So we're in New Orleans, LA.

We spent an evening in Mobile, driving into town from our motel (a Hampton Inn - roughly equivalent to 1.5 x Super 8, my newly minted unit of motel quality. At least the internet worked, although I did have to share the fortunately massive bed with Josh) along the shady Dauphin Street. It's really starting to feel like we're in the South now; the houses were alternately ramshackle and well-kempt grand old Southern edifices. The town centre was a ghost town; a bar recommended by the Lonely Planet was closed up, and we saw maybe five or ten people in total as we cruised around for a bit. Apparently Mobile paid more heed to the storm warnings than we had, and so we ate at a restaurant within walking distance of the motel.

Mobile to New Orleans was the first stretch of 'scenic' highway that we've been on. We left Alabama and crossed into Mississippi on I10, then headed south to the Gulf Coast, passing through Biloxi and stopping at a small town called Pass Christian, when the beach became too enticing to ignore. Josh and I went for a swim in the murky but pleasantly warm water. (As a result, I'm - in fact all of us are - mostly looking like the quintessential Brit abroad, with lobster-red shoulders and faces, and pasty legs.) The whole effect was of Jaws crossed with Fletch Lives; the Southern air persisted from Mobile, and we could have been swimming off Amity Island beach. Didn't see any sharks, although there were some small silver fish that jumped out of the water around about.

Most of the cars (ha! Buses, more like) had either of both of a Christian fish sticker and a camouflage-patterned ribbon, with some slogan along the lines of "I'm supporting our troops!". Definitely Bible-belt, Republican country, and I could almost understand the resentment towards the federal government that goes with the conservative politics - it felt like we were a million miles from the liberal north-east, and the idea of a government that far away having any right to interfere this far south seemed disturbingly believable. I mean we've been driving for three days, and all we've done is come from North Carolina, which is already classed as the South, to Louisiana. This is a big place, and the original concept of a loosely confederated group of states is fairly understandable.

Phew. Deep. Deep South, in fact. Ho ho.

We left Pass Christian after eating in a little tourist town called Bay St. Louis and drove into Louisiana, to New Orleans. We've singularly failed to do anything specifically touristy, apart from trawl up and down Bourbon Street, getting progressively more mangled from a variety of obscenely potent, and obscenely expensive, cocktails. So bad was I that I slept through most of today, the baking heat, humidity and omnipresent, mingled aroma of stale beer, vomit, horseshit and urine not helping my staggering hangover in the slightest.

I must admit that I feel we've lost a bit of momentum by stopping here for two nights, even though we planned to do so from the start. I'm starting to really enjoy the driving, and the feeling of traversing the country - the whole country! - is diminished a little by staying in the one place.

Or more likely, I've just been sucked in by my own hype and feel that we're not living up to On The Road and any number of road movies that have worked their way into my subconscious :)

More on New Orleans next time.