Day 7: Panama City, FL to New Orleans, LA

..and then there were two.

Hot news of the day: Cory has left to go house hunting with his wife in Ohio. We wish him all the best with it, and understand that the timing has been bad for this trip with him and the whole house situation.

This has left myself and Jared to fly the Lotus flag for the rest of the tour. We had a sit down and thought about the trip, and decided it was a good juncture to see how we could improve things. We decided that we are doing too much city-to-city driving without enough local culture, so from now on we are selecting some things to visit between destinations.

Putting this plan into action, we decided to take the coastal road from Panama City to Pensacola. It seemed like the area was being aggressively built up and was a hot new area, but later when speaking to a couple in New Orleans I learned that it sustained considerable hurricane damage and is being rebuilt, although I think the truth is a combination of the two.

On the outskirts of Panama City we visited a diving museum. That sounds boring but it was a great little place. Outside the building was an array of small submarines.

Inside we were greeted by a man called Doug. If one was asked to imagine the archetypal nautical enthusiast then he would be the result; sailor's cap and white beard. Brilliant. UK readers would have immediately thought of Uncle Albert, although the beard could have been bushier.

Without any ceremony or introduction he launched into his lecture, declaring "The air on land is so-and-so inches of mercury and for every 100 feet one descends in water the pressure..." and continued for a few minutes on this theme. Upon finishing we introduced ourselves and he then then took us through the museum, playing DVDs and explaining the items. He was a really nice fellow and the museum was precisely the kind of diamond we were hoping to discover in the rough off the major roads.

After traversing eight states in the first two days we had been in Florida for five, and it was a little refreshing to hit new state borders: Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

One charming thing about the south is how people introduce themselves. We met a family at a petrol stop and the wife came over, shook my hand and said something like "Hi I am Lou-Anne Henderson from Mobile, Alabama". More information than I am used to in an introduction but I appreciate the openness. In hindsight my response of "hello" appears to be a little insufficient but never mind.

A more confusing question we experienced was 'what's on the dash?'. My answer of 'not too much, a little dust and a parking stub from yesterday' was met with a bemused look. I then found out the man was trying to determine what the largest number on the speedometer was.

We arrived in New Orleans and met up with my friend John and his friend Larry, had a nice fish dinner and patrolled the French Quarter for a while, catching some good live music and having a laugh.


I finally got the ChaseCam going today. It's a fabulous product but thankfully I did some tests clips and realised I do far too much 'steering-wheel guitar' and moved the camera location from the back window to in front of the rear view mirror. I took a fair amount of footage and will get some clips online once I decide the best place for them. I think Picasa can host video.