So, here we are at the end of stage 1 of our travels. We fly back overnight tomorrow, 12th, and should get home later on 13th. The last stop has been Chicago from where we are typing this.

Chicago is possibly the US city/area we have liked the most. The competition with NYC means you can draw comparisons, but they are quite different in other ways. NYC is manic, exciting, demanding and unforgiving. Chicago is busy but not manic, interesting instead of exciting, undemanding, and the people are more accepting of stupid Brits. The city skyline is great, the river is interesting (they diverted it when building after the great fire) and at street level there are in fact three street levels in places, which is both odd and fun at the same time 🙂. Lake Michigan may as well be a sea given its size, but of course there are no massive container ships, oil tankers or cruise liners. There are small versions of all of the above, apparently, but we did not see any. All in all a good experience, even if the weather did contrive to get in the way (super hot followed by more cracking thunderstorms bringing floods and high winds at times ⛈).

We thought we would finish off the blog with a few summarised things about stage 1, so here we go….

How much of the world: 3 countries, 6 Canadian provinces, 22 US states 🌎

Transport: 4 planes, 6 cars, 2 streetcars, 10+ buses, 10+ trains and 6 boats 🚘🚢✈🚂🚌

Distance: 18,139 miles, give or take 100 miles

Accommodation: 29 hotels, 1 slightly odd B&B, 1 genuine motel (not doing that again) and 1 ferry 🏨⛴

Sporting events: 4 Baseball matches, 1 Ice Hockey game ⚾🏒

Weather experienced: Blizzards, Snow fall lasting 12 hrs+, frozen sea, frozen rivers, strong winds (unable to move forwards), whiteouts (when driving), biblical rain fall, flash floods, massive thunder and lightning storms, very cold, very hot, high humidity….oh, and being in an area on Tornado Watch

Friends seen: 5 (including a dodgy pair who just turned up 😄)

Funniest thing: Gem falling over when standing still

Best thing: The experience

Worst thing: A tie between a billboard advertising “Machine Guns for hire” (wtf 😯????), the US and Canadian road conditions, and the US attitude to driving (the majority of drivers are truly, truly self obsessed and dangerous most of the time)

We learned a lot about what we are doing, and what to do and not do next time. We will change our approach in some ways, but we still remain keen to see the world. There was anxiety, frustration and occasionally anger, along with the happiness, and so it was not plain sailing. However, we need to remember we are travelling, we are not on holiday, and “normal” life has anxiety, frustration and anger so that’s ok.

See you on the other side.