29th September - We didn't make it as far as Valentine last night before the storm warnings on the radio told us to get inside a stable building and do it quick, so we made our way there through mile after mile of flat farmland. This place is just grass, crops and sandhills as far as the eye can see - except for a small town called Ainsworth (which, of course, we had to stop and take a look at, although it was quite amusing that their main selling point is that t...

22nd September - We found out last night, after doing some research on the internet, that the State Capitol is actually open for tours today, and it's the Old State Capitol that is closed until Tuesday.We therefore went back into Springfield and managed to get there just in time for the hourly tour around the building.We were taken to the Senate Chamber, House of Representatives, Hall of Governors and other areas of interest around this Capitol building, which se...

15th September - We headed back into Chicago to see the last few things we wanted to see here before moving on. We went to see the centrepiece of Grant Park, the Buckingham Fountain with its 1.5 million gallon water capacity, but it was under renovation so we could not see it gush on the hour or light up to music at night. Last thing on the list was a boat cruise along the Chicago River and onto Lake Michigan. We thought a sightseeing event would be nice to finis...

8th September - Waking up in our laughably bad and flea bitten motel, we remembered a funny thing that happened last night and was neglected in last weeks blog: we had just finished laughing after checking into and perusing our laughably bad and flea bitten motel (lots of broken windows with cardboard hardly covering them, everything filthy etc) when we decided to pop out for some food - not content to limit ourselves to one meal a day, Kirsty has embarked on the...

1st September - Today is Labor Day in America so the one major way in/one major way out Cape Cod was snided with traffic and people (just like a bank holiday in England), but we wanted to go on a whale-watching boat ride at the tip of the cape, in a place called Provincetown. This town is just as pretty as the rest of the cape but is more commercial and gay friendly, cue many gay businesses and rainbow flags - which gives it a friendly and colourful vibe. We stop...