Sandusky, Ohio

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Cheap Beer Bonus!

     As Bonnie mentioned, it was pretty hot in Chicago. That first muggy night at the Greek hostel created in us a powerful thirst. So powerful, in fact, that we walked a couple blocks to a Walgreen's pharmacy to buy beer. Now, I'll admit that when we set out, I was envisioning something from the middle shelf, something that we could both enjoy, but when we arrived I was transfixed by a can I'd never seen before. A blue can, it's logo reminded me of one of my favorites, Olympia! And with a three dollar price tag, how could I go wrong?

I looked at Bonnie and then at the beer. Then back to Bonnie.

“What do you think?”

“It's cheap.”

“Yep. Wanna try some?”

“Sure.”

“Sweet!”

We paid something like $3.21 after taxes and headed home. At the hostel I looked it up online and learned that it's only available at Walgreen's. Pharmacy beer. Ha!

So how does it fare when compared to other low buck libations? Pretty well, actually. It's a bit on the sweet side but not too bad when cold. If you nurse one too long, well, that's a different tune. 

 If Big Flats 1901 were available where we live I'd probably buy it again. I mean, it's no Oly but at $0.50 a can, it's cheaper than the water.

Chicago

     On the train to Chicago we'd been warned by multiple people about the terrible dangers that were looming before us: street shoot-outs, muggings, violence, etc. Rather unfazed, we de-trained at Union Station and took a cab to our hotel, the Hyatt Regency, downtown.

 Our room there was a gift--Thanks, Bob!

It. Was. Awesome.

Seriously.

If you want to be pampered and find yourself in downtown Chicago, we highly recommend staying there. The bed was the most comfortable bed I've ever slept on, goodness. We also had a great view of the city from the 33^th floor. After showers and lounging and enjoying the view, we indulged in some Chicago style pizza about a block away.

Giordanos Pizza

The next day, we ventured out to find our hostel for the next two nights, in Greektown.

We got lost and ended up walking further than we wanted to but did eventually find the hostel, which wasn't the Hyatt—their advertised king-size bed was two doubles pushed together--but it did us fine, the staff was friendly and so were the terribly drunken Hungarian guests. We took the bus and the 'L' all around Chicago, had some wonderful food (more pizza and sandwiches), saw sights, and the Museum of Science and Industry. 

Mmm Potbellys.

Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

"If rats can't feed, rats can't breed."

Bar view.

We opted out of going up into the John Hancock building because of the 15 dollar/person fee, but the next day a bartender recommended we go to the 96^th floor and have a drink, so we did. Sure the drink was $12 but we split it and got to enjoy the beautiful view. The womens bathroom actually had an amazing view too, strange but awesome. 

Entrance to The Violet Hour.

     That night we also visited Wicker Park, which is a neighborhood known to be the hipster region of Chicago. There we found a nice little spot called The Violet Hour. It's a cool little bar in an unmarked building that prides itself on its exclusivity. Inside it had an air of Alice in Wonderland meets upscale speakeasy. Again, very expensive drinks but we had a good time. The rest of Wicker Park was either closed or too hip for us.

Did we mention the heat? It was really hot. Okay, uncomfortably warm. Too hot to hold hands so we had to link fingers most of the time.

I, Bonnie, also had my first Duncan Donut in Chicago. It was decent but didn't quite compare to what the Duncan Donuts of my dreams. The coffee was okay, I guess.

The day we were set to leave Chicago we decided to ride the 'L' around in circles, just to see what we could see, and were lucky enough to witness a crazy lady with a Whole Foods bag throw a temper tantrum. It seemed that the train was stopped longer than she could tolerate. On our way back to Union Station we had fancy Italian coffee and sorbet at Lavazza and saw a tv pilot being filmed. They had police line a street downtown and made a huge mess—litter and paper everywhere. At the station, our train was late (a common theme) and the agent at the station had asked all of the families and elderly to group themselves at the front of the boarding line, resulting in a crazy kid fiasco. We set up shop out of the way and played rummy. Every once and a while a couple of kids would come flailing towards us and we'd have to tell them that this area was off limits and then grumble to each other about today'ss lax parenting methods.

