We thought it might be interesting at this quarter way point (actually a little past it) to share with you some interesting numbers regarding our trip:

• We've been gone for 16 days 17 hours 27 minutes and 12 seconds (about 401 hours).
• We've traveled 3076 miles from Cranston, RI.
• We've used 124 gallons of gas.
• We've averaged 59.64 miles per hour.
• We've averaged about 26.2 miles per gallon**.
• We've taken 6.4 Gigabytes of pictures.
• We've shot approximately 4.5 hours of video footage.
• We've stayed in 2 hotels, 5 houses, 1 campsite, and 1 parking lot.
• Travel Yahtzee's high score is 406 (I'll get you eventually, Rick!).

You might notice there aren't any cash totals here. Plain and simple, its because we don't want to know!

** We've got a full tank of gas in the car so the miles/gallons numbers listed won't give you the correct MPG. Instead we use the built in trip computer to give us this average.

A few of you have written wondering why I'm writing many of our posts.

Well, I'll tell you. While I'm writing, Jay is keeping this site up and running all on his own. Not only did he design, develop, and build this entire site, but he's the one who keeps it alive. And it's quite a bit of work.

He updates the map, creating our route so you can follow us. He's updated some back-end stuff which none of you can even see. He keeps the site clean of bull$hit spam posts. He was in the drivers seat making the philly video (and yes, we know we need more). Oh, and in his free time he also saves, resizes, and uploads all the photos, grouping them into galleries and albums. Not to mention, he is integral in creating the outline of all the posts we do write.

None of you can see this. So none of you can truly appreciate all that he does. But trust me, it's a lot of work.

So everyone, please give a big hand to Jay.

We rolled into Galveston, TX late at night. Too late to camp, we decided to sleep in the car for the first time.

After casing several hotels and parking lots, we settled on the Escapes resort because it looked secluded but was still well-lit and safe. As we were transferring our stuff from the trunk to the front seats (so we could fold the back seats down), a security guard walked up and informed us we had to move across a row of bushes to the beach side of the lot.

So, we did this, and slept well knowing we were safe, having a security detail watch over us.

But, he failed to protect us from the love bugs. We slept with the windows cracked and woke up to about a dozen of those babies in the car.

Apparently, it's love bug season. These suckers are everywhere.

We saw huge swarms of them in Louisiana. Swarms so thick that, from a distance, they look like hanging smoke or spraying water. They absolutely covered the windshield and front of the car.

These black bugs have a highlight of orange and are so named because you often see them in pairs. Oddly, they are attached at the butt and face opposite directions, meaning that in order to move, one of them is always going backwards. Pretty odd.

We thought as we left Louisiana headed for Galveston, TX we would leave them behind. We were wrong.

During the daylight, New Orleans was impressive in different ways.

The architecture of the French Quarter is very unique and you can wander around for hours on end. We drove around for awhile taking it all in. Decatur Street, Bourbon Street, Orleans, the Esplanade, Royal Street, Canal Street, the River Walk and even the Warehouse District are all great to see.

The outdoor market on Decatur was pretty touristy, but the live jazz band was excellent. The simple four piece combo really laid it down. In contrast, a traveling musician by the name of Stoker was equally impressive, in that he was playing blues guitar, harmonica, and tambourine simultaneously. He was a cool cat, and if we get the down time, we'll post the video of him playing in the street. We also met an excellent and very friendly local artist, Rhonda Papania, whose drip paintings embody the life and energy of New Orleans.

We rounded out our too-short stay by visiting the altar and shrine of voodoo queen Marie Laveau. The place is one-of-a-kind, but since photos are prohibited by way of a curse, we can't show you. Though we will say, if you ever need any kind of amulet, charm, dust, powder, or mystical object to protect you from a dark art or evil spirit, this is THE place to go.

Creole food is among some of the best we've had, and we will need to search out recipes to cook for ourselves. Each thing we ate was better than the next: Jambalaya, Chicken Andouille Gumbo, Shrimp Creole, and our particular favorite, Crawfish Etouffee.

You don't really need the Louisiana hot sauce which is available everywhere, but man, that stuff is good. However, we were lukewarm on another local specialty, Pralines and Cream, but maybe we just got it at a bad place.

Thanks to our friend Chris' boss Chris, for tipping us off to the delicious gumbo.

After a full day of driving through Mississippi, we arrived at our hotel in New Orleans.

Fortunately, it was a step up from the previously scary Red Roof Inn, and only a few blocks from Bourbon Street, where we headed after dropping our bags.

This place is crazy. A short walk yields more than the eye can handle, most of it being flashy neon signs, screaming drunk people, flirtatious strippers/dancers, blaring brass bands, and screaming drunk people. Hand Grenades and Hurricanes are the beverages of choice, and beads hang from everywhere. The whole area is one big party, and we had a blast.

New Orleans is a place that deserves its own vacation.

Thanks to a tip from our friends (and cleaning woman) we had an awesome Memphis-style BBQ lunch at Neely's. It was smoky, sweet, delicious, and just what we needed after a long night of partying.

We went back to Beale St, which was a shadow of itself from the previous night. In fact, the entire Memphis area was nearly vacant. Which was odd.

Sun Studio was unimpressive for a place some call the birthplace of rock & roll, but hey, we saw it. Many popular blues, rock & roll, and rockabilly artists got their start and recorded there including: B.B. King, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Howlin' Wolf and Jerry Lee Lewis, to name a few.

Graceland was equally desolate, and pretty depressing in the Memphis rain. After a spending only half the day around town, we made way for New Orleans.

Was littered with armadillo carcasses.

As we pulled in to our luxurious Red Roof Inn at just past midnight, we passed a handful of cop cars doing vehicle searches and questioning people, generally making us feel unsafe. Undeterred by the heavy presence of law enforcement and charged by gaining an hour (thank you central time) we headed over to bustling Beale Street, the Home of the Blues.

Exiting the parking garage, we met a guy named Eric and joined up with him and his group of friends who showed us around. We went over the The Red Rooster, skipped the line and got in free since he knew the person at the door. We celebrated his wife's birthday all night, and through conversation learned:

1. to keep moving, because Memphis will suck you in
2. all about the Memphis in May Music Festival
3. that Memphis is consistently in the top three cities in violent crime, and also in homicide

It was an awesome night, and the people made our stay in Memphis fun, memorable, and short.

Here we are at the Galveston Island Convention Center making a few quick updates to the site. We'll work on getting some pics and posts of Memphis and New Orleans up as soon as we situate ourselves in Houston.