The Windy City

Alex: Due to our wanderlag we didn't do too much in Chicago. The library (which was an amazing building - it kind of reminded me of a birthday cake because it was dead square with ornate green metal work at the top like icing) gave 2 hours a day free internet access and allowed us to upload photos so we got up to date with all the stuff. Other than that we generally wandered around the city admiring the architecture. We also found a nice bar with reasonably priced, good, locally brewed beer so we made the most of that. One of the highlights for me was the Cloud Gate in Millenium Park which is also know as the bean. This is a big polished steel sculpture in the shape of a bean that you can walk around and underneath. It just reflects everything around it and because of the curve distorts it in a really interesting way, and inside it if you look up everything is just warped. We went a bit snap happy with it but it just make a change from the bog standard skyline photos we usually end up taking.

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The other really good thing we did is take a few days out and booked ourselves into a nice hotel with a bath, TV and a swimming pool for a couple of nights and just chilled out. We were tired out as we'd been travelling with no really break for about 2 months (I can hear your sighs of pity from here) anyway it has really refreshed us. We basically just stayed in and watched TV, went out for and got ridiculously full on yummy Thai food, which was so good we got a takeaway from the same place the following evening that we ate with a bottle of red wine and a rubbish film - bliss!

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So now we are rested and raring to see the rest of the US. To break up the journey to Bozeman (nr Yellowstone) we are going to stop at Rapid City, which is about 25 miles north of Mount Rushmore, for a couple of nights. And then on to Salt Lake City, San Fransisco, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Mesa Verde and then Mexico!

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