somewhere near El Paso but we were feeling fine and still wide awake so we pressed on. By 3am we were on the other side of El Paso and figured to hell with it, we would just push through to San Antonio, which would put about the half the total trip behind us. We pulled into San Antonio at about noon, checked into a hotel, got some lunch and walked around for a bit. The city is beautiful and our hotel was only about 2 blocks from the Alamo and the Riverwalk. I’ve never been a big fan of Texas, but San Antonio changed my opinion, at least until the next day when we really realized how damn big, and desolate, the state is. We got a good nights sleep and hit the road again about 10am. After 2 days of straight driving we were still in Texas. That state is huge.

We stayed on I-10 and headed for the main event of our trip… New Orleans. We passed over the Mississippi in Baton Rouge and rolled into New Orleans at about 6pm. We had already booked a hotel the night before right in the French Quarter, so we didn’t have to waste time searching for a place to stop. It was my first time in New Orleans and I must say, I’m in love with it already. We were about 4 blocks from Bourbon Street and so we cleaned up, changed and hit the street after grabbing a beer to-go in the lobby of the hotel. There aren’t any open container laws and the bars are open 24/7, so you can just walk around and drink anywhere at anytime of day. After 8pm they close off Bourbon Street to traffic so the crowds fill the street. It was a perfect night, clear and about 68. It’s impossible to even describe the feeling and the street life and I can’t even imagine what Mardi Gras must be like (which was actually last week). The energy and sounds and lights and music were incredible. I won’t get into too many of the details about the rest of the night, but will just say that we got back to the hotel room at 6am. Unfortunately, that also meant we slept most of the next day, which also led to our decision to stay another night. Our second night was another wild time on Bourbon Street, although much more tame, and we managed to get to bed by about 3am. The drag shows and comedy acts were the best I’ve ever seen. We met some great people and had a ton of fun. I had an invitation to spend the rest of the weekend but alas we had to continue eastward. I would say that the only thing I regret is not getting out more during the day to take pictures of the city. Every building and side street is a perfect photo and I will definitely have to return again to explore the cemeteries, mansions and gardens. The city has so much charm, personality and character. It is definitely now one of my favorite cities. They say that rent is cheap there too!

Here’s a couple of pictures I managed to snap when I wasn’t at a bar or sleeping. I’ll put up a few more of the entire trip in the photography gallery when I get a chance.

Bourbon Street

Mississippi waterfront

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I’ve been remiss in keeping my entries up to date. I have, however, somehow managed to keep up with my other photo blog at 50prime365.com. It’s been almost a month now and it has become somewhat of a love-hate project. After seeing the beginning of this accumulation of images of just me, I must admint I was a little disturbed. I’m not very comfortable in front of the camera and so it’s been difficult, to say the least, trying to be creative along the way. None-the-less, it has been successful in getting me to rebond with my camera in lots of positive ways. I’m considering changing the theme of the project and expanding it include subjects other then just me. We’ll see. I still have to put some thought into it. I’ll comment more on this later on 50prime365.com.

Anyway, my friend Jason, who I knew for several years in Seattle, has decided to move to Atlanta, GA. He has made a stop here to visit on his drive east. Since he was driving alone, I’ve decided to jump in with him and drive across country to Atlanta. We are leaving Monday. We’ll probably take a few days to complete the trip and maybe stop at some interesting places along the way. Maybe somewhere in Texas and possibly New Orleans. We’ll see how we feel when the time comes. I’ll spend the long weekend in Atlanta and then fly north to New Hampshire to spend a few weeks with my family. I’ll return back to San Diego the second week in March. I’ll have my camera with me of course so hopefully I can put up some pictures of the adventure along the way.

Atlanta (or Hot-lanta as they say) should be fun. I’ve never really spent time there so I’m looking forward to checking out the scene. At least I’ll have something else to photograph as a background besides my boring damn apartment for a few weeks.

Happy Chinese New Year.

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