Road trip to the South

Alabama -> Mississippi -> Louisiana -> Florida -> Alabama...
Birmingham, Jackson,  Tuscaloosa, Vicksburg, New Orleans, Pensacola and then back to Atlanta...

New Orleans was wonderful! Finally a European-like city, walkable! And the downtown was very very special. Eaten an alligator. Also tried out gumbo. Haven't seen the Louisiana swamps though, except from the car. OL complained that there were no French-speaking people. True, but there were at least some with the Creole accent. Still confusing "Cajun" and "Creole" terms. There was the St. Patrick celebration at the day of our visit. Cars passing, throwing beads and flowers. And a lot of green everywhere. Beads seem to be somehow typical of New Orleans - perhaps have to visit on Mardi Gras once, to get to understand better.
Houses in the downtown were so picturesque...and also those farther away from downtown were special. And there is public transportation as well, with ancient streetcars serving the city.
Oh, and I was told that Atlanta is one of the most sparsely populated urban areas. Definitely feels so!
We have also seen the "official" WWII museum. It encompassed several buildings!
By the way, how comes that in a "cafe", they expect you to order food???!

There was also a St. Patrick celebration in Jackson. A lot of music and mess and happy people :-) But other than that, the city was very much run down. Only the government buildings were in a reasonable state and then maybe the local banks. Mississippi is the poorest state of the US..., according to KA, also the most racist one?? And with a lot of "rednecks"??? (in Alabama, too...)

Birmingham was such a dead city. Even though there was a weird person standing in the middle of the main street - be careful, a car could hit you!  The most interesting local attraction was a large steel statue and derelict furnaces.

In Vicksburg, we saw the Mississippi river for the first time. It's huge! And they say it's very polluted. Haven't swum there, don't know. A major American Civil war battle was fought in Vicksburg. We visited a huge memorial park.

Pensacola - plenty of young people, enjoying their Spring break, plenty of hotels, beaches, a vacation paradise?!? The weather definitely fitted the paradise. The coast of the Gulf of Mexico is crowded with pretty houses, apparently they use this coast in the US instead of the Southern Spanish coast. Perhaps unsurprising?

We saw more than 100 McDonalds on our trip. Anyway, I ate in too many fastfoods during the trip. Even though a home-made hamburger is much better than the McDonalds one!! Anyway, I was the weird person ordering a salad at McD. Say hi to your local stranger.
Distances are huge, population sparse. Five people booking one room is cheap - and all the hotels have complementary breakfast, cool.
I was driving a few times! Was not that hard as I had expected, after all those years. Perhaps because the car had an automatic transmission.

And every state has a Welcome center when you are entering. A pretty building, something willing to show you what to see in the state, free maps, free coffee, the Georgia Welcome center had free peanuts.