21st - 24th March So we had a ceremonial ripping up of the greyhound passes in Austin and were both looking forward to a civilised flight up to New York - even Paul has decided flying is the lesser of the 2 evils. Caught the plane with the remnants of the hipsters - all carrying the largest possible carry-on cases and twatting away like crazy on their iphones... I had definitely had enough of this nonsense for a while. And back to the cold... had a longish wal...

SXSW Music Festival - 15th - 20th March This was a truly great week on our trip so far as we got to see loads and loads of live music that we've been really craving since we've been on the road. We stayed out of the centre of Austin as all the central hotels got booked up really early - we even had to book ours about 9 months in advance. Was easy to jump onto the public bus into town where all the action happens though. Austin itself is a magnet for funky, co...

11th-15th March - Amarillo and Dallas/Fort WorthAfter a rude early start, got our friend the Greyhound to Amarillo from Santa Fe.There is NOTHING in Amarillo, not even a town centre as it's just a massive sprawl so our 2 nights and 1 full day there were mainly spent in the vicinity of the hotel and neighbouring highway - nice. If you don't have a car here you can't get anywhere! The locals were amazed we'd come to Amarillo until they realised it was just a p...

Santa Fe - 9th and 10th of March After a stop-over in Albuquerque we jumped on the 'Rail Runner' train (complete with Roadrunner 'meep meep' doors) and headed into Santa Fe. Great, comfortable, on time transport for a change, who'd have thought it... Weather in Santa Fe was great and we found that the whole town had been planned in the 'Adobe' style. Basically all very low and a bit 'Star Wars' - a very, very cool place. Stayed at the Silver Saddle Motel ab...

Flagstaff (Grand Canyon) - 5th-7th March After the relative heat of Phoenix we were back into the cold - odd that you can travel such a small distance and have the temperature change so much. We'd decided to use Flagstaff as our base for the Grand Canyon so hired a car as the canyon was a 2 hour drive away. So good to have our own wheels again after that damned Greyhound! Pleasantly surprised by Flagstaff which had real character and was way better than Ph...