Friday 3rd July - Washington. Happy Birthday Terry

This being the auspicious occasion of Terry’s birthday,

'Official Birthday Portrait'

I got up early and wrapped her presents in the bathroom, that being the only place where I could do it in secret! Terry was thrilled with the presents and was even allowed to choose the days activities. So once again we ventured out, clutching our purses tightly, and caught the Metro into town then took the bus to East Potomac Park and walked to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

It is a huge and awesome structure with a view across the tidal basin, past the Washington Monument and all the way to the White House. While we were there, helicopters were roaring just overhead - security, no doubt, for tomorrows Independence Day celebrations. There are many preparations going on in the city in readiness for tomorrow's goings on - concert venues, fireworks, crash barriers etc.

From there we walked on through the park to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, which was in complete contrast to the Jefferson Memorial. It was a series of outdoor rooms, each ‘room’ depicting a different phase of his Presidency, constructed of large granite blocks with several water features and inscribed with many of his words of wisdom.

'Room' depicting the Wartime phase

There was a bronze statue of him with his dog and also one of his wife, Eleanor, who contributed a great deal to the social changes wrought during his presidency.

Next on our itinerary was the Lincoln Memorial, another vast and impressive structure

View from Lincoln Memorial

then the World War II memorial, which was only built in 2004. This was a very moving place to be and with incredibly detailed bronze reliefs depicting scenes associated with the war.


By now, we were tired and hungry, so took the bus back to Union Station for a late lunch, followed by a visit to the Capitol, another awe inspiring building topped by a huge white dome. I took a tour inside but was somewhat disappointed not to be taken into either the Senate or House of Representatives but even so I was pleased to have been inside that historic building. Terry opted to stay outside.

After walking back to Union Station, we bought some ready made salads and fruit for dinner and were very glad to collapse on our beds back at the motel.

And so ends our visit to Washington. We have both enjoyed our stay here enormously and were very impressed with the City - a place well worth visiting but if I had to choose between returning to either Washington or Chicago, I would probably choose Chicago.

Thursday 2nd July - Washington

After an uneventful night during which not one person broke into our room or committed mayhem in the neighbourhood, we decided not to be wimps so ventured out on foot to walk to the Metro station, about 10-15 minutes away. This very efficient service whisked us into Union Station where we bought two-day tickets for a hop-on-hop-off bus and did a two hour circuit of the city. Washington is a beautiful place, with a great many parks, lakes, etc. None of the buildings are very high and most are built of white marble in very impressive architectural style. There are also many monuments and statues honouring people or events from America’s past.

In the afternoon, we boarded the bus again and got off at the National Air and Space Museum which had either original or reconstructed models of planes from the earliest days of flight and also many satellites and space rockets.

Apollo II from which Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the moon

We were amazed at the small size of the space capsules that carried men to the moon. They could scarcely have moved in them. It must have been very claustrophobic.

Our next stop was the White House, or as near as we could get to it. We peered through the railings, hoping to get a glimpse of Barack Obama, but he must have been otherwise engaged.


We got safely back to the hotel without being mugged and dined on the remains of last night’s dinner - we purposely bought enough for two nights.

Wednesday 1st July

Today we left Williamsburg for Washington DC. We caught the 9.36am train which arrived at Union Station at 1.15pm.

We took a cab to our hotel and were somewhat dismayed by what the taxi driver had to say about the location - out of town and no eating places/shops nearby. We decided to give it a go for one night to see how we get on and change our hotel to move further in towards the centre if necessary tomorrow.

The hotel was decent enough, good clean room with spotlessly clean linen and towels, although Terry reckoned she could smell ‘pee’ and there was a damp patch on the carpet near the bathroom, but we decided in the end it was the smell of carpet cleaner. Hope it was, anyway!

We are located in a somewhat dodgy part of the city (so we found out later) and this was confirmed by a trip to the local McDonalds (the nearest and only place nearby to get lunch) where, during the 15 minutes we were there, the police arrived twice to throw people out!

