Chicagoua/Chicago means stinky onion

After arriving in Chicago we drove to Greek town and the Parthenon hostel. Both Marc and were pretty flustered after the drive in and not really ready for the car to hostel transition so ended up taking nearly everything in. The hostel was pretty nice Marc and I stayed in separate dorms, as they were not mixed. We decided to go out for dinner as it was our first night around civilization for a few weeks.

We found a voucher for a deli called ‘Manny’s Delicatessen’ that was about a 15 min walk from our hostel. Manny’s was awesome a huge cafeteria style restaurant with way to much food to know what to get. Marc decided to get the pastrami sandwich and after talking to Gino (long time staff member who has been cutting meat since 1984) I tried a sample of all the meats and loved the corn beef and pastrami so had a mix of both. The sandwiches were huge but I still got a side of pickled beats to try. To add to our meals Gino bought over some Mac and cheese on the house for us to try (on a count of being Australian), all the food was amazing and was an awesome way to start Chicago.
 

After dinner we decided to go for a walk around and found little Italy just down the road from the hostel. We stopped for some Italian lemonade (like ice slushy) a perfect way to end the day.

Day 1: To start the day we headed town to the ‘Navy Pier’. On our way there we went though the financial district, which was not particularly nice and both Marc and I were left a little unsure on what Chicago really had to offer.




After further exploration we popped out near Grant Park and the Buckingham fountain. It was really hot at this stage and it was taking me a little to adjust to the humidity, as I could not stop sweating.

At the fountain Marc got swindled. A homeless man was asking for $2 for the paper but we only had a $10 note... the man said he had change so Marc gave him the money. However he only had a $5 note in change so Marc ended up paying $5 for a paper he didn't even want. Marc's charitable side disappeared after that he he he.

After a long walk along lake Michigan’s banks we made it to the Navy Pier. It was very gimmicky and touristy but interesting to see. For lunch we had our first Chicago hotdog, which was awesome; Poppy seed bun, relish, mustard, onions, tomato, pickled chilly, pickle slice and celery salt. Mmm I was hooked.






After lunch we went on the Chicago architecture boat tour, which was awesome because it gave us a feeling for the history and the layout of the city. Interesting facts we learnt the name Chicagoua/Chicago means stinky onion. Chicago was originally a swamp, great Chicago fire in 1871 and the fact that they reversed the flow of the Chicago River to no longer flow into lake Michigan because of all the sewage they pumped into the river. 

 

We then made our way to the magnificent mile on Michigan Ave which was full off all the standard big name stores. I purchased some chocolates from Hershey’s and stopped in at Victoria secret for a new jumper and some souvenir track pants and top (Chicago cubs)... not too sure if the money will last the full 12 months if I keep this up though! 








 
On our way home we passed the ‘Purple Pig’, which Marc had read about so we decided to stop for dinner. Absolutely delicious highlights were the beats and braised turkey leg. At the restaurant though I realized that I was extremely burnt after walking around in the sun all day... silly Australian.

 

We decided to walk the rest of the way home, which was a huge walk all the way to the other side of the city. On our way we passed the famous Chicago theater and the Broadway district.

Day 2: Another really hot day in Chicago, especially after I had been badly burnt the day before. We went to the Baseball to see the Chicago White Sox play the Minnesota Twins. We had made some friends in the hostel Nichole, Michelle and Jelena all staying in my room and they all decided to join us for the day. After catching the train to the US Cellular field we purchased some tickets at the stadium. The game was fun especially because Nichole had never been before. It was pretty hot in the sun for the first hour but after that we were in the shade thankfully. ‘Twins’ won 5 – 2. 

After the game we went back to the hostel cooked some dinner and went to the Irish pub down the road that had free popcorn and hotdogs for the patrons. After a few drinks and fun conversations with Nichole and Michelle we decided to have a quiet night and go out the next night to dance up a storm. After getting back to the hostel Marc decided to go out again with another guy we met Breen for one more drink… but didn't get home until 5am silly sutho.

 



Day 3: After a late start as I could not get Marc out of bed we went for a walk around Chicago to see some more sights. The Aquarium, Museum and Planetarium (only from the outside as admission was way to expensive). We then caught the train down town to go to Millennium park. The park was nice but our favorite site was the ‘Cloud’ or ‘Kidney Bean’ a big-mirrored object we had loads of fun taking pictures with as it was like a big fun mirror. 

