The Last Post

It’s still Anzac Day here in the US, and it’s the last day of our trip. We’re flying home from LAX tonight and have a few hours to spend/waste/use fruitfully until we take the rental car back to its ‘home’ and check in at the airport.

The day after we saw Jersey Boys [...]

Day 9 Martin Creek State Park to Lafayette Louisiana

We crossed the border into Louisiana. A couple of miles over the border we stopped at the Tourist Information Centre and picked up brochures and maps, and had a long and very helpful chat with a guide on what to see and do in Louisiana. She told us about Natchitoches, a little historic [...]

Day 7 Dallas Texas

We spent the day in Dallas. This morning we went to the 6th Floor Museum, which was The Texas Book Depository back in 1963 when JFK was shot. An excellent museum and tribute to JFK. An audio commentary is provided and it directs the listener around the exhibits. There is a good lead-up to [...]

Day 6 Archer City Texas to Dallas Texas

Lovely night’s sleep in the Desert Rose Room at the Lonesome Dove Inn, and a delicious breakfast this morning – French Toast with fresh fruit. We visited Buildings 2 & 3 of Booked Up, just to make sure we didn’t miss anything, but didn’t buy any more books. And then we headed south to [...]

Day 5 Wichita Falls Texas to Archer City Texas

An easy drive today. We visited Three Dog Books in Witchita Falls, which was a mix of second hand books, some new kids books, and antiques and collectables.

Then it was down the road to Archer City about 40km away south. The main reason for visiting Archer City, population 1848, was Larry McMurtry’s secondhand [...]

Day 4 Santa Rosa New Mexico to Wichita Falls Texas

4 days, 4 states, 3 time zones and over 1300 miles. Now we’re just 25 miles from Archer City and Booked Up, the secondhand bookstore owned by Larry McMurtry which is part of the reason for this trip. Ever since I read McMurtry’s  Books: A Memoir, about his life as a book scout and [...]

Day 3 Gallup New Mexico to Santa Rosa New Mexico

We left Gallup driving through the interesting New Mexico landscape. It is very like the area around and north of Alice Springs in Australia. We passed several Indian Casinos on the I-40. The Casinos are built on Indian Reservations, because they are exempt from local and state planning restrictions.

We can travel at [...]

Day 2 Needles California to Gallup New Mexico

We left Needles a bit late, after stopping at the Post Office so Judy could post a parcel. We headed east again, into Arizona on the I-40. We crossed the Colorado River, and stopped for fuel at Kingman ($3.59 a gallon). Further east to Flagstaff, where we got a fuel bottle for our stove.

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Day 1 – Los Angeles to Needles

We arrived in Los Angeles about 9:00am, after a long 13.5 hour flight from Melbourne. We hired our car from Alamo, and then proceeded to get slightly lost leaving the airport. We eventually made it to a BestBuy to buy Virgin wireless broadband from Virgin, and a GPS.  The it was off to Walmart, [...]