Georgia and Florida

Goodbye South! Go West!

Our last days in the South were extremely busy. From Atlanta, we made our way to Savannah, once again (remember, Savannah was the farthest south we drove on our road trip during spring break). We loved Savannah so much, we really wanted to see it again in summer. But we quickly realized that Savannah in March is much more pleasant than Savannah in June... we almost melted!

By lunchtime, we made it to Brunswick, Georgia... where the famous Georgia Pig BBQ joint happened to be located conveniently next to the highway. We tried out the pulled pork but were not very impressed (maybe we are getting too spoiled!).

When driving South, we stopped in St Augustine, Florida, a Spanish settlement which became a very popular holiday destination in the late 19th century. We love this little town, it reminded us a lot of Andalucia in Spain (but more commercialized).

Next up was Orlando where we experienced an important part of American culture: theme parks! And not just any old theme park, no – the holy grail of all theme parks, Disneyworld. When ordering our tickets, we had to put our budget constraints aside (and start thinking about spending the last days of our road trip under a bridge) but in retrospect, the expensive tickets were really worth it. People who know me can tell you that I am a big Disneyland fan, meaning I’ve spent a big part of my childhood in the Disney park in Paris. So, I consider myself a semi-expert and now, I could finally compare the European park with its older (1971!), original sister park in Orlando. The verdict…Disneyworld, consisting out of 6 different theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and some waterparks) is a lot bigger than Disneyland Paris (only Magic Kingdom and Studios). We only visited Magic Kingdom and Epcot and we loved it, but I still prefer the one in Paris (maybe because of its sentimental value, or maybe because the park in Paris is more manageable?).

On our last day in Orlando (June 24), we drove to Cape Canaveral to visit the Kennedy Space Center. A tour bus took us right to the launch platforms and the building where the space shuttles are built. Quite impressive! We learned that standing 400 feet from the launch would kill you because of the heat and 800 feet because of the sound, that the space shuttle (incl. mobile platform) has to be transported very slowly to the launch platform since it weighs 9 million kilograms and that the kid behind us would like to become an astronaut when he grows up...

Atlanta

Hotlanta

The weekend of June 17th, we were in Atlanta (although it already seems more than one month ago at the rate we are going through cities). We met up with my family and Tracy was so kind to put a roof over our heads, and serve us incredibly delicious food!

We spent the first day in downtown Atlanta. We strolled through Centennial Park; not too long though since it was very hot and humid outside. We explored the huge Georgia aquarium, one of the biggest in the world.

We also followed the tourist herds to the Coca Cola museum (Coca Cola is headquartered in Atlanta). It still amazes me that a lot of people - including ourselves - are willing to pay $15 to go see the commercials at the Coke museum. On the other hand, the museum offers a very cool tasting experience, definitely worth your bucks: you get to taste and compare different special "exclusive" soft drinks from all over the world. We came to the conclusion that drinks in Asia are soft and delicate, drinks in Europe are more sour and prickly, drinks in North America are very sweet and drinks in Latin America are extremely sweet and fruity.

Last on our list in downtown Atlanta, was the tour behind the scenes at CNN. Unfortunately, we don't have any breaking news to report on our tour but seeing the weather girl perform her 5 minute live show is more exciting than you would think.

Our second day, we crossed the other touristy things from our to do list. We visited the High Museum of Art - I don't know what impressed me more, the art or the architecture by Renzo Piano.

Further on our program were the Atlanta Zoo (included in our citypasses) where we most appreciated the baby panda and the parokeets (the zoo was OK but not better than our Antwerp zoo...) and the Atlanta Botanical Garden with its amazing orchid collection.

On Sunday, Tracy showed us around in Marietta, a "suburb" near Atlanta which has a surprisingly rich history (civil war battles were fought here over Atlanta). The city square was very beautiful and had a very good bakery with real croissants (a big treat when you're on the road in the South!). After a delicious "light" Southern lunch, we said goodbye to Tracy and we were on the road again...

Alabama

Civil Rights

Our stay in Alabama was short but very interesting and moving. We followed part of the "civil rights" tour. 

