Chicago - Day One

So, day thirteen saw us take our first proper trip around Chicago...

On todays agenda was the Adler Planetarium and the Shedd Aquarium.

Views of Chicago

Selfie taken on Northerly Island (which houses both the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium) overlooking the Chicago skyline

The above shot without me and Dave

View of the skyline from the Adler Planetarium

View of the skyline from the Adler Planetarium

View of the Navy Pier taken from the Adler Planetarium

Shedd Aquarium

The outside of the John G. Shedd Aquarium

The dolphin performance area where we saw a show involving several animals (dolphins, penguins and a dog)

View of a dolphin in one of the tanks

The penguin area

Close up of three penguins in the above area

Adler Planetarium

The view from the outside of the Adler Planetarium, not the most impressive of buildings but inside it held some real treats...

The theatre that held one of the two shows about the solar system we visited, the Samuel C Johnson Family Star Theatre

The duo inside the Johnson theatre wearing the old style 3D glasses provided

Italian Ice Lemon Cake, which is literally Lemon flavoured ice. It is fair to say I was somewhat disappointed when presented with this - I had been expecting some form of lemon cake with icing...

Drive to Chicago

Day twelve of the trip was upon us and it was the drive from Cedar Point to Chicago, the "Windy City"....

The preparation

Dave prepares for the long drive ahead

The drive

A view of the Ohio countryside

Two bikers riding Harley Davidson's

A slogan on the back of an HGV

ALDI is even in America...

The blockage

No, the Reads' urinal hasn't been blocked again by tissue, two trucks block the motorway here going an identical speed for about 10 minutes restricting the highway speed to 60mph...

The view

View of the Chicago skyline on the drive to the hotel

The finale

A big hello to the David family who we met in Cedar Point - we hope you had a good trip out and a safe journey home...

We also saw our first change in time zone here in the US, as we moved from Eastern time (UK time - 5 hours) to Central time (UK time - 6 hours)

Cedar Point

So, day eleven of the trip was upon is and it was a bit of a change from the recent sight-seeing events of New York and Washington D.C....

It was the first of the many theme parks. This one is a self proclaimed "roller coaster capital of the world" - and we agree this is a fair tag. It houses some of the best rides either of us have ever been on...

The entrance, with one of the many coasters in the background

A nice picture of the American flag taken opposite the above welcome sign

Rides

GateKeeper roller coaster, a wing coaster which is 170 ft high and goes at speeds up to 67 mph - a good ride



Power Tower (left), a speed drop ride which drops riders from 240 ft at 50 mph
Top Thrill Dragster (right), a coaster that propels riders at 120 mph with a drop of 400 ft (by comparison, the "Pepsi Max" or "Big One" rollercoaster at Blackpool is around 200 ft tall). The coaster accelerates from 0-120 in 3.8 seconds, and generates 10,000 horsepower, to put that in perspective, the average dragster generates 6,000 horsepower - Dave believes this is the best coaster he's ever ridden

Raptor, an inverted roller coaster with 6 inversions, a long ride coming in at 2m 16s



Mean Streak, one of the tallest (161ft) and fastest (65mph) wooden rollercoasters in the world, opened in 1991

 Millennium Force is the ride picture in the two pictures below, it is considered one of the best coasters in the world. It features a drop of 300 ft, travels at speeds of 93 mph and lasts 2m 20 s.


Petting Zoo

Dave has an obsession with petting zoos, and theme parks usually contain one of these (quite why I do not know). Cedar Point was no exception...

Dave getting involved with a sheep of some sort...

Dave and a Llama getting acquainted

A goat sporting a chin patch. Dave unfortunately refuses to try to match this, although I believe he would have a good shout...

And finally...

A view of Lake Eerie from Cedar Point, one of the five great lakes in North America. One of the many excellent views from the theme park

An amusing sign of some significance to Dave's family

Our stay in Norwalk, Ohio comes to an end tomorrow with our visit of Cedar Point complete. We're off to Chicago next - a 4.5 hour drive awaits!

Random Look-a-likes

In the past few days we have come across two look-a-likes...

Can you tell what it is yet??? No its not Rolf Harris, which would be some sort of minor miracle, but some random guy we met in a bar, nice chap but too loud!!!!

Brian Blessed

Full picture

Zoomed in

Could it be??? Admittedly we both got a bit bored during the gruelling 7 hour drive from Washington DC up to Norwalk, Ohio. But this chap caught our attentions, with a striking resemblance to Brian Blessed (see below for those who don't know who this is). What's more impressive is this picture as taken on the interstate, it's quite difficult to catch a picture with any sort of clarity at 75mph, so we both consider this a minor success.

The real deal, courtesy of Wikipedia

Washington D.C. - Day Four

The final thing we did in Washington D.C. was to visit the museum of American History and to see the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence - all of which were very interesting, but all of which resulted in no pictures....

Therefore Day Four's post comprises the views taken from the Washington Monument on the evening of Day Three...

View of the Monument from the outside - we went to the area with the windows that you can see the near the tip

The golden elevator that took us to the tip

View to the West, the circular area is the World War 2 Memorial, the rectangular area of water is the reflecting pool and at the end is the Lincoln Memorial



View to the East, the Capitol building is at the end of the green area known as the National Mall

View to the South. The white building with the domed top is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial



View to the North, which includes the White House

Zoomed in view of the White House

View looking directly down from the tip of the Monument. The small dots are people....

An idea of the relative size of the Monument, which seems huge in Washington D.C. and stands at 50 storeys high or 555ft high

 

Washington D.C. - Day Two & Three

So, days two and three in D.C. saw us visit the Capitol Building, the Air & Space Museum, the Roosevelt Memorial, the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial and the D.C. World War 2 Memorial...

The Capitol

View from the front of the Capitol

The Rotunda

The Rotunda

The Speaker of the House's office

The Statue Room

The Statue Room

Air and Space Museum

Two rockets

 

Alan d'Authreau's camera, now on display in the National Air and Space Museum following it's last shot of the proposal of Becky and Alan. All that's missing is the blanket used in the process of the photography early indications show that this wasn't donated as Becky had "a bit of a chill". Alan has now updated his camera to a vintage polaroid land camera, good choice!!!!!!

Roosevelt Memorial

Martin Luther King Memorial

Here he is!

 

Jefferson Memorial

D.C. World War 2 Memorial

The Washington Johns

John Paul Jones

A space John located in the air and space museum much to our amusement!!! This uses a system of vacuums to suck out your number 1's and 2's.

And Finally...

We both decided to go to McDonalds for dinner as it was close to the museums. Some Americans have difficulty with both our accents and Matt has significant difficulty in understanding the local lingo so the ordering went pretty much like this:

American Waitress: What can I get for you?
Matt: I'll have a Chicken McNugget meal please?
America Waitress: That's 8 dollars please
Matt: I'm fine thank you and how are you today?
American Waitress: No I said that's 8 dollars
Dave: [laughs]

American Waitress: And what can I get for you?
Dave: I'll have a quarter pounder meal
American Waitress: So you want the McNuggets as well?
Dave: No I want the quarter pounder meal.
Matt: [Laughs]