Afterwards we continued to stroll down Michigan Avenue. On our way we came across a place called ‘Billy Goat tavern’ very seedy from the outside but cool on the inside it had been a local hang out since 1834 and was famous for it’s burgers and not selling fries only potato chips and only Coke no Pepsi. Marc got a double cheeseburger that he inhaled after being so hung over.

That evening we went out to ‘Uno’ (the first deep dish pizza place in Chicago) with our group of friends from the hostel. It was a 40min wait for a table but the pizza took about 40mins to cook so it all worked out perfectly. The pizza was good but extremely filling, still prefer the traditional thin crust pizza.

  
 











After dinner we then walked to the John Hancock building to visit the signature room of the 95^th floor and enjoy the nighttime view of the city, which was amazing. Even thought it was free to go we paid the price for our drinks. The rest of the night we continued drinking and made our way to a piano bar called 'Howl at the moon', where we had loads of fun as they played song requests.  The previous night I told Nichole and Michelle if I was 16 I would bone the Bieber but I’m 27 so totally not interested… this all got taken as I like Justin Bieber (which I don’t) and they requested ‘Baby’ for me. It was so funny as the piano player did not want to play it as the last song of the night but he did… and we all sang along to it at the top of our lungs he he he. The rest of the night was very hazy and we got home around 5:30am!

 








 
Day 4: Extremely hard to get out of bed today and had a pretty big hang over but all worth it.  As we were all feeling like crap we decided to have a beach day down by the lake. The whole group went, about 6 of us. After a feeding of McDonalds we just lazed around the beach for the afternoon. On the way for one last beer I accidently dropped my iPod touch on the concrete and smashed it :( so sad but at least it still worked.

Sad to leave our new friends of 3 days on Wednesday morning but Nichole, Michelle and Breen all came down early to have breakfast with us before we departed. Hopefully get to see them all again next year.

Road trippen across 4 states in 2 days

The big drive to Chicago was 1475 km, 13.5hrs and crossed 4 states. We were going to do it over 2 days but wanted to do as much as possible on the first day. 

We left Rapid City early in the morning, as soon as we hit the freeway on the side of the road we kept seeing signs for some place called ‘Wall Drug’ it was on my map as a point of interest and cause there were so many signs for the attraction we thought we should stop and check it out.

So glad we did, driving up to it was this big olden day strip mall in a town called ‘Wall’. We spent about 2 hours there looking around at the history, learning about the Jackalope and checking out all the western theme stores. Our favorite part was looking at all the old photos of the cowboy and Huesteads family history in relation to wall drug.

 






 

The big drive recommenced and we were off, we stopped off for lunch at Chamberlain information point for some sandwiches and checked out the Missouri river and the Louis & Clark history at the information center. I drove for the afternoon and managed to nearly drive across the whole state of Minnesota, which was a boring drive on the I90, very straight flat road and loads of corn farms.  Marc slept for most of it and I played games to keep myself awake.

Finally we made it to the Mississippi river and a place called La Cross, Wisconsin where we had decided to stop for the night. A local suggested ‘Goose Island Campground’ so we made our way there. It was a little scary driving through the wetlands to get to the campsite but it was actually a lovely camp area right along the Mississippi river. We set up the beds for the night and had some beers down by the river bank. Marc decided to set off his fireworks, never seen him so excited. 

 While sitting by the river all of a sudden all these fireflies appeared out of nowhere it was so exciting as we had never seen fireflies before they were amazing setting there little bums aglow. It was a very amazing place to stop for the night after such a long drive.

After a hot night sleep we packed up camp and took off for Chicago, only another 475 km to go. Hank did really well day one good little car hope he can keep it up for the next 4 months. 

Marc kept making fun of me for the rest of the drive because yesterday when we were talking about where to stay for the night, while driving I crossed my arms to think before answering him, Marc said “what the hell are you doing?” and I was not sure why I had crossed my arms while driving… well it was funny after a day of driving in the car and now Marc keeps doing it while he is driving to poke fun at me. 

