Day 58-62 (July 21-25) - Go Cubs Go!!!

We woke up in a Chicago hotel called the Inn at Lincoln Park this morning.  We arrived late yesterday evening in Chicago after a full day driving from Cleveland.  Although the city looks magnificent with massive skyscrapers our main concern was getting the RV through the traffic in one piece before we did any proper sightseeing. We quickly realised that Chicago wasn't the place for RVs in any shape or form.  We took one side street and Oli had to put his foot on the brake before we went under a low bridge that would have taken the roof off Harvey!  So before Oli's stress level boiled over, somehow we managed to find a hotel with a car park bigger than a shoebox.  We went into the hotel with our fingers crossed that if we stayed here we'd be able to keep the RV parked up for the five days.

The hotel is a charming little place and the staff were super friendly and helpful, and for 15 dollars a night we could keep the RV in the car park.  Yay!

Our room is very characterful - slightly art deco meets shabby chic Chicago.  And the best feature is the two separate bathrooms complete with tub either side of the room - one pink-tiled and one green-tiled - not hard to guess which one I chose! 

With so much to do in Chicago we decided to have an early night last night.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat in The Counter, which our hotel reception recommended.  We had delicious alcoholic milkshakes and we were given a pencil and tick chart to create out own burger.  The choice was extensive - I opted for pineapple as one of my main toppings being the health freak that I am LOL!!!!

We woke up this morning to the sound of thunder.  Front desk had told us that Chicago's temperature was over 100 degrees in the recent heatwave so this storm was exactly what the city needed to cool it down.  By the time we got ready and were about to head out, the rain had all cleared up and Chicago was back to its sunny self, slightly cooler at around 87 degrees, which was much more bearable for us.

The first thing we wanted to do in Chicago was to see a Chicago Cubs baseball game - but the first thing we had to do was get Oli's hair cut, as he was starting to look more like a college professor than a college boy!  

10 dollars later and Oli 3 pounds of hair lighter we jumped in a taxi which took us to the famous Wrigley Field baseball stadium, home of the Chicago Cubs, to watch our first ever baseball game!

Super excited but without tickets we headed straight to the box office and bagged ourselves two prime seats.  We had the tickets, now we had to kit ourselves out with the gear!  Inside a souvenir shop we frantically tried on t shirts and baseball caps until we had our favourite ones.

Now dressed the part, complete with bear claw foam finger, we headed into the stadium.  We were there half an hour before the game started as we wanted to soak up all the atmosphere.  As the stadium slowly started to fill up our excitement started to build.  With traditional Chicago hot dogs in hand we stood up when the national anthem was sung and cheered when the players entered the pitch for their warm-up.

The next three hours went by in a blur of cheering, whooping, singing, eating and drinking.  It was almost like being at a street party rather than watching a sport - the atmosphere is more like a family fun day out and watching the sport is almost secondary.

As if the game wasn't fun enough, we even got to witness a home run and to top it all off the cubs won, much to the home supporters’ delight!

Elated from our afternoon we bounced all of the 12 blocks back to the hotel where we changed out of our Cubs t shirts, and after a quick freshen up headed into the heart of the city.

We got off the bus 20 minutes later at Millennium Park.  Chicago's famous park boasts modern monuments such as the giant metallic "Bean" (actually called the "cloud gate").  This unusual piece of art is constantly surrounded by tourists all taking a picture of their mirrored reflection with the impressive Chicago skyline behind them.  

Another free tourist attraction in the park is the huge purpose-built sound stage.  I think Oli and I were expecting the stage to resemble something from a small festival, but this grand elaborate Sydney opera house-esque platform was impressive to say the least!  Throughout the summer a free concert is performed practically every night.  Tonight was Choral Masterpieces: Bernstein and Fauré, and the grass area was covered with people sitting on picnic blankets and deck chairs eating and drinking until the sky got dark.

We didn't stick around until the end as we wanted to explore the Theatre District before it got too dark.  It was easy to spot, not just because of its neon sparkly lights, but at the very start of the street the pavement is indented with "Chicago Theatre District" which is right up our street (if you'll pardon the pun!). 

Oli and I were in our element, snapping pictures outside the theatres, and most exciting of all was the famous Chicago theatre.  Our posing for a photo doing jazz hands was inevitable!

There was me thinking that we'd casually strolled down this street at the spur of the moment but Oli had planned it all along!  He had sneakily researched and found an Italian restaurant called Petterino’s without me knowing and brought me to itJ  The place was right in the heart of the theatre district and the décor inside included thousands of autographed pictures and caricature drawings, the place was oozing with character and I especially loved the red velvet booths which we were lucky to be seated in.  

The maitre d’ was a tall bald chap with a lovely campness, he took well to us English and told us of his English friends.  A moment after we were seated the waiter bought us two glasses of champagne compliments of the maitre d’ as a welcome to Chicago.  We had a great night in the restaurant and the staff couldn’t do enough, bringing a gorgeous selection of warm breads and creamy butter, constantly topping up our water glasses and suggesting dishes for us to try.  The cocktails were fab and our food mouth-watering - I went for the large shrimp cocktail to start and the special farmer’s pasta.  We were so full after the meal that we couldn’t possibly have dessert – but Oli took the menu just to be polite and on spotting the pink peppermint ice-cream with hot fudge sauce we decided to order one with two spoons!  It came out bright pink and had its own little jug of hot fudge sauce – peppermint and hot fudge not something I thought would have gone well together but it tasted soooo yummy that I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!!!

