Niagara Falls, Canada

I cannot believe it is our last day!
These are the up close and personal pictures of the awesome Niagara falls

 

And this is the Hornblower Niagara Cruise

Great Fun!!! It really goes into the falls! Bellissimo!!!

The more the boat goes into the falls the more wet you get :-)

It is really a fantastic experience!!!

This is for sure the best way to close this amazing USA trip!
I am so happy and grateful for all the things we have seen, taste, embraced, touched, LIVED!!!
Tomorrow we are driving back to Boston, we will be leaving from there!
Thank you for following! I hope you enjoyed the pictures! See ya!

Chicago - Niagara Falls, Canada

Today we hit the record! 11 hours driving to get to the Niagara Falls from Chicago! But we are here!

Tomorrow we will be going on the Hornblower Niagara Cruises that used to be called Maid of the Mist (this one is now on the American side)

In the meantime this is the view from our room :-)

Chicago South Side

As promised today we are taking it slower, so after mass at Saint Peter's Church, let's take the car and go visit the main Obama's sites! :-)

I studied about them when I was still in Ireland!

First stop Kenwood, the president's former house, where he was living before the White House, and where he will be back in two years. Unfortunately we couldn't go in front of the house because Michelle was in and therefore the road was blocked by the police

The second stop is just nearby, Hyde Park, Obamas previous house

In the same area three is the apartment where President Obama used to live when he was a student!

Then we have stopped by the two main restaurants where he used to go and still does sometimes, Medici and Valois

Obama was at Valois only 2 days ago!!! He was in Chicago for a fundraising and all of a sudden he decided to stop by for breakfast :-)

We have had a nice chat with Gianni, an Italo American guy who works here at Valois, he explained to us that when the President arrives whoever is inside remains in and whoever is out has to wait for the President to leave. Can you believe it!!! I couldn't imagine if it was me having breakfast and all of a sudden Barrack Obama enters the restaurant, OMG!!!

Anyway we have had the President Obama's special number 1 and 4

Back to the Loop, we are going to walk a little a little in Grant Park and check out the famous Buckingham Fountain

OK so I think we have seen enough and we are now ready to go back to the hotel and rest because tomorrow it will be another driving day, maybe we will reach the 10 hours again! We'll see, we are going to ... surprise :-)

Chicago The Loop - The Magnificent Mile - Old Town

First of all, I want to say that this morning it has been very difficult to find a coffee place to have breakfast because we picked an hotel in the financial district and, since it is Saturday, most places are closed...

Anyway we eventually found a place, Intelligentsia Coffee, which was also very good!

As I said we are based in the Loop therefore the target for today is our area plus the North side!

First great stop of the day is the landmark Chicago Theater!

This is Memorial Day Week End and a parade is going to take place here in Chicago! We didn't really watch the parade, but we did watch the backstage :-)

This is Onofrio in a silly picture in front of the 35 East Wacker Drive, house of Al Capone's Stratosphere Club

Crossing the river there are few buildings that deserve a picture: the Marina City and IBM building (it looks like a corncob as a tribute to the Midwest's farming), the Trump International Hotel&Tower (completed in 2009, they are still putting on the UMP letters) and the Chicago Tribune building

And here it stars the famous Magnificent Mile, in the third picture you can see the Hotel Intercontinental Chicago, built in 1924

Below there are the Water Tower (within the few building to survive the fire of 1871) and the John Hancock Center

At the end of the Magnificent Mile there is Oak Beach!

And here starts the destruction... basically from the Mag Mile we have decided to go all the way up North as indicated by our travel guide... well it has been very interesting we have seen the Old Town district, but we will ending up doing 27 km in one day (for fun in the morning we had set up the smartphone with the step counting). Below there are St. Michael's Church and the Wacker House

 Going back we have stopped for a bit in the Millennium Park

And finally the Willis Tower the world tallest building until 1997, when the Kuala Lumpur Towers were built and then the highest again in 2000, thanks to the antenna extension, until 2010 when the Burj Khalifa opened in Dubai

Ok time for dinner at the Native Foods Café, Vegan Food, the first time we ever had Seitan! Unbelievable it does taste like meat! The "fake" chicken wings are even more astonishing, it is the exact same taste of real chicken! 

I am really exhausted, but tomorrow we are going to take it easier, we will be going around in the South area, keep following! Notte!

Albert Lea, Minnesota - Chicago

After 3 days of driving and moving from one place to another, we will finally be in the same hotel for 3 nights, Yeah!!! :-)

Since we will be going around the city, we won't be exactly resting, but at least Onofrio can forget about the car for two days.

Well that's it for today, I don't even have a picture, it took 8 hours to get here from Albert Lea, we arrived at 7pm. We are so tired that we didn't even go out to grab something to eat...

So buonanotte everyone!

Rapid City - Badlands - Albert Lea

Good morning everyone! Below are few pictures of Rapid City

And these are the Badlands!

And after another 9 hours in the car, here we are in Albert Lea, Minnesota! I didn't actually mention the time zone changing which is crucial when you are driving so many hours. Going to Mount Rushmore we basically moved to the Mountain time which is -2 hours from Easter Time, now, going to Minnesota we are moving to the Central Zone, which is -1 from Easter Time. The worse will be going from Chicago to Niagara's Falls which is already a 9 hours drive + we will move back to the Easter Time, meaning loosing an hour...

Mount Rushmore

Finally here we are!!! Let me tell it is quite an experience! But pictures will talk for themselves
From Hot Springs to Mount Rushmore it takes like 60/90 minutes, it depends how slow you go and how many stops you want to do to take pictures.
Here below there are few buffalo's pictures, interesting! 

 And here you can see why it is called black hills, basically the tree trunks are completely black

And finally the presidents! We have takes a million pictures :-)

Awesome!!!
We are spending the night in Rapid City, which is only 1 hour drive from Mount Rushmore, the hotel is called Adoba Eco Hotel!
And tomorrow we are going to Albert Lea, Minnesota, which is half way to Chicago!