Hey. Apologies for the radio silence, we’ve had a couple of driving days. We left Chicago on Monday morning and drove around 285 miles to Collinsville near St Louis. We stopped for the night and learnt that we won’t be choosing an America’s Best Value Inn to stay in again!! It looked like a Butlins complex that hasn’t been touched since the 1960’s, and although the bedding and towels were clean, they were threadbare and the room was dingy and smelled of stale smoke. It was cheap and warm though. We set off straight after breakfast for another 300 mile drive to arrive here in Nashville around 2.30pm.

The driving has been great. We’ve nicknamed our Mustang Miss Maybelle. I love driving her and she’s a very comfortable ride, the time and miles slip by really quickly. Driving here is so much nicer than in the UK. The scenery changes as we moved south were beautiful, all the different colours of the trees as they change for Fall, Mum is loving all the huge trucks…she’s hoping that at some point we’ll meet a friendly truck driver who might let her sit in the cab at a rest stop along the way!

Anyway,I just wanted to check in and let you know we are still safe. We are about to decide what places we are going to visit today after a late night at the world famous, and very hard to get tickets for, Bluebird Cafe. I’ll let Mum tell you all about that and our day today a bit later.

Bye for now, H xxx

Hello again everyone, hope all’s good back home. A beautiful sunny day here but very cold…had to go buy a woolly hat! We have experienced some amazing sights and sounds in last 3 days here in Chicago.

We’ve just been on The Untouchable Tour, Chicago’s Original Gangster Tour. It was absolutely brilliant and the driver of our gangster bus, and tour speaker were both dressed up as gangsters, they even had a gun and we had to keep ducking whenever gunfire broke out! As we were driven around we saw various places, including the Holy Name Cathedral where many of the gangsters funerals were held, and the theatre where the infamous Bank robber John Dillinger was set up and killed. We were told the stories of Al Capone and the other mobs, all about the bootlegging that occurred in the time of the Prohibition, the vicious killings between the gangsters and the St Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929.

The guy telling us the story was amazing and very funny while narrating the tale, I was in hysterics…he even told me to “calm down Ma’am” when I was in tears laughing. 😂 It was a fantastic couple hours and we got to see parts of this incredible city that we would not have found had we not done the tour.

Off to eat now before we go and see the light show!! Love Di

October 21st.

We had a quieter day yesterday, breakfast followed by a walk along the Magnificent Mile shopping district and a wander around Bloomingdales. We have found a great breakfast restaurant, Eggsperience, that do all the American favourites, pancakes, waffles, French toast, as well as anything and everything with eggs, ham and bacon. So far it’s been so filling that we haven’t really needed to eat again all day, even dinner…although Colleen did make sure I got some traditional Chicago deep dish pizza before she left us yesterday afternoon!

The reason for a quieter day was because we had tickets for an amazing Burlesque show last night in Uptown Chicago, about 20 mins in an Uber…just getting that was something that Mum found amazing. I tapped my phone and a car appeared a few mins later and no need to hand over any money.

The weather has turned colder here in Chicago so we shivered at the door to the club while we waited for it to open at 6.30pm. By 6.45 when there was still no sign of anyone we were getting a little concerned so we asked the guy in the mobile phone shop over the road if we were in the right place. Apparently the club closed down a month ago!!! I was not amused, so we jumped in another Uber and headed back to the hotel so I could email and message the company via their social media pages. Kiss Kiss Cabaret you need to reply and give me a refund ASAP!!

Instead we went to McDonald’s where there is currently a Halloween promotion going on. This branch has a major decoration thing going on outside. We are going back later to have another look because it includes a light show in the evening.

To make up for last night’s disappointment, we are about to head out and take the Untouchables Tour. We will see some of the places that were frequented by Al Capone and the like back in the prohibition era here in Chicago. I’ll let Mum tell you about that later though.

For now enjoy the rest of your Sunday. H xx

Hey! Helen here, to fill you in on our day today.