On leaving the restaurant I made sure to tell the maitre d’ that we had really enjoyed our food and that the staff were really amazing and made us feel really welcome.  He then produced two red velvet boxes which contained homemade fudge as a gift – this is the nicest place ever!!

That was 3 nights ago.  Since the above we had two more days in Chicago.  We did a lot of stuff like taking an architecture river boat tour, we went up the Sears/Willis tower which was the highest building in the world for 22 years – it has a glass box on the side of the building on the 103rd floor which we stood on.  

We visited the Art Institute of Chicago where we saw tonnes of stuff including famous paintings by Van Gough, Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Magritte and Dali.  

We did a lot of walking around the city taking photos of sculptures like the giant Marilyn Monroe and famous works by Henry Moore.  We visited Millennium Park again and sat and watched the human art water fountain where video footage of local people is projected onto a wall from which water spurts out! 

We popped into Bloomingdale’s, the Hershey’s store and the famous Chicago Cheesecake factory (didn’t eat there though but just had to have a look as the smell drew us in!). 

We enjoyed various meals out, we had to try Chicago’s famous Giordano’s stuffed pizza and for our last night we went to Smith and Wollensky and had the most amazing steakJ  Our four days just weren’t long enough, there’s so much to do here that we barely saw the tip of the iceberg – oh well we’ll just have to come back here again someday…that’s another place in America to add to the ever growing list!

J&O 

Day 56-57 (July 19-20th) – I love Rock and Roll!

A slightly disturbed sleep last night, the RV park we were staying at on the shore of Lake Erie had a power cut so we didn’t get to sleep til v late as we had to rig up our own generator and then switch it back again when the power retuned in the early hours of the morning!  We decided to have a bit of a lie-in to try and gain a few more hours shut-eye after the chaos.

Once up we got cracking and went on our way!  We had about a 3.5 hour drive to Cleveland so not too strenuous after our big day yesterday in Niagara Falls (btw Niagara Falls was amazing, we went on the Maid of the Mist boat as close as boats can get to the falls – which is pretty close and you get drenched!  We also walked in tunnels under the actual falls and got to see the water gushing from standing within the rock face tunnel behind it - fab day seeing a fab sight I’ll never forget!). 

After only about half an hour we accidentally took a wrong turning and ended up near a small beach alcove, the sun was shining so spur of the moment we threw on our swimming costumes and went for a dipJ  The water was amazing, although it looked like the sea as there was water as far as the eye could see - it was in fact a lake - “Lake Erie” one of the great lakes!  If I was still doubting that surely this must be the sea then the warmer water and fresh unsalted taste of it soon left me in no doubt that Oli was right and yes this was actually a lake!!

After a couple of hours of fun and splashing about we dried off and had a picnic, it was a perfect unplanned afternoonJ

By the time we got back on the road it was 3:30pm and we still had 3 hours to drive, the only reason we were wanting to go to Cleveland was to go to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  We wouldn’t get there til at least 7pm as we also needed to stop for gas along the way and by then the place would be closed.  We checked the guide book and sure enough the museum closes at 6pm except on a Wednesday when it’s open til 9pm – today was Wednesday, hurray we would make it after all!!

Sure enough we got there with a couple of hours to spare after having problems trying to find parking.  With my rock Kiss t-shirt on (another purchase in Florida) we headed to the museum.  The museum is set on the waterfront in the heart of downtown Cleveland, the iconic glass building in the shape of a pyramid was just how I’ve seen it on tv many a time.  

Inside, the spacious modern building has 6 floors with various rooms and spaces to display the memorabilia; unfortunately as we arrived so late we had to skip things like the U2-3D 1.5 hour show.  Another thing we had to miss out was the Inductees hall of fame film – if you watched all the films they were showing it would have taken about 8 hours, you could easily spend two days in there!

The museum takes you through the history of music and its influences, the journey featured a lot of stories and places we have actually come across on our travels here in the States like Memphis’ Sun Studios for example.  Although the museum was heavy on American music it does pay homage to the British invasion with the likes of the Beatles, The Stones, The Who, and David Bowie to name a few.

The memorabilia (no photography allowed!) varies from stars’ automobiles, instruments, costumes, lyrics, programmes, tickets etc and is nicely displayed mainly behind glass but there is a section unglassed.  Seeing things like Michael Jackson’s red torn Thriller jacket and a sparkly glove so close made me wanted to reach out and touch it – I would have done but the security guy was watching us like a hawk!!  

The two hours flew by but we did manage to get a good feel for the place and go to every floor, my only fear was it was now 9pm closing and I hadn’t got to the gift shop!  Luckily the gift shop stays open til 9:30 so we were able to buy a magnet and postcard as our own memorabilia…..I would have liked John Lennon’s original Sergeant Peppers outfit but you can’t have everything eh!

Today was one of those days that simply worked out perfectly and time was on our side….sometimes there’s just not enough hours in the day but it’s what you do with them that counts!

J&O