We started in Birmingham with a visit to the Civil Rights Institute - a very impressive museum built around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights struggle. Again, segregation and the humiliation blacks used to undergo not so long ago made us very silent. Especially, the bombing of the church resulting in the death of 4 little girls and the lynching of two black boys in Birmingham made our stomachs turn inside-out.

We also wandered around in Birmingham and met the people working at the local civil rights museum. One of them had worked with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself.

Our next stop was Montgomery. Besides the First Confederate White House (the home of confederate president Jefferson Davis) and the State Capitol, we paid a visit to the Rosa Parks Museum. Rosa Parks was one of the first black women to stand up against bus segregation by refusing to give up her bus seat to the white passengers. Her action inspired the big bus boycott, whereby the black Montgomery community refused to ride the bus as long as bus segregation was enforced. After more than one year, they finally succeeded in ending bus segregation.

Nashville

Music City

After our intensive weekend in St Louis, we took it easy in Nashville, the Music City, mostly known for its rich country music history. On our first day, we wandered around downtown Nashville, enjoying the live music at the many bars on Broadway. We stopped at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge for some nice honky tonk music. Even though the live music was fun, we will never become big country music fans...

We also had a quick look inside the Ryman's Auditorium which started out as a preaching church but was later transformed to the Mother Church of Country Music. As of the 1940's, this was the home of the radio show "Grand Ole Opry" where many country stars perform (and still perform today albeit from a different location).

A visit to the Belle Meade Plantation showed us a different side of Nashville. This plantation is very famous for its thoroughbred horses, one of which supposedly the ancestor of 70 procent of today's thoroughbred horses. Again, we were torn between the beauty and glamor of the mansion and the cruel and horrible way slaves were treated.

One other very memorable moment, was our visit to the Parthenon. No, we didn't suffer from a heatstroke, we actually did visit the Parthenon in Nashville... For Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition, the city built a real size replica of Athens' Parthenon.

St Louis

Louis Nightlife

We spent last weekend in St Louis with our friends Chip and Ally. Chip's parents were so generous to let us stay at their beautiful home and we were treated as royalty for the entire weekend.

St Louis is most famous for its Gateway Arch (officially, "Jefferson National Expansion Memorial"), the tallest national monument in the US, built in 1965. The arch represents St Louis important role as the gateway to the West during the 19th Century.

We didn't get much sleep there as our friends showed us around in the St Louis nightlife! The first night, after a lovely dinner at the St Louis Countryclub, we had drinks on the terrace of Harry's Bar with a magnificent view on the St Louis skyline. The second night, we had an amazing dinner at the Italian restaurant Dominic's on the Hill. There we had a taste of a special St Louis dessert: spumoni. After the delicious food, we spent the rest of the night downtown St Louis on Washington Ave...

Needless to say, we had an amazing weekend!

Memphis

Heartbreak Hotel, Museums and Blues

We arrived in Memphis on June 9 and two days later, we could sing along with every song Elvis has ever recorded. Our first night in Memphis, we stayed in the Heartbreak Hotel next to Graceland, Elvis' home.Graceland is like the Disneyland for the baby boom generation, a giant Elvis theme park built around his former house. The house itself was a lot smaller and more modest than we expected... but the two private jets and the gigantic collection of amazing old timers quickly reminded us how big a star Elvis really was.

We also had a taste of Beale Street in Memphis, which feels like a smaller, calmer version of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. We walked into the Rum Boogie Cafe for an amazing live blues session by Victor Wainwright and his band.

Memphis has a lot of music museums and we visited all of them: the Stax Museum (or Soulsville), the very famous soul music recording studio, Sun Records Studio where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and many more recorded hit singles (and we were able to touch Elvis's microphone!) and the Rock and Soul Museum giving an overview of Memphis' rich music history.

We also visited a more serious, very different side of Memphis: the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. The National Civil Rights Museum showed us that not so long ago, the States and especially the South was not so welcoming to the black population. It made us very quiet to see the daily effects of segregation up close... 

