As we were back in the States you can of course expect some state hopping, a mega road trip of epic proportions and an itinerary packed full of the best places to visit. And as we like to mix it up, there will be city exploring, Great Lakes, hiking in empty National parks, nature watching, evening entertainment and amazing autumn colours.
If you haven't thought about Chicago, The Great Lakes and surrounding American Midwest, as a holiday destination, then hopefully these blogs will ensure you do, because I can't stress enough what an amazing time we had, in all the places we visited. Whether it was hiking in Canada, taking the boat out to Mackinac Island, or swing dancing in the Gangster caves in St Paul. And along the way we met amazing people, came face to face with a wolf, managed to see eagles, again, (we are so lucky in the US. We always manage to see eagles,) visited the home of Harley Davidson and listened to far too much Country radio.
So strap yourselves in for another epic Sarky Traveller trip, first stop: Chicago, Illinois.
Well actually, our first stop was Detroit airport for a change over, but once we made it through customs and their automated machines - hint here, read the screen carefully and don't panic. I pressed the wrong button and ended up with a big cross on my print out....eek - we were informed that Chicago O'Hare airport was closed due to a fire in the control tower. We'd been in the air eight hours or so and hadn't had a clue this was going on. You can check this real event online: 26th September 2014. http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2014/09/26/fire-in-air-traffic-control-center-grounds-flights-to-and-from-chicago
Now unfortunately for us, this had happened hours earlier and the airlines couldn't offer us another flight out for a couple of days as they couldn't guarantee when the airport would re-open. Also, due to the amount of flights having already landed and the people stranded at the airport, most of the hire cars were already taken and buses were already full.
What you have to do is not panic! Now we were relatively lucky, that Detroit wasn't a million miles away from Chicago, but obviously sometimes you are doing a change in a city a few states away, in which case the easiest option might be to try and find some cheap accommodation nearby and sort things out in the morning.
We tried greyhound buses, but there was nothing until the wee hours of the morning. We tried Amtrak, but wouldn't have time to make the train from Detroit. The hire cars were all gone and we were fast thinking we'd have to get a taxi to downtown Detroit and stay there, when some of the nicest people in the world let slip that there was one more train we could make from Dearborn Michigan, which would take us all the way to Chicago. We took a taxi there - only about twenty minutes and actually closer than Detroit city centre. We had a short wait there, but had already secured tickets online, which we swapped for paper tickets at the station, and they had a restroom and vending machines, despite being a tiny station. Thank you Dearborn MI and the Amtrak, otherwise our holiday could have been spoiled from the get go.
Basically, in these situations - which probably happen relatively often in a place as big as America, though probably for different reasons - you have to stay calm, think about options and then go through every one of them. Find staff members to ask. Ask members of the general public, who if you're lucky may be local and have more knowledge of the area. Use the internet to google the fuck out of your options, and then just roll with it.
Our Amtrak train we expected to be full, as we presumed so many other people would be in our situation, but actually it was mostly empty. There was a restaurant on board, so food and drink weren't an issue, there was more than enough room for luggage, even massive bags, and besides, how many people from outside the US - or inside the US for that matter - can say they rode an Amtrak from Dearborn MI to Chicago IL?
We already got in some state hopping, starting in Michigan, passing briefly through Indiana and then through into Illinois. We passed through two different time zones, completely messing with our already jet lagged brains, and made it all the way to the windy city.
Let the blogs commence!
Join me next time, when I'll be exploring Chicago for a day of architecture, hotdogs and Blues.
The Sarky Traveller
P.S Some useful websites if you find yourself in an airport pickle:
https://www.greyhound.com/
http://www.amtrak.com/home
http://us.megabus.com/
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