On return we decided to look at this hotel’s reviews on the internet (the words 'horse' and 'stable door' come to mind!) - and were horrified to read that some people had written that this hotel was used for prostitution and drug dealing and that they were kept awake at night by the continual noise of cars arriving and leaving, and car doors slamming. By then it was too late to change hotels so we ordered a Chinese delivery for dinner which we ate in our room behind a locked door!

We were warned beforehand by several people that Washington DC has the highest crime rate in the country so we were sort of prepared for it.

I am pleased to report that the night passed uneventfully and that our sleep was not interrupted at all and quite a decent continental breakfast was available. The hotel is practically full of families with children so we decided to stay put.

Oh well - makes for interesting travel. Variety is the spice of life, so it is said! We have stayed in many different hotels on this trip and this is our first 'bad experience' so we shouldn't complain. It isn't all that bad, anyway.

30th June - Jamestown

Today has been a very interesting day. We visited the second of three areas in this Historic Triangle - Historic Jamestowne and the Jamestown Settlement. The third area is Yorktown, a living-history museum of the American Revolution and where the battle for American Independence was won. With only two full days in this area we only had the time to visit two of the three sites and Yorktown lost out! Another day here would have been good.

Whereas Colonial Williamsburg was very interesting and historic, Jamestown meant much more to me, as a Brit, as it was there on 14th May 1606 that 114 men and boys landed and set up the first English Colony in America - 13 years before the Pilgrim Fathers landed in New Plymouth.

There are two sites - Historic Jamestowne which is the archaeological site of the original Fort James, and Jamestown Settlement which is a ‘living museum’.

We took the shuttle bus from Williamsburg Visitors Centre and started, on what was to become yet another very hot day, in Historic Jamestowne and had a half-hour introductory talk by a very entertaining Park Ranger who gave us lots of background on the colony and information on such people as John Smith and Pocahontas. There are lots of archaeological works ongoing and many hundreds of artefacts have been found. These are displayed in a very well laid out ‘Archaearium’

Model of Fort James with archaeologist working in the background

From there we re-boarded the shuttle for 5 minute ride to Jamestown Settlement. This is in the form of a living museum and includes a reconstructed Fort James, three life-size replica 1607 ships in a dock, replica Powhatan Indian Village and a huge gallery chronicling the nation‘s 17th century beginnings in Virginia. This was a great place to visit and made history really come alive and I certainly learned a lot there.

Part of the replica Fort

Replica Indian Powhatan village

We ended the day in the same Italian restaurant as last night - simply because it is located just next door and we were too tired to go further!

Monday 29th June - Colonial Williamsburg

Today has been yet again another boiling hot day with temperature in the 90’s which made sightseeing more of an ordeal than a pleasure.

We spent most of the day in historic Colonial Williamsburg. This is part of the Historic Triangle, and is a huge area of over 300 acres which includes many 18th and early 19th century structures and hundreds of houses, shops, public buildings and outbuildings that have been reconstructed on their original foundations.

Several street re-enactments were staged throughout the morning at various locations and the couple we watched were a female slave speculating how little the ‘Declaration of Independence’ would better the lot of her and her family; and ‘George Washington’ giving a speech stating, among other things, that he was not going to run for another term in office. These re-enactments were very well done by competent actors.

After a snack lunch we wandered up the main street, calling into the occasional shop, the ‘post office’ and a printing press then went for a tour of The Governor’s Palace. Not very grand and hardly a ‘palace’ but it had been dubbed that by cynical locals of the time. It was interesting to see inside and to hear its history.

By the end of this we had had enough! We were both suffering somewhat from the heat so we made our way back by bus to the Visitor’s Centre, where we relaxed with a cool drink in a lovely, leafy courtyard, watching an interesting variety of birds coming down to feed

A Cardinal

An American Robin

From there, it was about a 15 minute walk to our hotel and a well earned rest. We ended the day with a most delicious meal at an Italian restaurant.

Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th June

Sunday 28th
We spent all of today travelling - we arrived in Washington DC around 1pm then had to wait until 5pm for our onward connection to Williamsburg. And …. guess what - the train was an hour late and we didn’t leave until 6pm. By that time we were pretty exhausted. We arrived in Williamsburg around 9.45pm and settled into our hotel for a welcome good night’s sleep at around 10pm.

