We woke to hear the sound of pitter pattering rain drops outside so really appreciated our extra hour in bed (the clocks went back a week later here?!)! We had our own breakfast for once but really enjoyed it, we both miss having cereal! We headed out on to the quiet streets of Washington! Seemed eerily quiet everywhere, perhaps because it was Sunday and it was raining! We got a day pass for the Metro to save us getting as wet, and headed over to The Capitol bu...

We both slept surprisingly well but were awoken to announcement saying that one of the engines wasn't working and that we were already 2 hours behind schedule! They decided to carry on with one engine but it meant going much slower and delaying us even more.In a way this suited us as we could catch up on sleep, laze around and Mark could stay snug and try and get rid of his cold. The only problem being that I was catching his cold! Humf!We made slow progress for ...

The rain last night continued into the night, and this morning! It wasn’t looking good for the day! Our plan was to go to the zoo so we donned our waterproofs and braved the rain. It was a fair walk but about 1/3 of the way in, the rain was too heavy and our waterproofs were not keeping us that dry, probably because they are only shower proof and this was like torrential rain! We took cover in Starbucks hoping that it would ease, yet it seemed to do the opposit...

We decided late last night that we are going to keep our plans the same but instead of getting the train from Washington to New York, we will get the coach instead. As a result, we decided to have a lie in as we were both so shattered still. When we finally made it out, we went to the Willis Tower (formally Sears tower) which is the biggest building in the US. Apparently on windy days, people in the offices on the floors near the top of the building can feel it ...

We were lucky and slept well. The train isn’t as smooth as the ones we’ve been on before and we end up all over the place when trying to walk around! We can’t believe how quick the journey went and we had much prettier views today, including the Missouri river and the Mississippi River. We have been through the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois while on the train. We arrived in Chicago at 3pm and found o...