DAY 10 - THE LONGEST ROAD

We leave Minneapolis early this morning, picking up a takeaway breakfast and some more slices of pie from our Bakers Square.  Our whole 9+ hour drive today is on one road, Interstate 90.  

We stop at a place called Blue Earth for some petrol and suddenly see a huge Jolly Green Giant.  Turns out they grow a lot of sweetcorn here and supply it to Green Giant.  I even had a photo opportunity at the site. 

At lunch time we stopped at a place called Cowboy Town.  It was an old time shack with a field of Buffalo behind it.  When we got inside we realised that the Buffalo would be lunch.  Had the most fantastic buffalo burgers with all the trimmings.  The journey continued and by early evening we pick up some groceries from a supermarket and arrive at our wooden lodge for the night Silver Lining Cabin at Backroads Inn and Cabins.  This is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota just a few miles from Mount Rushmore.  We have a lovely pool so go for a quick swim to get over our long drive.  Tonight we are cooking our own dinner on the BBQ, sausages, bread rolls, corn in their husks (we had to ask a fellow guest how to BBQ these) and salad then s'mores for dessert (chocolate and toasted marsh mallows sandwiched between graham crackers). 

There is supposed to be Wi-Fi here but unfortunately it does not appear to be working.  We are a bit stumped as this means we cannot find and book accommodation for tomorrow night.  Also my phone signal seems to have completely vanished since we got to South Dakota.  I feel like I am completely cut off from the world.

We get settled in for an early night as we are tired from the journey and have an early start again tomorrow.

DAY 9 - Wedding Crashers

Our one day in Minneapolis! Today was super hot so we were feeling very lazy and didn't want to do much, but we did still manage to fit quite a lot in!

The motel we stayed in turned out to be right by Minnehaha falls, so we figured we couldn't really not go and see them. After a breakfast of plain rolls and cold sweet potato fries left over from last nights dinner, we walked on down to see the falls. They were very pretty and although mum wouldn't let me put my feet in the water (boo!), it was a fun time. They looked like something out of a postcard!



From here, we caught the metro train into Minneapolis city centre. We arrived really thirsty from all the walking and baking heat, but found it very hard to find any water!
The city centre was a bit confusing and for awhile we felt like we must be missing something...

But anyway, we managed to stumble upon a Jimmy Johns store who very kindly gave us some free water. We were hydrated and ready to go! Minneapolis resident and friend Mr Alex Fisher had recommended we see the sculpture garden so we decided to catch a bus out to it. The garden was great with loads of interesting art to see, including the famous cherry and spoon (which was being meticulously polished for us as we arrived!). There were also lots of nice plants, a cool greenhouse type structure and some awesome sounding windpipes which we sat under for awhile in the shade.


Deciding to head back downtown for lunch, we melted at the bus stop for about 20 minutes complaining about being hot before one arrived. We caught the bus down to the river thinking
it a likely place to find food, but were sadly mistaken. We took a walk down the river and saw another fall which was nice, but were mainly still complaining about being hot and thirsty. Deciding the river was the wrong place, we headed back downtown through boiling hot streets, still unable to find anything! It just seemed like we were missing something in this city!

It was around this point I noticed all the covered walkways between buildings and remembered something about this 'Skyway' I had heard Minneapolis had. The downtown area buildings are
connected by an elevated system of bridges; you can enter any building and basically navigate the city without ever having to go outside! We head inside the nearest office block and it was like some ascension to heaven montage of air conditioning and places to get a drink and food!

Needless to say, we stopped here for quite a while to rest and wonder about this clever set up, taking you out from hot or cold weather. From here, we decided to head towards the Guthrie Theatre which we had heard was beautifully Art Deco and free to look around. The theatre was definitely very cool, with a bridge sticking out the side you can walk on for great views and fun coloured windows to look out. Unfortunately we were unable to look inside any of the auditoriums though. There happened to be a wedding happening there an hour or so after we arrived, so we had to check out their booked floor before they arrived. What actually happened was that they began to arrive as we were still on the floor and we had to sheepishly scuttle to the lift!

After having yet another rest (necessary, believe me, so hot), we headed to next door to the Mill museum, also free in parts. We were surprised to find yet another wedding happening here! Again,
we were told we had just less than an hour to view the place before they were starting, which was fine considering we weren't seeing the paid parts. We began to look at the old mill carts and learn about the many fires that had happened there (one from a flour dust explosion!), but the wedding events did seem to be getting underway already. Feeling a little out of place again, we saw the bride and groom having a rather stilted looking photo shoot in the old mill ruins before deciding that perhaps we should leave!

