Day 2, Thursday

Miles Driven : 130

Temperature: -5

My Top 5 Chicago highlights!

1. The silver bean in Millennium Park. Simple really, but easy to spend a lot of time there
2. Chicago Tribune building – with its 149 fragments of famous buildings and structures around the world embedded in its walls. Also love the entrance quotation:

“Give me liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all other liberties” – Milton

3. The route 66 end (start) sign. The last stretch of route 66 is actually a one-way street, meaning it can only be driven down if you drive Route 66 West to East, hence it being labelled the end.
4. Save Bueller (anyone, anyone?) T shirts. Had almost forgotten, Chicago is home to one of my all-time fav films and quotes.“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it” 
5. Trump Tower – only completed in 2008 – the 4^th tallest building in the US, 16^th in the world

My top 5 keep warm tactics:

1. 2 coats. Uniqulo’s ultra-light down knee length coat squeezes under any coat, and rolls up to the size of a pac a mac. A middle layer duvet. Genius invention!
2. Gloves that fit, preferably left and right. Mark brought 2 left hands.
3. Leg warmers. Black to blend in – work over tights or jeans and no-one will be any the wiser
4. Hat and a hood, but make sure your hood is snug so you don’t need mirrors
5. Thermal base layer. Again Uniqulo claim to have the best technology, but layers generally seem to work just as well!

Cozy!

Getting out of Chicago was a wild goose chase. We headed out north by mistake and had to re-route south, covering 60 miles in 3 hours, so it was dusk before we reached Cicero, south west of Chicago. From there, we drove through Joliet into Wilmington, where we met the fabulous Gemini Giant Spaceman outside The Launching Pad Drive-In. A little dark outside, but you couldn’t miss him!

Fortunately we had anticipated jet-lag, taking in a little of Chicago, and city traffic and had planned to stay overnight in Pontiac, only a hundred or so miles out of Chicago, which we arrived at early evening.  Shattered, tired and full of Mexican, Tomorrow we visit the home of Lincoln and meander through the remainder of Illinois to St Louis, our first night in Missouri….

Time for bed now. Night night