The End of the Road

It's taken quite a while to recover from this year's ride. That may have something to do with the 3 nights we spent celebrating the ride's end point, New Orleans. It may also have something to do with the 4 friends who met us there. And it may have to do with the multiple "victory laps" we did throughout the French quarter, enjoying the food and spirits that have made it famous (and by famous, I mean infamous). Here's the path we took, to the best of my memory:

THURSDAY

Brennan giggles at a horse. It was probably pissing or pooping in the street.

- Mother's Restaurant

• Soup Nazi-like ordering process
• a strict no-tipping policy
• killer po' boys

- Pat O'Brien's

• cocktails galore (Lighting, Hurricane, New Orleans Gin Fizz)
• random woman walks up to Brennan and says "I don't normally do this...but you are soooooo cute." She then walks away. She didn't even seem that drunk!
• excellent policy that allows you to return your souvenir glass to the bar and get $3 back!

- Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar

• came highly recommended by Mr. Basford
• apparently the oldest building to currently house a bar
• the site of Brennan's first modeling gig

Brennan Basford = the next Zoolander

- Old Absinthe House

• walls covered in business cards...
• ...which Aaron would randomly choose, call, leave a message asking for whatever service they provide, and ask them to call him back at 867-5309
• the first of many places we annoying took over the jukebox (hence Aaron's callback number)

Business cards on the wall? Now I've seen everything!

- some random bar

• can't recall the name, and we were only here for 1 round.....1 round of punching bag video game....which I dominated.....no big deal (it's actually a really big deal)

- Jimani's

• I really wish this place had a website, because it surely would have shown the bar's logo, and old woman flipping off the camera. The original photo is in the bar, which pans out to show the full context...the woman is on her deathbed.
• everyone seemed to have an unspoken agreement to only choose hip hop on the jukebox
• I went with Lupe Fiasco and Jurassic 5

**It's important to note that Jason ended his night by playing chess with street bums. He was unable to find Bobby Fischer, but is confident that they were able to solve world hunger, oppression, and the debt ceiling problem.

FRIDAY

Jason missed the "bad-ass" memo.

- Mother's Restaurant

•  yes, it was so good we went a 2nd time!

- Industry

• went here when Brennan's recommendation (an Irish pub across the street) was closed
• proceeded to hang here so long we had 2 meals (6 hour-long visit)
• the 2nd meal included 4 pitchers of freshly boiled crawfish (one of which bit Brennan's finger before it was boiled to its death...and if you'd heard Brennan complain about the pain, the crawfish went through less pain being boiled alive)

well worth the 6-hour visit

- Finnegan's Easy

• one of the many spots we chose because it was calm and quiet.
• yep. we're definitely 30.
• while enjoying the calm and quiet patio, we got to watch Brandon Phillips do this, after which we were no longer calm and quiet.

- Daquiri place

• Brennan insisted to treating us to frozen drinks...we insisted on singing Boyz II Men. 
• This is what inspired this blog entry's title:

- Harrah's Casino

• 1st ever male bartender at the craps table brought us good luck (and excellent facial hair grooming)

- Jimani's

• pumped more hip hop in the jukebox

SATURDAY

Look closely. Haley and Buzz are mutants!

- Huck Finn's

• I tried alligator...which did not taste like chicken...it tasted like sausage.
• We awaited the arrival of a girl (Brennan's gal Haley)
• The girl would prove to only made our hijinks more ridiculous.

- Napoleon's House

• won our server a contest being held by ordering 16 Abita SOS bottles, which raises money for the Gulf disaster areas.

- Huge Ass Beers

• the name says it all

- Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar

• our 2nd trip to the old joint
• inspired by a certain viral video, we karaoked the sax solo to "Careless Whisper"....twice in 10 minutes....we were not well-liked
• what would be a suitable third song choice? You guessed it: "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"

Buzz questions Ryan's fist-pumping technique.

After that, Jason and I headed back to the hotel, as we had a long drive back to the Midwest the next morning.