As far as food is concerned, we tried out the amazingly delicious fried chicken at Gus's and the yummy dry pork ribs at Corky's...  both very successful in making us one step closer to becoming contestants on America's Biggest Loser!

Mississippi

Although we spent only two days in Mississippi, we very much liked what we saw. While driving through the state, we saw a lot of – as expected – cotton and corn fields. But what did come as a surprise is that Mississippi is very green, with almost tropic like vegetation (come to think of it, very logical since winter only lasts 2 months and summer means 40°C and 90% humidity).

The first day, we stopped in Natchez where we visited an antebellum house, Longwood. This house was different than the hundred of other ones you can find in Mississippi. The Dutch owner, Mr. Nutt, was in the middle of construction when Civil War broke out and was never able to finish it, the outside structure was done but inside, the house is still a construction site.

We also had time to taste the local food in Natchez, trying out Fat Mama’s tamales for dinner (with a “knock-you-naked” margarita) and Mammy’s Cupboard, a very politically incorrect lunch place in the shape of a black woman…

The second day, we followed the Natchez Trace Parkway up North. This is what I call a “Top Gear” road… simply beautiful and deserted. The parkway follows the old trace that was used by Indians and later Americans before the steamboat came along. Along the trace, we visited the ruins of Rocky Springs which 200 hundred years ago used to be a wealthy town with a population of 2600. Today, only the church and two safes (probably from the post office and bank) are left…

Late afternoon, after driving on the “blues highway” 61, we arrived in our motel in Clarksdale, the ShackUp Inn located at the old historic Hopson cotton plantation. This must be by far the most amazing hotel I ever stayed at. It’s cheap, only has basic comfort, but the old shacks and historic location make this an unforgettable experience. We stayed in the “Pinetop” shack, named after Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins, a sharecropper who later made his fortune as a blues pianist (even playing for Muddy Waters).

Clarksdale is the home of blues, a lot of the famous blues singers have their roots here. The Delta Blues Museum had exhibits on Muddy Waters, Ike Turner, Sam Cooke, J L Hooker and other famous blues singers. We also stopped for a drink at Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club (unfortunately, we were too early for live music) and had a BBQ pork sandwich at Abe’s, another Clarksdale institution located at the blues crossroads of highways 49 and 61.

 

Gators and Dragonflies

Louisiana Swamps

We spent our final day in Louisiana in a scorching hot, very
humid swamp. Sounds awful, and we have to admit, we were exhausted after more
than 2 hours, but the nature and wildlife were worth it. Some 30 minutes from
downtown New Orleans, you can hike (or kayak – but we wisely decided against
that) in the Barataria Preserve. We encountered hundreds of dragonflies,
grasshoppers, gecko’s, some snakes and had a very close encounter with two
alligators. One of these was sitting on the path which we needed to cross… with
some hesitation, we did make it through but we got a very nasty look from the gator!

The Big Easy

Slowing down in New Orleans

On Friday, June 4, we arrived in the Big Easy, NoLa, N'awlins or New Orleans. The weather wasn't optimal, or at least that's what we thought at first but it turned out that stormy weather is a blessing when you visit NoLa in the summer months. The clouds and scattered storms keep the city cooler (we still had temperatures of more than 30° C though).

We started with a stroll through the French Quarter. We had high expectations and we weren't disappointed. The French Quarter is beautiful... the Creole houses with their iron balconies filled with plants and flowers are amazing and on almost every corner, there is a street artist playing jazz songs.

New Orleans is notorious for its nightlife, so we also had a little taste of the city by night. The first day, we went for some original Creole food with a modern twist at Lüke restaurant, followed by some bar hopping together with our Icelandic friends who also happened to be in NoLa. Bourbon Street was of course the first stop on our program... The first 10 minutes, we couldn't really grasp what was going on: loud live jazz/rock music, proppers trying to lure you into their bar, cocktails starting at $3, red burned tourists with beer and liquor stumbling from one bar to the other, women flashing their boobs for some plastic bead necklaces (mostly older women who had been the victim of gravity for many years), "adult" bars, ... So we decided to leave this part of the town. In stead, we got tickets for a performance at Preservation Hall, an old club at which jazz artists have been jamming since 1961.