We headed back to the motel from here since we had had (courtesy of Alex again, thanks!) an idea for the evening; a baseball game! The Minnesota Twins were playing the Toronto Blue Jays at the ballpark which happened to be on our metro line. So we head home for a shower and change, before coming back out again and joining all the Twins fans on the metro. We picked up some last minute tickets from the stadium for just $14, and headed up to our seats. We were on the very back row possible, but the view was still fab!



Feeling super American, we stood for the national anthem, watched the game and ate hotdogs. The game was, to be honest, a bit slow with only one home run and not many points (bad terminology?)
scored, but still lots of fun! We cheered and clapped and, although unfortunately we lost to some great fielding from Toronto, nobody really seemed to mind! It was a great atmosphere with all the families cheering along and a great, cheap way to spend an evening.

Returning by (a very slow) train to the motel, we ate our second slice of delicious delicious pie for pudding and headed to bed, ready for an early start and a 9 hour drive through South Dakota tomorrow!

DAY 8 - THREE STOREY WHALE FIGHTS OCTOPUS

After a quick dash to Walgreens to pick up some sandwiches for lunch and a big bag of ice to re-stock our freezer box in the car, we headed out of Chicago on our journey through Wisconsin and Minnesota.  Severe traffic and roadworks hindered our journey for the first hour or so but eventually the roads cleared and we were able to make up some time.  We arrived at The House on the Rock, near Madison, Wisconsin at lunch time and gave ourselves 2 hours to look around.  This is a totally amazing place.  A guy named Alex Jordon built a house on the rock and steadily added to it over the years.  It is impossible to describe how truly fantastic this attraction is.

We looked all around the house and at the many collections Alex accumulated there.  There is a massive model of a whale being attacked by an octopus which is three storeys high.  We also saw faberge eggs, huge music machines which you could get to play by putting tokens in and the highlight of the visit was the massive carousel which is the largest in the world and worth almost 5 million dollars.  Jessica and I were completely awestruck by our visit and wondered whether we will ever see anything so impressive again.  

This was called the Infinity Room (from inside and out).

 This wall of shelves full of coloured glassware was in the ladies loo!

Huge collection of Faberge eggs.

The carousel was difficult to photograph (this was the best I could do)

We then pressed on to the second half of our journey to Minneapolis, Minnesota.  This took almost 5 hours but the driving was easy and there was little traffic on the road.  We experienced the School Bus road rule today (where everyone on the road has to stop when the school bus stops to let the children off).  This was quite a novelty to start with until we realised that the bus was stopping every two minutes or so to let groups of children leave.  Luckily we managed to overtake it on a dual carriageway.  We also negotiated two roundabouts and a train going across the road in front of us with carriages that seemed never ending.

We arrived at our Motel at dusk and quickly went online to arrange our next accommodation for Saturday night at Mount Rushmore before braving driving in the dark to find somewhere to eat.  We found a restaurant called Bakers Square where they sell the most scrumptious pies for dessert.  On our way to the restaurant we crossed over the Mississippi River.

DAY 7 - CHICAGO (Jessie wants to go to dinner so there is no time to think of a good title)

After a quick breakfast at the hostel we took the subway downtown, picked up a coffee at Starbucks and headed to the Millennium Park to have another look around in daylight.  There were various sculptures in the park by Jun Kaneko.
We also took numerous photographs of The Bean by Anish Kapoor.  It was a gloriously sunny hot day and as you can see from the pictures it was not crowded at all.  In fact we have been really surprised at how deserted Chicago is compared to New York.

After we had finished looking around the park we picked up some takeaway sandwiches from Jimmy Johns and then took one of the local buses out to the Lincoln Park Zoo which is one of only a few free zoos in the USA.  We had a very enjoyable afternoon here looking at all the various animals including this cute meerkat.

We then decided to have a little retail therapy in Maceys before heading back to the hostel for a nap.  Tonight we are dining on Mexican Tacos and Whisky shots in a little restaurant just up the road from our hostel.

DAY 6 - No Driving!

Day 6, and our first full day in Chicago. Beginning the day with a fun load of laundry (well, mum did, not me, let's be realistic) and a breakfast at the hostel, we then headed down to Navy Pier. Along the way, we did see this rather exciting car park with spiral central ramp and scary parking places!



Taking the non-intended route onto the pier, we saw some rather beautiful bins and fire exits. Making it, however, to the main area we found a cute funfair area and an indoor tropical garden with exciting fountains!