Needless to say, the trip was once again a rousing success on all accounts. The guys tore up the open road on their bikes. We met kind and unique people at every stop. And we were able to celebrate all of the idiocy with great friends.

Contemplating what to ask our Romanian waitress next.

Where will the ride take us next year? Stay tuned....

Day Five: The End Has No End (Brennan's Prophecy)

Start: Deauville Motel in Thibodaux, Louisiana
Lunch: none
Dinner: TBA
End: Hilton Garden Inn in New Orleans, Louisiana
Today's biking distance: 64 miles
Total biking distance: 440 miles



We made it! There were flat tires all day long, and we were greeted at the ferry station by a thunderstorm and an inability to get the car on the ferry. So we had an anticlimactic arrival on a traffic-jammed highway. Not what we envisioned, but hey! We're in the Big Easy!

A more thorough blog will be posted at some time. Until then, check out our Flickr photostream for pictures.

Support Vehicle Music:

The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America
The Elected - Sun, Sun, Sun
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Girl Talk - All Day
Van Halen - "Panama" (our traditional arrival-to-any-city-with-3-syllables-so-we-can-replace-the-word-'Panama' song)

Day Four: Happy 60th There was Birthday, Gene Weaver!

Start: Budget Inn & Suites in Abbeville, Louisiana
Lunch: Atchafalaya Cafe in Morgan City, Louisiana
Dinner: Pepper's Pizzeria in Thibodaux, Louisiana
End: Deauville Motel in Thibodaux, Louisiana
Today's biking distance: 100 miles
Total biking distance: 376 miles

I'll be honest. This whole "Brennan-and-Jason-kicking-ass-by-doing-another-100-miles-today" thing is wearing me out. I took like 7 pictures today. And most of those pictures were of buildings. Buildings we ate food in. I don't even think I took a picture of Brennan today.

Today was another excellent day. Though the guys had to wait out quite a bit of rain, they were able to tackle 100 miles for the 2nd day in a row, something unprecedented when  it comes to moustache rides (come to think of it, are moustache rides in and of themselves unprecedented?). There was quite a bit of rain, which caused the guys to take a couple extra breaks that they normally would have powered through. But this turned out to be a good thing for two reasons: (#1) it gave them some much needed rest, considering the fatigue still affecting them from yesterday and (#2) they got to hang out at their 2nd hip-hop-celebrity-named convenience store -- Nelly's!

100% genuine Louisiana rain! And lots of it!

The other main highlight was on my side of things: our usual routine after lunch each day involves me driving to the town we plan to stop and finding a place to stay for the night. I've blogged about the strategy involved in this previously, but honestly, there are quite a few more readers this year, so I feel like running through our philosophy won't be wasted.

Getting an inexpensive motel has very little to do with bartering skills (which I'm notoriously bad at) and more to do with scouting. Chain h/motels are always bad news. They have set prices and because they are connected to online services like Priceline and Orbitz, they have no need to cater to your needs. The key is finding the independent motel on the outskirts of town. As I've said before, the shadier the motel looks, the better it actually is. And this year, we got better and better at this as the week went by. For our motel rooms, we paid, in this order $80, $70, $60, and finally, $50. Take that, Rachel Ray! (full disclosure...I'm not sure what Rachel Ray does, or if calling her out while discussing motel costs is even applicable).

Tent revival! Halleluiah!!

Well, we're less than 70 miles from New Orleans, so our attention and anticipation is focused on tomorrow, when Brennan and Jason will ride their bikes into the Big Easy!

We aim to be in New Orleans by early afternoon. Brennan and Jason are leaning towards taking the ferry into town. I may join them. Or I may set up on Bourbon Street somewhere to take pictures of their triumphant arrival. Either way, it'll be a glorious day when we arrive on Bourbon Street and celebrate with the rest of the crew (Dave, Aaron, Justin, and Buzz, you're moustaches better be on point. On point, I say!). And while I will try my best to get a quick blog posted tomorrow, it's more likely that I'll post the final blog after our weekend celebration in the Big Easy. You'll just have to occupy yourself with Perez Hilton or something.


