picture 1 is Mississippi river in Memphis
picture 2 and 4 is New Orleans, it tended to rain a lot in the afternoon and was torrential - you couldnt just put your head down and walk through it at all!
Picture 3 is the bridge we went over the Mississippi on our tour from Tennessee to Kentucky as you can see the bridge has the state sign
Pictures 5 and 6 are Memphis (Beale St!!)
Pictures 7 and 8 are Memphis.

Am now in LA so am updating the rest of the last few weeks!
Was actually sorry to leave New Orleans, spent 2 nights in the french quarter and had Gumbo (seafood dish that was very weird) and alligator sausage. Was a bit surreal as as I was eating there was a travel show about Scotland on the tv! I spent the last evening watching the sun go down over the Mississippi river and it was so beautiful. Went to the sealife centre as well and have some pretty amazing pictures of sharks, huge turtles and a white alligator. On the last night i stayed in the train station. They lock up the stations at night and you can only stay there if you have a valid ticket so it was pretty safe. I met an egyptian guy (first one) and he was from New Orleans and was telling me all about what they did during Hurricane Katrina, how him and his friend went out to get food for the children as they were all in one house. Someone before them had broken into a grocery store to get food so they went over there but his friend was breaking into jewlery shops etc and stealing things as it was total chaos and mayhem. He doesnt speak to that friend anymore as he said that stealing food for his children was one thing but not stealing watches etc at a time like that.In the station was also a guy from Kentucky and he was a farmer. His son ownes 100,000 acres of land with cattle and he is a proper cowboy!
The train that I got took 3 days and I met some amazing people in that time. The best experience was when I had a 6 hour stop over in a one horse town from 3am-9am. I met a guy from near the area who told me all about growing up in the days of segregation from blacks (he was white) and he told me that the black kids were bussed to the white schools and we talked non-stop for 6 hours and I got a real insight of what it was like to be growing up with that lifestyle. He told me though that in some areas the segregation still exists and there are 'white' and 'black' restaurants and they dont mix at all. Eventually got to Miami and it was very much a holiday resort full of beaches and beautiful people. The art deco was interesting to look at but apart from that all there was to do was sit on the beach.On point of note it is amazing how I STILL cant get my head around how big everything is. When i arrived at Miami train station i expected something the size of Manchester with a beach, however Miami is an area and there are around 4 diffferent cities or areas within that. It took me an hour to get 3 different buses to where I was going.After 2 days on the beach and sorting my new routing I flew to Los Angeles. LA is so huge I estimated it at about the size of the central belt when I flew over but I'm not exactly sure. The view over the Sierra Nevada was breathtaking, and it was so wonderful to see mountains again. I miss mountains so much when I'm not in Scotland. Just ask Eleanor when I'm in Brighton for a weekend I complain about how flat it is!Miami and LA feel so different from New Orleans in that you feel safe. I dont feel like i have to be constantly checking where I am and who is around me etc all the time. in LA people are laid back and in Miami as one guy from Miami told me, 'its Miami, anything goes'.I am not sure how long I will be in LA, I am flying from Sanfrancisco to Mexico City on the 13th of November (or sooner if my money runs out!) but until then I don't have any definite plans. I am going to Grand Canyon (hopefully) in October and am going to book the green tortoise to get to Yosemite in November.

New Orleans

Arrived in New Orleans after a Greyhound bus dropped me here (on time!!!) thats a first. Up until now the best one was five hours late. The hostel this time is pretty crummy with no other travelers staying here. All the people in my room were victims of Hurricane Katrina and their stories are pretty interesting.
First impressions of New Orleans are not that good. I got here and the humidity is much higher so the weather is permanently either very hot and humid or hot and humid and pouring with rain. One great thing about this place is the water. As expected it comes from the Mississippi and it tastes so great. The water in Nashville was so awful and tasted so chlorinated it was so hard to drink. Not only that but as its so hot you have to drink around 3 litres a day at least!One strange thing is the Coca Cola. It tastes so great here! It tastes so much better than the UK and I drink it all the time. I never drink it at home. They also have a lot of lemony drinks here like Mountain Dew and iced tea which are so wonderful in this weather.