Saturday 27th
We woke up this morning with the prospect of packing yet again as, sadly, we had to leave Chicago today. We checked out of the hotel at 10.45 but were able to leave our luggage there as our train was not due to leave until 7pm. We spent the morning exploring part of the shopping district on foot and to see where the ‘El’ runs over the top of the Wabash Street - scene of many filmed car chases.

We then went to the Millennium Park. We thought it a good idea to avoid the central part of Grant Park as much as possible as the ‘Taste of Chicago’ started today. This is called ‘the biggest picnic in the world’ and hundreds of Chicago eating places have stalls there for the general public to try samples of their fare. There seemed to be lots of entertainment going on together with a funfair and the whole area was heaving with people. The Millennium Park was pretty crowded too. There were some very large modern sculptures there including ‘the bean’, a shiny kidney bean shaped sculpture:

(if you look carefully around the middle of the pic, you can see me (wearing a light coloured shirt) taking the photo)

which gives a totally different reflected view of the famous skyline, and a water feature consisting of two large rectangular waterfalls which create a big ‘puddle’ for people to cool off in. One of the rectangles had a changing face on it:

Very clever.

By then we both had had enough of ‘wandering’ so we headed slowly back to the hotel where we sat reading and people watching until we got a cab at 5.30 for Union Station.

We went to the station around 5.30pm. As we had a sleeping ‘roomette’ booked on the train we were able to go to the first class lounge and wait for boarding. When we did Terry commented ‘we have more ‘ette’ than ‘room’’ as it is very small, 3ft 6in x 6ft 6in, We had two seats which converted to bunk beds for sleeping. As I had the 'casting vote' I opted for the bottom bunk - Terry had a bit of a problem climbing into the top one! All meals were included in our ticket so we had a very nice dinner in the dining car and breakfast on Sunday morning. Sleeping, for me, was again not very successful on the train but Terry zonked out for he whole night. The train was very bumpy and noisy as the whistle/hooter (or whatever it is called) is sounded very frequently. But having a private room with a bed was a huge improvement to sleeping in coach class even though there was lots personal space there and the chairs recline.

Friday 27th June - Chicago Day 2

We were up and out fairly early (for us) this morning and walked probably almost a mile along the lake shore to The Field Museum - Chicago’s Natural History Museum. It was one of the best I have seen, and houses the biggest T-Rex ever found, called ‘Sue’! The ‘Museum Campus’ includes this museum, an aquarium and a planetarium, and is situated right next door to the huge ‘Soldier Field’ the home of the Chicago Bears NFL team on Lakeshore Drive. We have not had the time to visit either the aquarium or planetarium.

'Sue'

We spent a couple of hours at the museum. It was so big and there was so much to see that it would possibly take many visits to see all there is and to take the time to read the information alongside each display. We entered an ancient Egyptian tomb, walked through African villages, saw many hundreds of different (stuffed) animals and birds together with assorted mammal skeletons and took an ‘epic journey’ through 13,000 years of The Ancient Americas, including ice-age mammoth hunters, Native Americans, the Incas and the Aztecs etc. It was brilliantly laid out with interconnecting rooms. The building itself was enormous.

We could have spent longer there but we wanted to get tickets for the 1pm tall ship trip and were afraid it might get booked out early, so we hopped on a (again free) ‘hop on hop off’ bus back down to The Navy Pier. We were in good time and got the tickets with no problem. This was another of our ‘included attractions’ within the ‘Go Chicago’ card. We spent time on the pier looking at the Stained Glass exhibition, then had some lunch before boarding the ship. It was ‘pirate themed’ with stories etc being told on the main deck but we ignored those and just sat at the stern of the ship enjoying the sea breeze (very welcome in this heat) and views of Chicago’s fantastic skyline.

The trip lasted about an hour and we both really enjoyed it.

We took a water taxi back to our hotel area and spent time relaxing after another enjoyable day here on the shores of Lake Michigan.