Support Vehicle Music:

The Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music (in a failed attempt to keep the rain away)
Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (in a failed attempt to make this trip Grammy-worthy)
LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening (in a failed attempt to be hip)

Day Three: Today Was a Good Day

Start: Microtel in Sulphur,Louisiana
Lunch: C'est Bon in Mermentau, Louisiana
Dinner: Dupuy's Oyster Shop in Abbeville, Louisiana
End: Budget Inn & Suites in Abbeville, Louisiana
Today's biking distance: 106 miles
Total biking distance: 276 miles

Today will live forever. You will always remember where you were when you read this blog entry. In the meager 3-year storied illustrious history of the Moustache Ride, the record for most miles ridden in a day was an even century, 100. And today, our estimates put the boys right at that mark.

But with all of our bad luck behind us, Brennan and Jason dominated the roads today. When they pulled into the motel in Abbeville, LA, Brennan's odometer was a sight to behold:

106.35 miles. It's a new moustache record!

And you wanna know what's crazy?

Do you?

I don't think you do.

Alright, you convinced me. Here's what's crazy...

Tomorrow they're gonna do it again. That's right. Back-to-back century club days!

Luckily, they'll be well-fueled, as we just finished our best meal of the trip. Usually, after the guys have cleaned up, we take a few laps around whatever town we're in and choose the most local-looking place to eat. At first, Abbeville seemed to have slim pickings when it came to eateries. Mexican joints, a Chinese restaurant (whose logo was a panda petting another panda), and of course, Chili's. But in downtown Abbeville, we found the gem:

Dupuy's Oyster Shop, as you'll see from their website, opened in 1869. To stay open that long requires excellence. And excellence came in the form of a dynamite Tuesday night special of surf n turf. Jason and I went that route, and Brennan went with the crawfish etouffee. All of it was outstanding. So to our dozen thousands of readers, if you ever find yourself in Abbeville, LA, you now know where to go for a top-notch meal.





Aside from that, the ride itself was fairly uneventful, which seems to be a good thing when it comes to riding your bike across the country. I'm sure Jason will give the rider's perspective of this record-breaking day in his blog entry. So I'll just close with some extra pictures, though, as always, you can see all the pics at our Flickr photostream.

Faster than a (parked) train!

After 106 miles, they lost control of their faces.

A cheat sheet?! What a bunch of cheaters! 106.35 should have an asterisk.

And for future reference, you can usually assess how easy/difficult our day was by the amount of music played in the support vehicle. Today only took 3 albums. Today was a good day.



Support Vehicle Music:

Fountains of Wayne - Utopia Parkway
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Everything, Now! - Police, Police

Day Two: Feel My Heat

Start: Gulfway Motel in High Island, Texas
Lunch: Lil Kim and Big H Seafood & Grocery in Port Arthur, Texas
Dinner: Cajun Charlie's in Lake Charles, Louisiana
End: Holly Island, Louisiana
Today's biking distance: 82 miles
Total biking distance: 170 miles

 

Check out the Flickr photostream for all the pics so far!

Well, let me begin by being frank (you can still be you......zing!): a lot went wrong today. Let's take a look, in bulleted list form no less!

• While the guys enjoyed a relatively pleasant morning of wind at their backs and clouds shading them from the sun, I was driving through a torrential thunderstorm.

• While trying to find a good lunch spot, my hopes were risen to great heights by the sign of a small cafe, only to be dashed upon further inspection (it was boarded up). It's sign read "Richard's Cafe: Where It's All Gravy, Baby"

• We settled on a grocery/seafood joint called Lil Kim & Big H. It had neither the hip hop diva or heroin.

• Immediately after Jason ordered his lunch, the power went out...on the entire block.