The main tourist attractions are the Mississippi river where you can take a paddle steamer down river or go to MardiGras world (which was amazing) or you can go to the shops and casinos. The french quarter is lively at night with clubs and bars and bands and there is Jazz music everywhere. Last night I had alligator for tea and something called Gumbo which is a traditional Creole dish eaten here. There are no tourist touts or coupons or anything like New York and you really have to search for the tourist stuff!
One odd thing about New Orleans (or N'awlins) to the locals is that there is no rock. New Orleans was formed from silt and mud and sand that was washed down the delta and formed the land the city is built on. All the bricks are sandstone and there is only one bridge as its hard to build on sand and silt so they operate a lot of free ferrys thats cross the Mississippi instead. (oh and at night, the Mississippi delta DOES shine like a national guitar, but you have to see it from above!!)

There is a lot of public backlash about the slow response to hurricane Katrina. You can get t-shirts with (FEMA) Federal Emergency Management Agency except instead they say 'fix everything my ass' or NOPD (new orleans police department) and they say 'not our problem dude' Or you get a t-shirt that says FEMA with a picture underneath of a policeman riding a snail. Voodoo and love potions are also big here and be warned cos i bought a voodoo doll!!

I have to make a public and heartfelt apology at this point to someone none of you know called Derrick Cromer. When I was staying in Nashville the hostel had a bed bug problem but only in one apartment. I stayed over in Derricks apartment and he has just sent me an email to tell me that I spread the bugs to his apartment as well so now he is getting eaten alive by them and has 2 apartments to exterminate rather than one. Derrick I am so sorry, your guilt trip worked and if I do see you again in LA I will make it up to you I promise. On point of note it was interesting that the bugs were biting everyone except me - they only bit me once, - maybe that was enough!!
I leave New Orleans tonight for Miami so hopefully I will have post when I get there!

Nashville

Got back to Nashville after 5 day tour with 2 spanish guys who were really nice! We went to Memphis, Misouri, Kentucky and saw Carl Perkins birthplace. We also went to Mammoth Caves which is the longest cave system in the world and its pretty amazing. The first tour took us 360 ft underground and we saw all sorts of limestone formations. Then the second tour was a latern tour with no lights except the lanterns and we saw remains of tuberculosis hospital and saltpeter extraction used to make gunpowder. Was so amazing. Pics to follow (hopefully!)
Staying in motels was fun as well. It rained heavily one night and we had an amazing lightening show as Ornesto passed us to the west which we watched from the motel.
Spent one day in Memphis watching the Mississippi river go by and relaxing, that was definitly on my 'to do' list and the Mississippi river is the most beautiful river I have ever seen.
It was labor day on Monday and Ron (guy in charge of the hostel) had a barbeque which was good. Derrick (guy who works at hostel) and myself went to see chinese circus on Sunday and this one performer piled 10 chairs up. The legs of the bottom chair were resting on bottles and she then balanced ontop of the 10 chairs on her elbow!!!
I am going to spend the next few days not doing very much, I want to relax and see Nashville and talk to people. Everyone is so friendly here and wants to know everything about Scotland. I went to church on Sunday with Ron and it was very weird, people waving their arms and chanting and dancing, all very modern but kinda fun and nice. One of the best foods they serve here is pork. You can get a full rack of pork ribs for about a tenner and its HUGE! They also believe in covering everything in sauce or dressing and I have eaten SO MUCH in the past few days! You can even get popcorn in any flavour you want and those of you who know me know how happy that makes me!!!
Nashville is actually pretty small, its about half the size of Edinburgh. I went downtown with George (one of the spanish guys) the other day as he wanted to buy shoes - no luck, the only shoes in downtown Nashville are cowboy boots!! You have to go to the mall way out of town if you want shoes!
Driving on the right is fun as its not difficult and all their cars are autmatic which makes driving so easy!
I hope you all got ahold of the picture of me at the Jack Daniels Distillery! I am going to head downtown now for a coke - and coke tastes so much better in America!