From New Orleans we continued our trek west towards LA. Overall on our east-west journey we traveled through the states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Arizona before arriving in California.

On the way we visited our friends Daryn and Juliet in Houston again. We went with Daryn and his mate to our first NBA basketball game, Houston Rockets vs Boston Celtics. The highlights included Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband Kris Smith playing for the Celtics and Manny from Modern Family in the crowd. The half time entertainment included a clever hula hooping performance by a local primary school which was as impressive as the basketball.

In Phoenix, Arizona we stopped to go to the cinemas to watch the new Hunger Games film and we went hiking in the surrounding desert mountains. We got our first close experience with a western desert cactus. We also celebrated Joe’s 32^nd birthday on the road. His present was a 200g pack of Colon Cleansing Hot Chilli Alien Beef Jerky from a little roadside town.

In Los Angeles we traded in our Subaru Forrester for a hired Jucy Campervan. It took us 5 hours to drive out of LA after picking up our campervan because of the crazy LA afternoon traffic. Our target was Majave Desert Preserve but since we were running so late we ended up staying the night in a Walmart carpark. This would start a trend of many more overnight Walmart stays for the remained of our trip.