Day 4 : Leaving Chicago


left: Chicago, Illinois at 6:20pm
arrived: Wisconsin's Devil's Lake National Park at 10:55pm
States: Illinois, Wisconson
Disance: 202 miles



I'm writing this as the most amazing sun set is going down over the Chicago skyline that we're leaving behind. It's a pity to be leaving such a cool city after only one night. I guess when you're trying to drive 7000 miles in one month you gotta move on fast. We went out last night on quite an eventful pub crawl and hung around chicago most of the day today. We went up the sears tower (which is 110 stories high). The view from the top is incredible, you can see teh city along with 5 different states. Also I spent most of teh day in a daze as we saw loads of teh different places that the Blues Brothers was shot including the bridge they jump and the tunnel which the police chase goes through.
We did 3 or 4 hours drivin then after Chicago to the National Park we're in now (they all have cheap camp sites for the low low price of a chance of bears comin up to the tent at night). There must have been something like that goin down as in the middle of the night there were 2 police cars and 2 park ranger jeeps going round with their lights goin. We were pretty drunk though so I'm not quite sure what was happening.

The view from teh CNN tower

The Wacker street bridge, the bridge teh blues brothers jump in the film. It only goes up once a day or so so we were lucky to catch it up.

These guys raided a pub that we were in so we made a quick exit into this nightclub across the street.













The sad view as we were leaving Chicago.

Day 3:
30/8/05:

Left Niagra Falls, Canada at 7:30pm
Arrived hostel in Chicago at 8:30pm.
Distance : 601 miles.
We drove through our first time zone.



This was one hell of a drive. 600 miles is about a fifth of the way accross the country. We went though Ontario, and drove the whole way across New York state, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiniana and finally Illinois. We got up early and took down the tent and hit the road at about 7:30. The drive was a bit like that outrun game on the mega drive if anyone has ever played that. As the hours passed the scenery slowly changed from mountins to flat vast open corn fields. Ohio is pretty much all massive corn fields and farm houses and corn silos.The first stop we made was in Cleavland in Ohio (I think). We stopped just after teh city in what seemed to be quite a majour G-hetto. We made a quick escape.. and stopped a but later. We stopped then at Notre Dame college which was really cool. We saw the american football team training, they take it quite the seriously.

Sun set on the way into Chicago city:





Our visit to hooters yesterday:




A fireworks factory we made a brief stop at in Ohio :
Myself, Kevin and Simon with Chagico in the backround.

We spent most of today (the 1st) around Chicago and I'll finish by saying that it's the best city I've ever been to. The place is absolutely amazing, the city is beautiful and the view from Sears Tower was incredible.

It's 6 o clock here now and we''re heading off west for a few hours drive.

Day Two:

We spent day two seeing Niagra Falls. It's a really cool place. The falls are just incredible. We went to two casino's and the obligitory visit to HOOTERS.

(Click on the above map to see it properly)

Day One :
28/8/05



It was cool to start the road trip after so much talkin about it for the last few months. We were in work in the morning for the last time and then after clearing all the stuff out of the house (which included throwing a couch off the balcony) we packed the amazing amount of crap we have into the car (a '94 Dodge Intrepid complete with a power inverter (meaning we have two standard plugs inside the car) and strobe lights (so we can listen to Chemical Brothers the way they were meant to be listened to... that and we can pretend to be the police if someone is annoyin us on the roads..). Both of which we wired in ourselves).

Journey one was//
Left from : Spencer Ave., Somerville, MA (our house) @ 12.55pm
Arrived at : Niagra Falls, Ontario, Canada @ 11.40pm
States we drove through : MA, New York State, Ontario, Canada.
Distance : 494 miles.

The drive itself was fine. The first thing you realise about New York State is that there are an amazing amount of police on the roads. There was an amazing sun set over this huge lake and mountin range about three quarters of the way (see left). Tolls cost 21.45 altogether and we spent
something like 40 dollars on 'gas'.