• Since we had cash, and they don't need electricity to fry seafood into oblivion, we still stayed for lunch. But that lunch was accompanied by some sort of alarm sounding every 17 seconds or so. We called it the "EVERYTHING'S FINE" alarm.

• Of course, once we finished eating, the power came back.

• After lunch, the sun came out and wreaked havoc, creating water concerns for Brennan and Jason, and most tragically, shortening my trip to the super cool fort we saw on the side of the road, a.k.a. Fun Island Depot!

the graffiti-riddled sign made it seem less fun....so did calling it a Depot.

• To celebrate the end of the day's run, the guys excitedly ran into the Gulf of Mexico...and proceeded to get covered in dirty seaweed and random trash. 

somehow, you can still see their disappointment (even with their backs turned)

• Despite our attempt to spend our night in the whimsically-named Hackberry, Louisiana, the one motel (which was also a marina) appeared to be abandoned.

• We thought our bad luck streak had ended with our dinner choice: Cajun Charlie's. It had crazy crap on the wall. I had a trio of fried duck appetizers. There was a Wall of Fame even better than the one from last night**. Everything was going great, especially when we saw the standing stuffed alligator (not unlike the one from Hook...you know, the one who (SPOILER ALERT!!!) eats Dustin Hoffman at the end). And we were pumped when the waitress agreed to take our picture with the gator. But, as we learned throughout the day, things were just meant to go wrong. She cut the gator's head off in the pic. Rat farts.

See how happy we were...then we saw the piss-poor crop job

**shout out to my brother Tom and friend Michal who both correctly identified our mystery picture from yesterday...some country singer named Tracy Lawrence, who I'm going to assume is black sheep of the Joey, Matt, and Andy Lawrence family

Today's mystery Wall of Fame member

But tomorrow's another day. And the guys are likely to log 100+ miles tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Support Vehicle Music:

Radiohead - The Bends
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Pershing
The Roots - How I Got Over
Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
Robert Randolph & the Family Band - Unclassified
Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
Boogie Nights* - music from the original motion picture

*today's blog entry's title, in addition to referencing the rough weather conditions down South, is borrowed from the best of Dirk Diggler's songs. Unfortunately, it's nowhere to be found on YouTube, so Dirk Diggler's 2nd greatest song will have to do:

Day One: Bikes, Ferries, and Automobiles

Start: Dave Weber's apartment in Houston, Texas
Lunch: Papa's Pizza in Galveston, Texas
Dinner: Al-T's Seafood & Steakhouse in Winnie, Texas
End: Gulfway Motel in High Island, Texas
Today's biking distance: 88* miles (if they would have done it in an hour, you would have seen some serious ______)
Total biking distance: 88 miles

*side note: Today, Brennan and Jason rode by a DeLorean multiple times. The first time, they texted me. 10 minutes after that text, I received another from my frined Jay back in Indy. It was a picture of...you guessed it...a DeLorean. I suspect it was the same one, and there is some sort of Indiana/Texas time travel taking place

mint trays in Texas are weird

Let's start with the night before Day One. Twas eventful. Twas, I say! Brennan's bicycle, which he checked as luggage when flying from Denver to Houston, was temporarily lost. Jokes were made that my flight, which for some inexplicable reason was stopping in Baltimore, would make it to Houston before Brennan's bike.

It did not. And sadly, the TSA took Brennan's CO2 cartridges, so he was in quite a pickle. And when they tracked down a bike shop, it was 2 hours after closing time. Luckily, the staff at Houston Bicycle Company were willing to open up shop, and even donated some CO2 cartridges without charge. Thanks, guys!