We have worked out that had we paid for each ‘attraction’ and 2-day bus pass individually we would have spent $128 - so we saved $38 by buying the ‘Go Card’. So that was worth the investment and we intend to buy a similar one when we get to New York.

One final thing for today. For those of you who followed my 'Losing It' diet blog before I left home in April, you will see that the diet is still going really well:

'Rocky Road Dazzler' - Yummy!

Thursday 25th June - Chicago

Another WOW! Chicago ‘is my kinda town’! Even though I was here about fifteen years ago, I am still hugely impressed by this wonderful vibrant city and the size and shapes of the buildings.

After writing yesterday’s blog we decided to go out for a stroll as we read in a brochure that there are firework displays on the lake at 9.30pm on Wednesday evenings. So we wandered across to Grand Park, which is just a very short distance from the hotel towards Lake Michigan, and spent some time there watching the huge Buckingham Fountain which continually changed shape and colour. It was beginning to get dark and all the skyscraper lights were lovely against the dark blue evening sky and the changing colours of the fountain really showed up. Every hour on the hour for 20 minutes the Fountain produces a major water display and the centre jet shoots 150 feet into the air.
The Fountain, one of the largest in the world, is obviously a popular local attaction as just before the hour many people gathered to see this spectacle.

www.cpdit01.com/resources/buckingham_fountain.cfm.

The firework display, although some distance away, was very impressive.

After studying various brochures we decided it would be a good deal to spend $90 on a ‘Go Chicago’ card. This card allows entry into most of the attractions and museums together with unlimited use of a ‘hop on hop off bus‘. But we had to get to Navy Pier

http://www.navypier.com/

to buy it. One day we will learn that what looks like quite a short(ish) walk on a map is, when in America, a very long walk - especially in the heat we have had (again) today. It was actually about one and a half miles but felt like it was much longer.

The first use we made of the card was to take an ‘Architectural River Cruise’ - an hour on the Chicago River going through downtown with a very good commentator pointing out, and giving details of, many of the buildings.

On completion of the river trip and after lunch we got on the (free) bus to go to Hancock’s Tower to take a ride to the Observation Deck on the 94th floor. The lift took only 40 seconds to get there, and the 360 degree views from the big windows were amazing. There was some heat haze around today so perhaps the views were not as clear as they might have been.


By this time we decided we had had enough. The heat and humidity really saps our energy. So we re-boarded the bus (they do continual tours of the city so are fairly frequent) and headed back for a ‘feet-up’ session before going out for another walk this evening.

23rd & 24th June

Nothing much to report for these two days.,

Yesterday (Tuesday) was again unbearably hot so we took the ‘Metro’ to an out of town shopping mall - The Galleria - and spent until around 3pm mooching around in the comfort of an air conditioned environment. We had lunch there then returned to the city on the metro and took a bus to The City Museum. Quote: “no visit to St Louis is complete without a visit to The City Museum” . Er - oh yes it is if you do not have children - it seemed to us like a huge exploratory indoor playground, fine for kids but not for two hot and tired 60+ ladies! We paid our $12 each and wished we hadn’t bothered. Aimee, Emma and the Kennaway twins would have loved it as all the children there seemed to be having a great time discovering lots of things and climbing on all sorts of different equipment.
http://www.citymuseum.org/about.html

By the end of our (short) visit there it was so hot and humid and we were so tired that we took a cab back to the hotel and spent the evening recovering and taking it easy in our room

Today (Wednesday) we caught the 7.55am train from St Louis to Chicago. We arrived around 1.30pm and after a snack lunch at the station food court we took a cab to our hotel - the Travelodge Downtown. And ‘downtown’ it really is, close to Lake Michigan and seems to be right in the hub of things. We have a huge room, well almost 2 rooms really with archway between, together with big bathroom and kitchenette. We both feel we deserve this space after our not too good hotel in St Louis.

We intend to just hang around here for the rest of the day to restore our energy levels before two days of sightseeing in this great city on Thursday and Friday.

