From The Windy City to The Capitol!

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Day 66.....

After a well-earned rest from our roadtrip, and 400 or so miles more on the clock, we arrived in Chicago!Chicago! After 4300 miles in 21 days (over 200 miles per day!) it was also time to hand back our Pontiac. We'd become very fond of our car but with 2 weeks of cities ahead, it was back to public transport for us.

Our first taste of Chicago was very pleasant indeed. Having booked 'whatever room they had left' at the Hilton Chicago, we were not expecting much. Luckily for us, checking-in late meant that all of the standard rooms were full, leaving us a huge suite on one of the top floors! To top it off, the room had a great view of the city & one of the biggest & most comfortable beds we'd ever slept in!!

Chicago has some very beautiful architecture and the city is a lot more spacious than we imagined it would be. We took a walk along the shore of Lake Michigan, through Grant Park and past Buckingham fountain, whose spray drifts and covers anyone nearby. This isn't called the 'Windy City' for nothing! We stopped for some live music in Millenium Park, and saw Anish Kapoor's 'Bean' sculpture. An evening was spent strolling along Navy Pier, taking in a live blues band along the way.

As a pizza lover, Martin could not foresake the oppotunity to try an authentic Chicago Pizza from the original and renowned 'Pizzaria Uno'. Even though we shared, there was still plenty for lunch the next day! We also had a trip on the 'El' train, which creativley recieved its name for the fact that the tracks are 'elevated' above the city streets. Like true ER! fans we travelled to the station where it is filmed. In the evening we scaled the Sears tower, the tallest building in the USA.

In an attempt to esacpe the foggy skies and the rain we jumped on an Amtrak train to our next city stop, Washington DC. The journey itself took over 17 hours! It wasn't as bad as you might imagine, as it was mostly overnight & you're given plenty of space on the trains over here. We were suitably entertained by various characters (aka 'weirdos'!) and spent the rest of the time snuggled up counting sheep.

Our first sight outside Union Station was the Capitol building. From there we decided to walk to our hotel with all our luggage (well, it didn't look that far on the map!) until a kind cabbie took pity on us and insisted on giving us a free ride the rest of the way! Not something you'd get in London!

Almost all of the tourist spots in Washington are contained within the central 'Mall'. Amazingly this must be the only mall in America without a Starbucks! Instead, it's filled with beautiful parks, memorials & momuments. At one end, the US Capitol building, the other, the Lincoln memorial. In the middle is the the National Momument, a 169m Obelisk dedicated to George Washington. Just off to the side is the White House, home to George Dubbya. While stood outside the gates, we even got to see the Presidential Motorcade as it sped past us!

Next, we took the advice of everyone we had spoken to about DC and visited the Smithsonian Museums on the Mall. We managed to fit in the National Air & Space Museum, the National Gallery of Art and the Natural History Museum. The museums were superb & we managed to spend an entire day wandering from one to another. We also managed to sample the DC nightlife on the streets of Georgetown, which is the more upmarket area of DC. We used the underground metro system to help us around the city and braved the walk back to our hotel on the edge of the ghetto after dark! People kept advising us to 'walk safe' in the neigbourhood which was more than a little disconcerting!

We woke up this morning to pouring rain! We feel that perhaps our run of luck with the sunshine has ended as 'Fall' is imminent.

Next stop, New York! Until then, 'walk safe'...

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