After a good night’s sleep from a long day yesterday, we were ready for a day of exploring Chicago. Mum mentioned the driving yesterday…you need to understand, I have never driven outside of the UK before and I have never driven an automatic car before, so I was a little nervous about getting off a 7.5 hour flight, having been awake for the best part of 36 hours, then jumping in a Mustang to drive from O’Hare to downtown Chicago 😬😬😬 The traffic was not that bad, Mum is used to our little New Forest roads so thinks that 5 lanes of solid cars and trucks is horrific. The fact is we kept moving the whole time and were able to change lanes easily, so I’d hazard a guess at that being pretty good for here. Anyway, we got here, we showered, went out for pizza with my lovely friend, Colleen, who flew across from Spokane in Washington state just to see me, then came back to our gorgeous hotel, the Dana, and slept.

Our day started this morning with breakfast at a cafe just around the block that I’m certain we will be returning to now until we move on. It set us up perfectly. We decided to head from there to the Hancock building, where I thought I’d try to get Mum up to the 94th floor observation deck. On the way, as you can see above, she made friends with a local policeman!

The Hancock building is in the middle of the Magnificent Mile where there are loads of shops. We had to visit Best Buy to find a camera battery charger because Mum forgot to pack hers, but once that was done, we had a look round an “old” church. I say old…it was about 100 years old, so by UK standards still a baby. Once we’d looked round Colleen and I outvoted Mum and we went up to the 360° observation deck. It was amazing and we were able to get a real sense of just how big the city is. Even the huge trucks looked like toy cars. Colleen and I also rode the Tilt, , where you stand with you feet touching the glass and hold onto a handle then the whole window tilts forward, probably around 45° so you are leaning out over the city. We couldn’t convince Mum to join us on that, but I thought it was fantastic. It was even snowing up there 🌨️😀

Our next stop of the day was to Navy Pier where we had coffee and cupcakes and a look around some souvenir stands before taking a walk along the river, checking out a cool walk through water feature, to the other side of the city, and passed Trump Towers to a park. In the centre of the park there was a giant silver jelly bean! Most random. By then Mum was about ready to call it a day so we headed back to the hotel via a grocery store to pick up some snacks. On the way back there was an incident where a car had come off the road and into a building so we experienced first hand all the sirens and emergency services doing their thing in a big city. There were armed officers on the scene, I guess because it was right opposite Trump Tower so they have to assume something major. I didn’t hear or see anything to suggest there was more to it than an accident, but it looked bad so I hope everyone was OK.

Colleen and I are heading out for dinner and cocktails tonight before she goes home tomorrow and Mum is content with a chilled night in with the TV. I’m debating whether to head to the gym first for half an hour too ready for another busy day tomorrow. I hope you all have a fun filled weekend too.

Bye for now, H. xx

19th October

Hello to everyone, well here we are safely arrived in Chicago after a very long but not unpleasant journey. We left at 01.00hrs on Thursday morning and arrived at a very splendid hotel here at 16.45 which would have been 23.45 back home so eyes were in need of matchsticks!!! Helen did a magnificent job of driving us, in a very dirty Mustang, as no car ready for us!! I’ll let her tell you, through, what I thought was the most horrendous traffic, which was making me very edgy and tense, but Helen just did it like she does everything she sets her mind on!!! I was so tense I wanted to cry but held it back because she’d already had me in tears while at Dublin Airport earlier in morning. Something so special, makes me well up just telling you all….. She presented me with the most wonderful book with a beautiful poem and photos on the first page, itinery and reminders of what and where we were going, daily pages so I can write about our journey and pages for photos etc Absolutely overwhelming. Anyway better shut up now as got to get ready to face today’s adventures. See you all later. Love Di x

The first adventure for the rest of a life!

This blog will be the journal that allows you to follow a road trip of a lifetime for a mother and daughter from the New Forest, Hampshire, UK. First…who are we?

The mum: Di….this trip is for my 60th birthday. A music lover who never imagined visiting the USA, it’s the ultimate once in a lifetime to mark the beginning of a whole new chapter of my life.

The daughter: Helen, having never driven or abroad or an automatic car, this trip could prove to be very interesting, as well as a lot of fun!

The trip starts on Thursday October 18th 2018 and between us, we hope to update this blog daily with what we’ve been getting up to, until we return back to the UK on Thursday November 8th. If we can figure out what we’re doing, there may even be pictures too!!

Glad to have you along for the ride.

 

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