http://www.bylandseaorair.com Traveling the world one post at a time Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:15:07 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Driving down the elevated I-10 into New Orleans is a surreal experience. The view of the Superdome awakens memories of CNNs pictures of a flooded city and thousands upon thousands of stranded people. The fact that 80% of this city was under water only 4 years ago is hard to ... http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/easy-living-in-new-orleans-20091113/ One of the "absolute must do" items we were told we had to check off on our list when visiting New Orleans was a swamp tour. Turns out that's advice that is highly dependent on season and weather. There are multiple companies that offer swamp tours around New Orleans, most of ... http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/lessons-from-a-swamp-tour-20091108/ [caption id="attachment_171" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Our trip so far (click for a larger version)"][/caption] Some time during the day as we made our way from Asheville, North Carolina to Williamsburg, Virginia, our odometer reached the 10,000 km mark (well, actually the odometer got accidentally reset in Albuquerque, New Mexico when it was ... http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/10000-kilometers-and-counting-20091104/ Driving down from Alexandria toward New Orleans we started talking about what we wanted to do once we got there. On the top of our list was visit a plantation and go on a swamp tour. Yeah, we're real party animals, I know. As with just about everything else in ... http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/oak-alley-plantation-20091102/ [caption id="" align="alignright" width="186" caption="Seriously, you can't get more seteotypical than this."][/caption] Anny already wrote a great article on our visit to the Fort Worth Stockyards so rather than repeating everything she said I'm going to share some photos and observations with you. We didn't actually plan to go to the Stockyards ... http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/cowboy-up-20091031/ We're celebrating Halloween in the weirdest place on earth: Pigeon Forge in Tennessee. The pumpkin above is the one Morten drew and Angela carved at the Rogers' house in Tyler, Texas when we visited Stephen - one of Anny's fellow Best Job in the World top 50 candidates. http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/happy-halloween-20091031/ [caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="My first time riding a mechanical bull"][/caption] We had arrived in Dallas just in time to miss the annual Dallas Fair – supposedly (according to a guy at the hotel) the biggest fair in all of the USA. “Well, that sucks” we thought and asked the receptionist ... http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/rhinestones-and-denim-20091030/ Everyone’s heard the song with the catchy chorus “get your kicks... on Route 66”, but few know where this mythical road is and what cities it connects. I was counted among the majority for whom the name is a mere cultural reference to a time past until we left Flagstaff, ... http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/cadillac-ranch-on-route-66-20091028/ [caption id="attachment_139" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Drive-through service at Toyota in Albuquerque"][/caption] Thursday turned out to be a day of huge contrasts and a long drive across state lines. It started off in Albuquerque, New Mexico where we had to get our car serviced. In Vancouver this is a big multi-hour ordeal and ... http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/car-service-nukes-and-steak-20091026/ [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="One of the many petrified logs you can find in Petrified Forest National Park"][/caption] Meteor Crater was actually just the first of two natural wonders we planned to see on Wednesday. The second one, located about 1 hour further down I-40, was Petrified Forest National Park. We ... http://www.bylandseaorair.com/roundtrip-usa/petrified-forest-and-painted-desert-20091025/