Oh yes, the local paper reported temperatures in St Louis of ‘upper 90’s or over 105 with the humidity calculated in’ and are 10-15 degrees above average.

22nd June - St Louis

We had a very early start today as our train left at 7.30am from Kansas City for St Louis. So we were up before 6am and arranged a cab for 6.45am. The train journey lasted just over 6 hours and the scenery has become far less spectacular than on previous journeys - just ordinary stuff - fields, houses, trees etc. We arrived in St Louis to a temperature of nearly 100 degrees and high humidity. We nearly expired!

After settling into our (this time) not very nice hotel we thought we really ought to venture out into the sauna outside and see a bit of the city. We are situated near the Mississippi

View from hotel 3rd floor (zoomed in a bit)

so walked down to the riverfront and along to the ‘touristy area’. We had our first view of The Gateway Arch - it is awe-inspiring - 620 feet high and towers over everything else in the city.

We first of all boarded a replica Mississippi paddle boat for a river trip. Not a very inspiring trip and the commentator had a bit of a hard time finding points of interest to speak about - although he did find a few. The best part of the trip was getting out onto the water and feeling the breeze as it really was HOT, and it was a good feeling - sailing down the Mississippi!

After that we went to the visitor centre beneath the huge Gateway Arch to purchase tickets for a ride to the top. Our ticket included a 45 minute film about Clark and Lewis - the two men who led the first overland expedition to the Pacific Coast. They set out from St Louis in 1804 and they were away for around 2 years, there and back. It was an amazing story and the film was quite riveting. It was a huge screen - an Imax I suppose (although I am not really sure what an Imax is). Terry and I agree that this trip has not been all ‘pleasure’ - we have learned quite a lot of American history along the way - but will we remember it?!

When the film ended we went into a little 5-seater ‘pod’ - one of 8 sort of linked together and ascended to the top of the arch. It took over 4 minutes to get there and was a bit claustrophobic, but better than climbing 1076 steps! Apparently on a clear day you can see 7 states from the top, I don’t know how far we saw but I was certainly a long way.

We had dinner in one of the many restaurants in Laclede’s Landing - an historic area of town named after a French fur trapper named Pierre Laclede who set out from New Orleans to explore the Illinois Country to establish a trading post. In 1764, he chose the west bank of the Mississippi River. In 1784, the site was cleared and temporary cabins were built. Laclede named the settlement St. Louis in honour of the patron saint of the king of France. This site is now an area covering several blocks with many restaurants, gift shops and pubs all housed in lovely old red brick buildings with cobbled streets.


We were thankful to return to our hotel room as we saw that, even at around 8.30pm, the temperature was still in the high 80’s.

21st June - Kansas City

Another very hot day dawned so we lacked the energy to do much sightseeing. We took the bus to the City Market - ‘the market where locals shop’. It was a combined farmers market and other stalls together with a flea market. According to the website: “Since its inception in 1857, the City Market has been one of the largest and most enduring public farmers' markets in the Midwest, linking growers and small businesses to the Kansas City community. In addition, more than 30 full-time merchants are open year-round and offer specialty foods, fresh meats and seafood, restaurants and cafes, floral, home accessories and much more” We spent some time looking at the stalls but it really was too hot to take much interest.

There was a museum on the site dedicated to the Steamship Arabia which sank in 1856. This museum is home to a time capsule of frontier life in the 1800s. The Arabia was headed up the Missouri River when it struck a submerged tree and sank just north of Kansas City. Her cargo hold was full of 200 tons of supplies bound for general stores and pioneer settlements. As the years passed, the river changed course and left the Arabia buried beneath a Kansas cornfield. Finally, in 1988 a local family and friends uncovered the lost Arabia and her magnificent cargo. They were amazed to find fine dishware (including lots of undamaged English Wedgewood china), clothing, and even bottled food all preserved in remarkable condition.
The number of different artefacts there was staggering. It must have been so exciting finding all these things when the buried ship was discovered.