Since we witnessed a grown woman shouting 'you can put me down now!' on the swings, we decided the ferries wheel might be a better option and took a ride on this for fab views over the city.

 The pier itself was very cute and family oriented, though seemingly pretty deserted on this Tuesday morning! There was an oddly placed museum of stained glass windows along the pier, which was free and surprisingly interesting.  The lure of stained glass could not hold back our hunger however so we decided to head towards our next destination and grab food along the way.

So next stop was the Field Museum of natural history. Set in an impressive building, the collection was vast and diverse. We saw an awful lot of birds and got a bit lost in South America, but apart from that had a great time!

There were stuffed animals, dinosaur bones and cultural treasures aplenty, and we visited a special exhibition on bio-luminescent creatures. We were astounded by the size of prehistoric giant sloths and it was around about then we were kicked out of the museum (for closing time, not some scandal).

After this, we returned to the hostel for a rest and to organize our next stop in Minneapolis. After this chill out time, we got Thai for dinner which was fab and are now writing this post!

Tomorrow sees our last day in the windy city, before the long journey through Wisconsin to Minnesota.

DAY 5 - CHICAGO (and it really is windy here)

We departed London, Ontario just after 10am.  It was Labor Day so most of the shops were closed.  The journey to Chicago should have taken around six and a half hours but due to most of Interstate 90 in Indiana having road works all along it the journey took almost eight hours.  We stopped for lunch in a place called Lansing, Michigan and also called into the local Wal-Mart to buy a freezer box to keep in the car and some Root Beer, Mountain Dew and Peanut Butter Oreos to keep us fueled.  Today we reached the 1000 mile mark of our trip so we are feeling quite victorious.  The road approaching Chicago is amazing.  The carriageway is mega wide and everyone is travelling at 70-80 mph and you can see the city skyscrapers stretched out before you.  We had quite a hairy moment getting off this carriageway when our SatNav had told us to keep left and then suddenly told us to take the next right turn ahead.  I had about 30 seconds to get from lane 4 into lane 1 for the turnoff, somehow we made it across but my heart is still recovering.

Our Hostel for the next 3 days is the Urban Lofts Hostel on West Wabansia.  We have a fantastic room with bunk beds.  (I am excited to have the top bunk).  We quickly freshened up and then took the L Train to downtown (about 10 mins ride).  We looked around the Millenium Gardens as it was starting to get dark and then tried to get to see Lake Michigan but there was a large motorway between us and the lakeshore so we will have to try and find a different way tomorrow.

This last photo is The Bean by Anish Kapoor who is from Nottingham, UK.

We then took the L Train back to the area of our hostel and went to a pub for dinner.  I had their world famous chicken pot pie and Jessica had meatloaf and mash with green beans (good ole American food).

DAY 4 - We only get lost twice

Day 4 saw us get to really explore Niagara. After a fruit-full (haha) breakfast to make up for my previous unhealthy day, we headed down early to the falls to go out on the Maid of the Mist boat. We had been warned that the queue might be huge, but were luckily able to walk right onto the boat. After forcibly being photographed in front of a green screen to have the falls projected in, who knows why since we were there in real life, we were given our classic rain ponchos and herded onto a very full boat. We considered not wearing the ponchos since those are for losers, but we were glad we did since there turned out to be a little more water than expected... 

The boat journey began with a nice opportunity to view the falls and be covered with a light mist. This quickly descended, however, into being completely immersed into an outdoor power shower, with the captain seemingly attempting to make us all unable to see each other let alone the falls. This was immensely fun however! 

We returned to shore totally soaked and laughing, returning to the car to continue the journey. Oh, and heres a little proof of the level of tourist-ness in Niagara, and yes the yellow tower to the left is a ride: 

The owner of the hostel made us a very creative map of a scenic route to our next stop, London, Ontario since the sat nav did not work in Canada. Along the way, we visited the worlds largest whirlpool, a clock made of flowers, a hydroelectric dam and a little village named Niagara on the Lake which was hopelessly kitsch and touristy but at least knowingly so which seemed to make it acceptable. After looking at all the cute little wooden houses and picking out favourites, we sat and ate a picnic on a bench overlooking Lake Ontario, and could see all the way to distant Toronto. 

After this sightseeing and a little bit of being lost, we continued on to London (fake London) where we managed to make it to the house of our lovely host Mr Jason Rosenberg. We had a well earned rest and catch up before heading out to dinner with his family at a great Italian place. Oh, and there was pumpkin pie after, delicious! It was great to have a chill evening before the next long trip to Chicago, coming up soon!