Connie Continued......

Back to the USA …

After our visit to Niagara, we made our way back to the United States through southern Canada. The weather was awful … very bleak, cold, icy and visibility was very poor. After a couple of hours, we finally reached the border and made our way to Westland Michigan.

Henry Ford Country

Cold conditions followed us into Westland, west of Detroit. Not a good first impression as this once-famous and prosperous city greeted us with very poor road conditions, neglected suburbs and closed up industries. This apparently, is due to a severely corrupt and badly managed city council. However, no shortage of fast food, takeaway, cafes and restaurants here, like so many other American cities we’ve visited so far!

Detroit was the home of wealthy Henry Ford – no clues for guessing what industry he started.

Why are we here, you ask? We came to visit family (Frank’s grandma’s cousin) whom we met approx. fourteen years ago. Rocky and Pat visited Brisbane (and ALL other Australian capital cities, including Ayres Rock) and we have kept in touch ever since. Rocky and Pat (now in their late seventies, treated us like royalty – they love AUSTRALIANS! They planned a dinner in our honour (like wow!!!) so that we could meet all their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The following day, Rocky, Frank and Louis checked out the Henry Ford Museum in town while the girls checked out the local mall (pronounced ‘mal’), much more exciting! American malls are like our shopping centres and they’re everywhere. This particular mall was a little different to most malls we’ve visited so far. Very few white Americans frequent this mall. Tess and I noticed everyone one was African-American or Saudi-Arabian.

Our stay in Michigan was brief but it was a great experience … meeting old friends and making new ones like Tom and Jenny, Christina and Michael, Karla and many more with whom we’ve exchanged email address, aaahhh technology.

Chicago, Illinois

What a great city! To begin with, we expected Chicago to be the coldest city on our trip, but again, what little Queensland sunshine we had left in our luggage, managed to make its presence during our three day stay. "City of Substance" is what I've called it, this would have to be one of nicest places we’ve visited.

Louis met up with long time WOW game buddy Patrick and his Dad Frank (plastic surgeon!). Frank and Louis were treated to a spectacular show followed by ice hockey match, Chicago Blackhawks vs St Louis Blues.

Chicago, home of Barack Obama and David Schwimmer is a very wealthy city. Great architecture, great museums, great shopping, great restaurants … very well rounded.

We visited Millenium Park, a $500 000 000 project (half of it going to bribes! apparently) with it's famous ‘bean’ sculpture and modern art museum. Further down the road is Buckingham Fountain erected in honour of royal visit during the 1800s. We visited Shedd’s Aquarium (Dean Kennedy wonderland) filled with every variety of finned and non-finned creature connected to water. Most fascinating exhibit were three shark eggs with unhatched baby sharks visible through shells.

Another great monument was the John Hancock Building. Also know for its annual ‘Hancock Hustle’ whereby participants race to the top via the stairs to raise money for respiratory disease. I wonder how many die of respiratory problems during this event? This building is 96 levels high with a restaurant at very top and a viewing floor on the 94th. The John Hancock Building stands right in the middle of Chicago which allows a 360 degree view of the entire city of Chicago, including massive Lake Michigan. Also visible were the two water towers that were the only remaining buildings after a massive fire destroyed the entire city in the early 1800s (?).

Our visit to Chicago was nicely stitched up with ice skating in Millenium Park (yes, even I had a go) and dinner with Patrick at the Cheesecake Factory. But don’t let the name fool you … this restaurant hit number one on our ‘best places to eat while in the States” list, and believe me, there are very few. And yes, their cheesecakes are good, very good! Ask Tess …

Signing off, Connie.