Torrance County

My head hurts.

Being a moderately organised bunch, before coming over here we held a series of planning meetings to determine a rough outline of the distance/activities we hoped to achieve each day. These meetings, much like most occasions the four of us meet up, commonly began with structured conversation, examining of maps and Googling of ideas until we all decided we deserved a beer or ten, at which point they evolved into the standard fun drinky-times to which we've become habitually accustomed. It is likely a result of this that the plan for Day 3, on which we were to reach Albe-quack-e, read simply 'get wankered'.

I love it when a plan comes together.

First, however, there was the journey. From Farmington to Albyqerkey we took a combination of highways and Route 66, stopping only once at a place for which there'd been circa twenty-odd billboards, each extolling and proclaiming the place to be on par with the second coming of Christ, if the big JC were to confound religious scholars around the world and make his comeback in the form of a roadside attraction. It turned out to be a gift shop.

I bought some fridge magnets for the metallic side of my fridge and we continued onwards and Eastwards. Arriving in central Albeequirky at a sensible hour we went for a stroll and had a rest for a few hours. At around 7pm, the evening began.

From this point onwards, events will be presented to the best of my recollection. There will be inaccuracies, half-truths and massive, gaping holes comparable with albeit only metaphorically analogous with those described in Days One and Two.

Before leaving our rooms, we each indulged in a few fingers of moonshine. We'd never had moonshine before and likely wouldn't again had we not purchased an enormous jar of the deadly, 100% proof, 50% ABV chemicular concoction from Walmart that our commitment to value and aversion to waste precludes us from pouring away. It was cherry flavour, but you wouldn't have known by tasting it.

From there we decided to go eat, but intelligently decided to have a drink on the way. We stopped at a restaurant and sat at the bar where a lone US army veteran was celebrating Memorial Day sipping a non-alcoholic lager. He offered to buy us all a drink; we declined in that polite, English, 'Hugh Grant' way Americans like to comment on, but bought our own drinks and sat down for a chat with the guy. He told us stories that were interesting and I thought would later be memorable, but are unfortunate victims of the aforementioned memory leakage.

We went to a Pizza place and shared a massive pizza. Woody and Luke met a nice guy in the toilets and after brief three-way intercourse invited him back to our table. He turned out to be a stand-up comic and a stand-up guy; a pun I shared with him, to which he responded that I should be the one doing stand-up. I agreed, and told him I'd do his stand-up and he could do my 'sit-down'. He totally ROTFLOL-d at this and said I should have my own Seinfeld-type show.

After food we went next door and watched the guy and several other comics perform at an open-mic night. They varied in quality but we're mostly pretty good, partially as we'd opted to sit at a table right at the very front and loudly announced our Englishness, enabling the performers to chuck out 'British' jokes at our expense. When the show was over the M/C told us the afterparty was heading to another bar a couple of blocks away.

En route to the afterparty we went to another bar called 'The Library'. It was here that the booze began to most significantly floweth. We chatted to folk, drank alien-themed beer, had a photo taken with some dude for reasons I don't recall (see attached) and the barmaid was wearing a rather fetching (very short) tartan skirt.

We left as the place was closing, or the place closed because we left, and headed to the comedy afterparty. We resumed our roles as the token British and chatted with some of the comics whilst continuing to consume significant quantities of beer/spirits/drain-cleaner. Somebody tried to explain the different way Americans calculate alcohol content which means their produce is stronger than it looks, but I wasn't in a state to comprehend and I'm sure Woody can explain it better. I'm not sure when we left, but since we're no-longer there I can accurately state that we did.

ERROR: Next memory not found.

Sometime later we were in a different bar and met some Mexicans. As that bar closed they told us they knew another place that wasn't closing. They did and we went there.

The remainder of the night is like a sickly, swirly montage. There was beer, ATM withdrawals, cigarettes, jumper cables, disco lights under a bridge, shots, but a notable lack of looking at watches. We departed for the ten minute walk back to the motel at what we figured was probably 1am, but got back at just gone 4. Luke ran back for some stupid reason and had a brief kip on the concrete like, literally, three feet from his bed.

So concludeth Day 3/early Day 4. Does it say something that the longest 'travel blog' entry so far is basically describing a night out that could have happened anywhere? Maybe...I can't really think about that at the moment since, per the above, my head hurts.Read more