Day 6: To Phoenix

Good Morning, Texas.

We woke up at about 8 am and packed up the tent and our gear. We had about a 9 hour drive ahead of us so we wanted to get on the road as soon as possible. We soaked in the beautiful surroundings for a bit longer and then hit the road. About 10 minutes into the trip, we realized we were driving through a legit salt flat. We had never seen these in real life, only in movies. We had to pull over.
Then we had to drive fast on it.
Anyways, there is not that much between the mountains we camped at and Phoenix. EXCEPT THE BORDER! Neither one of us had ever been to the border before and so we thought it would be funny to do a handstand in front of it. We followed the first sign we saw for Juarez.
So as it turns out, you can't just drive up to the fence on the border. If you decide to take the exit we took, you will end up here:
"Uh, dude we don't have our passports." "Uh-oh".

So we got really lucky and got to make a very difficult, last second u-turn through a warzone style barricade. It was intense, scary, and we both thought we would not be able to get back into the USA.

We continued driving and we finally reached Arizona!
"Arizona Welcomes You"...well, not all of you.

After hours of driving we made it to Phoenix. We had a few hours to kill until Matty got out of class, so we stopped into a skate shop. We told them about our road trip and asked for cool places to skate. They blessed our ears with the most fun skate spot of my life. It is the Cactus Ditch, a HUGE drainage ditch a few miles out of the city. Needless to say we went. It wasn't 100% legal, so we did not spend a lot of time taking pictures.
Dropping in was awesome.
But then Rob had to fall and hurt himself.
We ended up leaving with only one of us injured for once. I called it a successful trip. We headed to Matty's apartment for a night of relaxation, Indian food, and movies. Unfortunately, there were no handstands this day. But the next day was the Grand Canyon, so who knows what could happen...

Day 4/5: Journey to Carlsbad Caverns

After my car got fixed up, we headed out of Austin into the great infinite expanse known as West Texas. Everywhere was few and far between here, so after a short sleep at a creepy motel, we left in the morning and continued on towards Carlsbad, Nu Mexico. As usual, we made sure to skate whenever possible.

After hours of driving, we finally made it up to Carlsbad, New Mexico. It was a beautiful drive up a mountain to get to the entrance of the caverns, but we were excited to go into the largest cavern in all of North America.
WOW. So far this was shaping up to be the coolest day of Stew Tour. It was amazing in the cave!
We realized shortly after entering that not only were we super hungry, but dehydrated. This made the rest of our time in the cave very interesting/entertaining.
Hmm........Possible?
These caves are something that everyone needs to see before die, trust me. They are huge, and beautiful.

I could not leave this amazing landmark in America without giving it a little stew-venir.
We walked around the "big room" of the caves for about an hour. Finally our hunger got the best of us and we ran to the elevators to go make sandwiches.
After the caves and a delicious PB, honey, and granola sandwiches, we stuck around to watch the bats fly out of the cave at dusk. It was also incredible, but then we realized it was dark and we still did not have a place to camp. One of the rangers suggested we drive down the road to a side street and set up camp. We did that, but then we realized he wanted us to camp here:
So anyways, we decided not to camp there. We kept on driving down to the Guadalupe Mountains and set up camp there and it ended up being the perfect ending to a beautiful day.



Goodnight America.

Day 3: Austin, Texaz

We arrived in Austin in the afternoon. We met up with my long lost friend Laura Ashline at her new place and started the hangout. Since I had seen her last she got a sweet Simpson's leg tattoo sleeve sta

rted. We hung out at her house for a little bit and then decided to go get food then leave for a night on the town.

Her old friends from Atlanta had came into town to play a show and so Rob and I went exploring. We decided to explore the city the best way we knew how. Rob showed me the hotel that he stayed at when he was in Austin!

Then I found the Capitol Building!

Anyways, after our adventure we met up with Laura at a bar called Mohawk. Her friends The Coathangers were playing with a sweet band called Predator. All of them were from Atlanta.

After the show everyone went back to Laura's house and there was a pretty crazy party. I won't go into details but it was a weird night to say the least. Can you find me?

The next day, Rob, Laura, and I went to the most amazing Whole Foods in the universe to get some food for our camping excursion the next day. While we were there, my car died. I didn't know what to do while waiting for AAA, so....

Day 2: Mississippi; the other South Carolina...

After a relaxing swim with the cousins, I decided to shave a mustache. Then we went home to my grandparents house and hit the sack. The next day we woke up bright and early to head out to New Orleans. First things first, say good bye to the grandparents.

Then we hit the road. I drove for a few hours and then Rob took the wheel. He got the honors of driving into Mississippi, or as he calls it, "The Other South Carolina".
I knew about how much of a disappointment Mississippi is, so we took a pre-emptive picture describing our time here.
Turns out I was 100% right. While at the rest stop we decided to skate the drainage ditch at the entrance. It was awesome at first, when we were on our boards, but then I decided to try be like Lenny Kravitz and fly away...
Needless to say I got cut up pretty bad. Then Rob tried to 5-0 the edge for a second time and got cut up too. But we continued on our way and finally made it into Louisiana and started our adventure on America's longest bridges. They were so long that if your gas light came on right before you got on a bridge, you would run out of gas on the same freaking bridge.
They went on for freaking ever...
We finally made it into New Orleans and parked at a friend of a friends house. That was our base camp and we went on a super short dinner excursion.
After New Orleans, we decided to get as close towards Austin as possible to shorten the drive for the next day. As we drove out of the city we went on more ridiculously long bridges and finally got to Texas. With a windshield covered in dead Louisiana bugs, we stopped at the Texas welcome center and took a skate break.

We have arrived in Texas ladies and gentleman...

Day One: The Departure

7/23/2010
The first day was a hard one. I had a farewell breakfast at our friend Andy Thewlis' restaurant and a bunch of people showed up. This made leaving difficult because our 9 o'clock departure time now became a Noon departure time.

Everyone was in the know about my cross country handstand mission and they all gave an impressive attempt to send me on my way.
I said my last goodbyes to the people that I care about and then Rob and I began our journey together.
Once we got into Alabama I started to warn Rob about the weird times he was about to have, but I don't think he believed me yet. We drove through backroads and mountains to get there so at least it was beautiful.

After a very strange dinner, we got to go night swimming with my cousins. They had a diving board and I felt like it needed to be conquered. So I conquered it...
Driving back to my grandparents house, I told Rob that surprisingly enough Huntsville, AL is the home of Space Camp. He didn't believe me until:
The rest of the night in Huntsville was quiet as we prepared ourselves for the trip to New Orleans the next day.

Hello World

I am Stew Cantrell, a 21 year old student about to move across the country. I will be driving from the East Coast all the way to the West Coast and will be seeing everything I want to see along the way. I realize that the best way to document this trip is by doing handstands.

Get Ready,

Stew