The rest on the drive into Chicago went really well. The traffic picked up as we got closer and about 8km out of downtown we had slowed down to a crawl... We had both forgotten how slow traffic in big cities could be after living in Calgary for so long!


To summarize, after the 2 days we had crossed - South Dakota, Minnesota, drove south through Wisconsin and ended in Chicago Illinois, thank god we don't need to that again for a while! 

Wyoming to South Dakota

On Tuesday we left Canyon Campground (Yellowstone, Wyoming) around 9am to try and get to Rapid City, South Dakota before the end of the day. 

  

 We left via the Yellowstone east entrance, through the Shoshone national forest. There was loads of crazy rocky terrain and horse ranches.

                    

On the drive we passed ‘Buffalo Bill Reservoir’ so we stopped to have a look. The dam was really impressive especially because it was built so long ago to ensure that the pioneers would have water in the area during the dry summer months. 

Next we crossed over ‘Big Horn Basin’ stopping in a little town called ‘Basin’ for lunch.  The grasslands were very cool you could see why the early settlers came to the area to farm cattle and buffalo. 

Our drive continued through ‘Ten sleeps’ canyon and ‘Big Horn National Forest’ all amazing but a very big climb for poor Hank we reached an elevation of 9,666ft. At the top was a lake and ‘Big Horn’ ski hill. The rest of the afternoon was very long but we finally made it into South Dakota and the black hills area.

We stopped off at Sturgis, which is famous for a huge motorbike rally in August so we had to get dad a Harley souvenir. The Harley Davidson store closed at 6pm which was bad timing cause it was about 6:10, but luckily because we were Australian the lady who was closing up let us in for a quick 5 min shop… 3 min later we had a badge and t-shirt for dad. 

Rapid city was just down the road but by this stage both Marc and I had had enough. We found a RV park only 5 miles out of Rapid City called ‘Happy Holiday Resort’. It was a really nice site in some trees with water, electricity and Wi-Fi!

Tuesday night we finally had a good nights sleep with no mozzies and freezing temperatures. I had checked the weather the night before and it said scattered showers so we got up early Wednesday to go to Mt Rushmore. It was probably about a 20 min drive from where we were based. 

 

Keystone a small town just outside of Mt Rushmore had a tacky old world charm, with flashing billboards everywhere. On approach to Mt Rushmore we finally saw the presidents, it was very cool and I was really excited to actually see it. The size of the sculptures in the side of the mountain was amazing. Especially once you learn how they actually sculpted the faces in the granite using dynamite and jackhammers. 

That afternoon we went into Rapid City to get the car checked out (ABS break light) and stock up on supplies. While the car was being look at we went to the historic main street and went to the Firehouse brewery for lunch. It was a cool brewery with ok house beer and good pub food. 

Jellystone (aka Yellowstone)

We arrived in Yellowstone Friday evening, let me just say one thing Marc and I have only camped twice before and that was with friends who knew what they were doing. It took me about 30 min to setup the tent. (Which I think was awesome) Dinner and clean up took a while cause you can’t leave anything around for the bears to eat. 

As the sun went down boy did it get cold brrr. Marc and I joined sleeping bags together to try and stay warm which worked but it was still extremely cold (around 0 Celsius). During the night I thought I heard I bear so freaked myself out thinking it was going to come and attack us… I woke marc up as I was so scared and Marc said I was silly and to go back to sleep but it took a while as I was shaking with fear, it’s the most scared I think I have ever been! Marc said I was shaking like a little Chawawa.

 

First day at Yellowstone was a Massive day of sightseeing; sulfur pools, paint pots, mud volcanoes, geysers etc. both Marc and I were really surprised just how much volcanic activity there was. 

 

Must admit most of the sights were pretty smelly, quote of the day from Marc at the dragons breath sight (a big cave with sulfur steam) "Looks like a giant asshole that’s just farting out eggs" ha ha ha.

 

I also saw my very first bear finally; I was very excited a little grizzly. 

Old faithful was cool but still a little disappointing after seeing all of the other geysers it did not go for as long but they advise that every eruption is different ours was just lacking some gumption.

