Road Trip from New Orleans to Chicago

Kristof and I are back in Belgium after a very pleasant road trip from New Orleans all the way up to Chicago. I don’t have much time for writing, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

Here we are still in New Orleans, more specifically in a bar in Bourbon Street were a blues band was playing:

On Thursday, Michaël, Kristof and I went to visit a sugar cane plantation close to New Orleans. Here we are next to the Mississippi River:

while this is the nearby “Oak Alley Plantation”:

The plantation’s site says that “The quarter-mile canopy of giant live oak trees, believed to be nearly 300 years old, forms an impressive avenue leading to the classic Greek-revival style antebellum home.” Impressive? For sure!

On Friday morning, we hit the road for Chicago. This shot was taken from the window between New Orleans and Birmingham:

We stopped briefly in Birmingham, Alabama to visit the Civil Rights Centre. This is of course the ideal spot for a statue of Martin Luther King:

After the visit we hopped back into the car and off we went. Another typical view—note the Greyhound bus—through the rear window:

and one through the front window:

We spent Friday night in Nashville, Tennessee. Because of lack of space: pictures only on request… On Saturday we continued from Nashville to St Louis, Missouri. There, I defied the bitter cold and the shrieking gale to bring you this picture of St Louis by night:

And on we went to Chicago…

The first snow started showing up and it was getting bitter cold:

However, freezing cold or not, this picture was certainly worth while the stop:

And then, finally, Chicago! This picture was taken on Sunday morning on top of the John Hancock building. In the far right you can see the Sears Tower, the highest building in the USA:

Then we went on to Grant Park and Millennium Park, where the famous Cloud Gate—more commonly known as The Bean—is situated:

We spent a very pleasant last evening in company of Filip—who happened to be in Chicago at the same moment as we were—and some of his very congenial American friends.

And then, back to Belgium on Tuesday morning! Another unique experience in the USA had come to an end…