The next day, we left the French Quarter and strolled through the Garden District, where the Americans settled after the Louisiana purchase. These houses are completely different then the French Quarter: very elaborate on the outside, majestic almost, surrounded by huge tropic trees. Nowadays, a lot of famous people occupy this neigborhood...

In the afternoon, we went on a boat ride with the Creole Queen: jazz music on the Mississippi river - just perfect!

The second night, we had traditional Creole food at Felix's Oyster Bar. We even tried out some alligator (tasted like a combination of chicken and eal). We revisited Bourbon Street, giving it another chance but the second time, it seemed even more decadent. We escaped to a jazz bar and finished with a hurricane cocktail at Pat O'Briens.

On our final day in the Big Easy, we really took it easy and just wandered around in the French quarter, discovering new things which we didn't noticed the first day. We also stopped for some delicious beignets at Café Du Monde and started to prepare mentally for our big hike in the Louisiana swamps.

Texas, the Lone Star State (part 2)

A&M, Longhorns, Alamo and H-Town

After Dallas, we drove down to College Station, most famous for the A&M University and the George H Bush Library. But our main reason to visit College Station was the wedding of our friends, Chris and Laura. Ward was an usher at the wedding, so we were able to experience everything upclose - from the rehearsal (a dry-run of the ceremony, followed by dinner) on Friday, to the ceremony and wedding reception on Saturday, finishing with brunch on Sunday. An American wedding is a lot different than a Belgian one: they last an entire weekend (mostly because the guests fly in from all over the country), the actual wedding party takes place in the afternoon and there are a lot of different traditions such as throwing the wedding bouquet, having a beautiful decorated wedding cake, etc. I can't judge about other American weddings, but Chris and Laura's wedding was simply perfect!

Our next stop in Texas was Austin. We have been asking every Texan we met last year what we should visit in Texas and their response was unanimous: Austin! Our lovely hosts, Mark and Sang, and our friends, Joey and Candice, showed us around in this "weird" city. In short, we had BBQ at the Salt Lick (a BYOB or Bring Your Own Beer BBQ institution), we floated the Guadalupe river in tubes, we had dinner at the Hula Hut at Lake Austin, went barhopping on 6th Street, walked around the entire University of Texas campus and browsed in the university co-op store (I'm aware that probably no one ever clicks on my links, but please humor me and at least click on this one - the merchandise sold at this store is amazing).

After an amazing weekend, we left Austin for a quick stop in San Antonio. We weren't really expecting much of this city so that's why we probably loved it so much! The Alamo reminded us of Andalucia in Spain and the Riverwalk of a modern Venice.

We spent our final days in Texas in the Houston area. Again, some amazing museums were on our program - we never expected to see so much art in Texas! The Museum of Fine Arts (both modern and ancient art, with a temporary collection of Alice Neel which caught our special attention) and the Menil Collection (private collection including a lot of Magritte, Ernst and Rothko) had wonderful collections in wonderful architectural buildings. We also quickly stopped at the Orange Show, a freakish building built by a former postman from found objects and junk.

Downtown Houston dissappointed us a little - everything was dead as of 6 pm (even Macy's was closed which is very shocking for a former New Yorker!). That's why we decided to spend the night in Galveston, at the Gulf of Mexico. We were just in time for a walk on the beach by sunset. This town has a very rich and also unfortunate history. It used to be one of the wealthiest cities in the Southeast but in 1900 it was hit by a huge storm killing more than 6000 people and destroying one third of the beautiful city. Two years ago, Hurricane Ike also did a lot of damage - still visible today. This made the city both fascinating and kinda depressing...

Our last stop in Texas before moving on to Louisiana, was the Space Center Houston.The tram tour through NASA's Johnson Space Center was very interesting. We saw the historic control room from where the first man on the moon was monitored, went to the training center of the astronauts which included realsize mock ups of the space shuttle and the International Space Station, and walked around the original Saturnus V rocket and the Apollo XVIII capsule that it was going to launch.

Next... New Orleans!