Instead, as we were minutes away from leaving Baltimore on time, the AC in the plane went out, we deboarded the place, were given our boarding passes back (in a scene resembling 2nd graders getting their bag of valentine's as the teacher calls each name out amid a hovering crowd), and just as the final person got their boarding pass back, the plane was fixed, we got back on the plane (I was proud to still get my trusty seat, 7A) and I got into Houston around 12:30 am. Brennan and Jason were sound asleep in our friend Dave's bed, which is where we shipped off from this morning.

the start of the trip

Departure time was 6:30am for Brennan and Jason, 8:00am for me. As I was cruising down a major highway (45 South), ditching the guys and their county road approach, Jason was quickly getting a flat tire around mile 6 (he would later wreck, making the flat tire seem like a mere hiccup). About 50 miles into the day, I had to pick up the guys, as the only way to cross into Galveston is to take said major highway (45 South). But rest assured, they demanded to be let out of the car as soon as possible so not to jeopardize the integrity of the trip.

Speaking of integrity, at our lunch stop in Galveston Bay, Brennan rubbed Jesus' moustache:

While eating lunch, we watched the 2nd half of the USA/Brazil World Cup match, but had to leave before the "GREATEST ENDING EVER!!!!" (I'm quoting every single person in my Twitter feed the 20 minutes after we stopped watching the game). From Galveston, we boarded the ferry, complete with flock of seagulls.....not that flock.....this flock:




From there, it was relatively smooth sailing (though the heat really started to take its toll). As always, I scoped out our stop for the evening, the Gulfway Motel, which instantly reminded me of the motel* that the crew from Bottle Rocket stop to hide out.

*not so fun fact: The motel where they filmed Bottle Rocket is in danger of being destroyed. This would be tragic. 

We took a dip in the motel's pool-sized jacuzzi (did I mention it's hot here....94 degrees, people!) and headed to a taxedermy/restaurant in Winnie, Texas.

Cajun Cuisine was consumed. Random pictures were taken. Plans for tomorrow were made. Stay tuned for that...

For more pics, check out the Flickr Photostream

nothing cures exhaustion like upward dog!

not sure which dog pose this one is

Al-T's had a wall of fame...could someone please tell us who this guy is?! Obviously, we love his 'stache.

Support Vehicle Music:

The Lemonheads - It's a Shame About Ray
The Rentals - Return of the Rentals
The Rentals - Seven More Minutes
LMFAO - Sorry For Party Rocking
William Shatner - Has Been
Vampire Weekend - Contra
Wilco - Wilco (the album)

Costello's Face: America Decides!

One of the most important decisions that go into our trip revolves around the style of moustache to take in to the week. In 2009, I went with a different style each day of the trip. In 2010, I stayed with one style, primarily out of laziness.

But this year, I'm taking a page from modern television and letting America decide! (Fox, feel free to contact me into regards to my new show pitch, So You Think You Can Grow Facial Hair)

Now, before I reveal the three choices America will have (and please note, by "America" I mean "the 12 people that read this blog"), I came across a rather interesting chart that not only reviews a variety of styles, but charts them according to trustworthiness:

click to enlarge

Now, I'll be the first to admit that this chart has flaws. I hardly think Burt Reynolds is more trustworthy than Honest Abe. And ever since his turn to the dark side as Hollywood Hogan (not to mention his suspect behavior on Hogan Knows Best (more like Hogan Knows WORST!!!! Am I right?!?!)), I refuse to believe that Hulk Hogan can be trusted more than a homeless man...or a werewolf.

But, the chart did help me settle on three styles that I'll ask you all to vote on. Each style will come with a celebrity endorser, as well as a picture of myself sporting the look, so you can have an accurate idea of what the world will be looking at for the next week:

Option #1 - The Friendly Mutton Chops

Recently worn by Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, this style seems to focus the eye on the beauty of the chin (one of my face's strengths if I say so myself)

Option #2 - The Horseshoe

Alright. I know I just bashed Hulk Hogan, who is the icon of this style. But he redeemed himself during his brief, yet humbling appearances on Brooke Knows Best.

Option #3 - The Push Broom

As the sherpa of this trip, I will often find myself bartering with and smooth-talking motel clerks in the hopes of getting a lower rate. There's nothing friendlier than the Flanders!

And so, at the top right of this blog, you'll see a poll, allowing you to vote for one of these three choices.

Choose wisely. My upper lip depends on it!