Gail and Neil

Sunday, 16 September 2018

USA Midwest Roadtrip 2018 : part 1

On Sunday 5 August we left Chicago in a rented Buick SUV and travelled to Milwaukee WI along Lake Michigan. We visited the Harley Davidson Museum. Milwaukee has a great lakefront with beaches and tiki bars. The August weather was sunny and hot.

We stayed in Tomah WI for the night and ate Mexican take out in our room. Tomah is the home of cranberries. WI is the cheese state, hence we saw lots of dairy farms and maize growers. We tasted 8 yr matured cheddar and fried cheese curds, the state speciality.

The local hamburger chain in these parts is Culver's and the char grilled beef patty is definitely superior to MacDonald's.

We crossed into Minnasota; the state of lakes. And farmland. We followed The Great River Road along the Mississippi River. We visited Minneapolis and the Mall of America. It was the biggest mall in the US until recently when the Mall of Prussia in Pennsylvania added on a bit. Mall of America does have a huge Nickelodeon theme park in the centre, though.

We spent the night in St Cloud MI and went to Famous Dave's BBQ - the chain hails from Hayward, WI and is popular all over the Midwest. (We had a Famous Dave's on Route 22 in NJ when we lived there but it was a rarity.)

We crossed into North Dakota and headed to Fargo. As it turns out, the movie Fargo (one of Neil's favourites) wasn't actually filmed here but in Brainerd, Minnesota and the more recent TV series was filmed in Canada. You can see the infamous wood chipper from the movie in the public library, though. So not much going on in Fargo really. Highway 94 heads due West accross the state and we stopped in Jamestown too. It's a 1-horse town without a horse so all we could do was eat a Hardee's hamburger and head on out. We followed the Native America Scenic Byway to Mobridge for the night. The only restaurant, a Pizza joint, closes at 8 pm, so this time we had Subway in the room.

Tuesday, 21 August 2018

Chicago 2018

So we checked into the River Hotel which was reasonably priced and so well located I had to pat myself on the back because I think I am getting quite good a choosing accommodation. Free coffee and snacks. Free wine at 5pm. Free laundry downstairs.

We wandered out and found ourselves at a 'speak easy' tiki bar called Two Dots and a Dash for cocktails followed by a BBQ feast for two at Bub City. With a live band.

If you need to fill up on a good chain burger with lots of fries, try Tilted Kilt, like we did on Thursday at lunch. We headed to Lollapalooza, one of the biggest music festivals in the world. 100 000 attendees a day over 4 days! Our super compact picnic blanket - one of Neil's eBay purchases came in very handy.

Arctic Monkeys was the headline act and they were good but they don't possess much stage presence and didn't know how to engage with the crowd. In fact, there aren't any bad boy rock band personalities these days. Lauren Mayberry from Chvrches talked about how she's too short to reach the top shelf in a grocery store. Rock chick? Not!

On Friday at lunch time we ate at The Purple Pig -where pork features highly on the menu.Superb wine list, with lots of options by the glass and great sharing plates.

Then it was back to Lollapalooza. Later we found the Cupcake Wine Tent and hung out on the sofas with the only other 50 somethings at the fest. We met some great people.

Later Friday night we found ourselves heading back to Bub City. It was busy; a pick up joint for the way over 30's.

On Saturday we had really good tacos at Broken English. A boy on the train had said he thought Chicago Mexican food is far better than what you get in Santa Fe, where he was traveling from. So we tried it. He may be right.

We spent most of the day at the Museum of Science and Industry.

In a city of a 100 steakhouses..John and Sue -friends from the Cupcake Tent - recommended Eddy V's. The steaks were the best we've had in years..I had a bone-in fillet with bernaise sauce; Neil, a chef's special New York prime strip...and Neil's Maine lobster taco starters were wonderful. We shared a dessert of flambéed banana foster cake and an awesome jazzy live band topped it all off....good enough for a celebration...Happy Anniversary...now we don't have to remember in November!

California 2018

On Friday 20th July we flew to San Fransisco. We had come to SF for the Rugby Sevens World Cup. Held in the baseball stadium with the bay as a back drop to some really exciting rugby.

With the Blitsbokke as the current series champions, our team and the Fijians were favourites. In the end we had to settle for 3rd and 4th respectively with the Kiwis taking gold and the English, silver.

The 21st Amendment Brewery became our fan base. We met Gary and Craig and a bunch of Saffers there after the tournament each day.

Hotel G is a cool hotel in the Union Square area. Just over the road we discovered the Pine Crest Diner, good for brunch or late night suppers. It's open 24hrs a day and there is almost always a line waiting for a table.

We stayed till Tuesday and enjoyed walking through neighborhoods like SOMA, North Beach, Mission and Chinatown.

We saw a really good Magritte exhibition at SFMOMA.

SF is a cosmo-foodie paradise as the list of places we enjoyed attests to..

Chaat Cafe - Indian

Belotta- Spanish

Ideale - Italian

Lao - Laotian

And don't forget to try Sight/Glass coffee, the ultimate West Coast hipster brew.

We spent a few nights with Stephan and Andrea; as always a pleasure.. We enjoyed a few parties to try out their new beer-garden tables and benches. More wine than beer consumed, for sure.

We stayed with Larry and Jean in Capitola for the weekend. They have a wonderful apartment with great sea views. Capitola in Summer is a typical Northern Californian beach town with a laid back feel. After walking along the coast, we enjoyed a pub crawl through town and down to main beach. Neil declared that if he HAD to pick a place, he could retire there.

On Sunday we drove to Long Beach to see Julie and on Monday after a walking tour of downtown LA, we checked into Union Station to board the South West Chief for the 43hr train journey to Chicago.

It's a fun journey. We had a sleeper cabin but all meals are served in the dining car and there's a viewing lounge too. For each meal we were seated at a different table which made for meeting some interesting people. There's lots of time to read but the patchy WiFi connection would drive some people a little mad.

Las Vegas 2018

As you all know, we love Las Vegas...and we don't gamble...

This time was more or less like last time..

6 nights at the Flamingo Hotel; not the flashiest hotel on the strip but it has the best central location. And it's not too big. And the beds are really comfy. That's a fact I've never discussed on the blog before - I like a very firm mattress and a very thin, soft pillow. European and American beds are generally a bit too soft for my liking. Asian beds are very hard ; just right for me. I have been known to spread the duvet out on the floor to sleep in preference to spending the night on a saggy, soft mattress.