We had lunch at the market but it was far too hot and we were too exhausted to do anything else that day so we bussed it back to the hotel and took refuge in the coolness of our air-conditioned hotel room. We only ventured out again in the evening to the Chinese Restaurant next door for a meal, followed by a gentle stroll to a local park where we discovered a beautiful fountain dedicated to firemen who had lost their lives whilst on duty.

One last thing for today. We passed used car lot on the way back - would you buy a used car from this guy:
'Nuff said!

19th and 20th June - Dodge City & Kansas City

Yesterday (19th) was a difficult day to say the least. We had to check out of our hotel at midday and our train was not due to leave for Kansas City until 0034 - so we were orphans in a strange city for 12 hours - and in a city that has nothing going for it at all! But things turned out not so bad in the end and two things were in our favour - we were able to leave our luggage at the hotel for the day; and it started out quite cloudy so it was not as baking hot as it was on Thursday.

We decided to spend as long as possible at the Boot Hill Museum (as there was nothing else to do!) and in the end we spent the whole afternoon and evening there. The cemetery itself is now only ‘pretend’ as all bodies were dug up and removed to a ‘proper’ cemetery when the then Town Council decided they wanted to build a school on the site, but even so, it is very authentic.

The Front Street buildings are reconstructions, exhibiting hundreds of original artefacts. They represent Dodge City in 1876, and were carefully researched through historic photographs and newspapers, so we wandered in out of the shops and exhibitions, and because we had so much time to ‘waste’ there we probably got a lot more out of the museum than we would normally have done.

‘Entertainments’ were included in the entry price and although they were interesting they were a bit like watching an amateur drama production! We had a Chuckwagon Dinner in one of the saloons at 6pm - very nice tender braised beef (our thoughts went back to the poor cattle we saw in the feedlots the day before - but only beef was on the menu) with creamed sweet corn, potatoes and coleslaw followed by ‘Grandma Sally’s Apple Crisp’. During dinner we were entertained by one of Dodge City's top Country and Western Singers!

He sounded a bit like he looks!

After dinner we sat though another ‘gunfight’ - the same as the day before but with a different cast, then at 7.30 we went to the Long Branch Saloon to see a Western style variety show complete with can-can dancers. That was quite good too.

After all that finished it was almost 9pm when we retuned to the hotel and we were able to remain in the lobby watching TV or reading and using the restrooms there to freshen up before taking a cab to the station at 11.45. And lo and behold - the train was on time and we departed smelly Cow Poo City at 12.35. We were not sorry to leave.

To give some idea of what Dodge City is like here is a photo of Wyatt Earp Boulevard showing one of the many enormous grain silos and huge 'sweet smelling' cattle truck driving by!

We had to board the train and settle in our seats very quietly as most other passengers were sleeping. We both took a sleeping pill and settled down to try to sleep. I managed to fall asleep around 0315 - I just couldn’t get comfortable but Terry was well away before then. We were vaguely conscious of the train stopping a couple of times and new passengers getting settled in but before we knew it, it was 0630 and the train guard shouted out over the train loudspeaker system that we were about to arrive in Kansas City. The train must have been speeding along (no freight trains to hold us up I suppose) as we arrived almost one hour early. After a sleeping pill and only 3 hours sleep I had a very hard job waking up and getting my brain into gear!

Today (20th) we both feel a bit spaced out. We had breakfast at the wonderful Kansas City Union Station in a 50’s style diner then took a cab to our hotel arriving around 8.30am not knowing whether or not we could leave our luggage until check-in time or not. Luckily the reception clerk was very accommodating and for an extra $20 we were able to check in early. So by 9.15am we were both asleep and remained so until 11.15 when we decided that we really ought to get up and get out to see a bit of the city.

We took a bus into the city to ‘Crown Centre’. It was a very nice shopping mall but, as usual, many of the shops were eating places! Outside in an open space there was a wonderful water feature area where water fountains spurted randomly out of the ground and lots of children were playing in them. It was fun to watch. But, although it is very hot and humid here, we experienced our first rain for the whole trip so far (except for snow in the Rockies and a bit of drizzle on the cruise). It lasted a couple of hours then cleared up to blue sky and hot sun again.

A quiet evening and very early night is planned!