The second night was another really cold night and I think I should have looked into the altitude thing a bit better and I probably would have been more prepared for the cold.  That morning we ran the canyon area. It was an awesome run but much further then I originally thought. We took off on the road before we reached our first sight ‘Inspiration point’, it was a lovely spot along Yellowstone canyon where you could see the river run through. Next we took off along the north rim trail for some cross-country running. It was loads of fun, along the way we could see into the canyon and got some great views. We ran all the way down to the lower falls, which were amazing so much water flowing from the river into the canyon, all the rivers were flowing very fast due to the late melt and large snow falls. 

 The afternoon we had booked an hour trail ride and western cookout up at Roosevelt about 30 min away. On our drive there we saw more buffalo and another grizzly bear! Marc thinks the buffalo are paid to stand around the park in specific spots for the tourists… you see them so randomly it’s hard to think that they just want to hang out so close to all the people.

 The trail ride was very slow and the saddles were very uncomfortable however the scenery was still really nice. Marc rode Gator a pony with an attitude who kept stealing grass. I rode Ug who was very ugly but also extremely docile. When we arrived at the cookout it was really big 2 groups of riders and about 6 wagons of people came out for the food. The food was pretty good and we met a man and his son who were also on a road trip. During the cookout a musician played and a storm tried to roll in but ended up blowing away. It was fun but looking forward to a real horse ride at some other stage on the trip.

Monday we decided to have a rest day. We slept in till about 10pm then went to the central hub for showers and to do some laundry. Considering we had to pay for showers Marc and I had not had a shower for the last three days and were very dirty. The shower was awesome and worth every penny ($3.58 each). After our very long showers we did some laundry and just hung out it was very relaxing. It was the 4^th of July however it did not seem to be very big at Yellowstone so nothing major was planned for that night. The weather report said 40% chance of rain so Marc and I thought we would pack up the tent early.  Packing up the tent was really hard, not only were we being attacked by mozzies but we ended up rolling the tent up three times… third time because I had left my sunnies in the tent oops… it was funny but Marc was a little frustrated to say the least. 

That night a big thunderstorm rolled in Marc and I were really happy in the van knowing that we would not have to pack up a wet tent the next day.  That night we just relaxed drank some beer in the van.

and we're off, first stop Montana

30th June had finally arrived, not only our 9 year anniversary but the day we were to depart Calgary and start our big road trip around North America. Marc packed the car and we took off around 9am. While leaving the city Marc was really worried about the car and was driving like a Nana as the van was now our everything, home, transportation and storage.

Our first stop was just over the US border in Montana, 'Glacier National Park'. On our way there we stopped off for lunch at a place called '2 Sister's cafe' a quirky tin shed filled with local memorabilia and plastic inflatable cows. The food was really good, Marc and I both had burgers that were way too big, we could have shared. But the piece ta resistance was the chocolate pecan pie. Oh my god mmm mmm mmm! 

Glacier national park road was still closed in June due to a late spring melt so we just drove the 13 miles of the road that was open. We stopped for a small walk to see some falls which were running crazy fast due to all the melting snow. I tried to push Marc in but he fought back.

After glacier we drove to Helena the capital of Montana to stop for the night. The drive was really pretty, rolling hills into badlands, mining towns then red mountains. We passed a few ‘cowboy’ towns which we should have stopped but didn’t. After arriving in Helena we tried looking for an RV park to stay for our first night. We had a couple of choices but the first was not a good one, we could not find it to start with, so we stopped at a servo to ask for directions. Marc came out with 2 very nice “trailer park” residents who actually lived there to show us the way. After arriving at the park we took one look, waved thanks to the locals and kept driving to try another park we passed on the way in. Which turned out to be much nicer. We setup the car for our first nights sleep and kicked back to watch a movie on the laptop. All in all a really good start to the trip.

After a good first nights sleep in the car (Surprisingly), Marc and I had showers packed up and were off again. Grant-Khors ranch was our first stop an hour away in Deer lodge. We loved it, had so much fun. Toured the old estate 150 years old with original furniture. Visited the blacksmith and took home their GK brand on a piece of wood. Last but not least we were shown how to rope a steer (a wooden one) by a Montana cowboy called Allen!! I was a natural got it in 2 goes; Marc on the other hand took about 10 tries ha ha ha.