Overall, Chicago was a lot of fun, and easily the coolest big-city we've ever been to.

Salt Lake City

     Our train trip from Davis to Salt Lake went relatively well, despite the crew being less than polite and giving the trip a sort of disappointing feel. We arrived in SLC at 3:30 am. After reviewing our limited options in an unfamiliar city in the middle of the night, we decide to walk to Denny's 0.7 miles from the station. We had "breakfast": hashbrowns and fries, and decide to scope out hostels. The venture for an appropriately located and priced hostel proved futile but in our search we found a Motel 6 which we were relieved to hear would let us check in at 6 am. We slept for a few hours at the motel and then ventured out to explore the city. After a lovely lunch of Thai food in the Salt Lake sun, we explored the local outdoor mall to pick up a few essentials, then walked back to our hotel to swim and rest. Might I add, this is the nicest Motel 6 stay I've ever stayed at, the pool was great, the room was clean and the real bed was sure nice to stretch out on. We read in the local newspapers that a free outdoor concert was playing in a nearby park. Explosions in the Sky!

Unfortunately we had Amtrak tickets to book before we could enjoy dinner and a concert. Our new rail passes were working however, we still had the issue of all of the trains being booked up (for USA rail pass holders but not for cash customers) because of our inability to book sooner because of the invalid passes from before. 

Begin boss fight with Amtrak Customer Relations! 

After explaining our story many times we were eventually told that we would have to pay an extra fee every time we boarded a train, there was nothing they could do, and they could not refund us or transfer us to a higher up who could help us. We were merely able to log a complaint and established that we would have to send in a complaint letter to the corporate office in the mail. While Claudio fought with the agent, I tried to reach a different department: Customer Support. (This ordeal took over 2 hours and threatened our concert plans.) But our agent at Customer Support proved to be helpful. We took a break from our Amtak battle to have a lovely dinner at a Japanese resturaunt accross the street from Motel 6, where we planned out our final itineray. When I called our agent back he was able to waive all extraneous fees and book all of our tickets! Hooray! We happily went on our way to the Explosions in the Sky concert and caught the last hour or so of the show. Miraculously we located one of three state run liquor stores in SLC and grabbed some Southern Comfort for the road. We road TRAX (the SLC light rail) back to the hotel and had an awesome evening. 

Explosions in the Sky

The next day we road TRAX all around the city, to a grocery store, temple square, the Amtrak station and back. We did eventually find the vegan mexican food cart we had read about in a local paper called Union Street Eats and had amazing tacos and a quesidilla. The owners told us about the vegan scene in SLC and recommended more restaurants than we had time to visit! 

After lunch, we explored the Temple Square area including the LDS museum, the tabernacle, assembly hall, visitors center and Joseph Smith Memorial Building (formally Hotel Utah). We enjoyed the views from the tenth floor of the JSMB and went on our merry way. 

Death Masks of Joseph (L) and Hyrum (R) Smith

Creepy Statue

LDS Temple

More Temple

For dinner, we opted to ride TRAX to South Salt Lake and eat at this funky vegan diner in a heavily industrial area. There we got to know more about living in Salt Lake from our server who had grown up there. She was super cool and explained about the liquor laws, temperature inversion, cost of living, and lots of other fun facts.

After dinner, we hung out at this planetarium place (also an IMAX theatre but opted out of seeing shows) and played with planet models and watched some short informational videos shown in the lobby. Then I got in a fight with an escalator. It ripped up the bottom of my toe in an excruciatingly painful way, but after some ice and a bandaid, we ventured to the Amtrak station where we found out our train (scheduled to arrive at 3 am) was running 3 hours late (now arriving at an even more inconvenient hour. After milling about and thinking about what to do, I suggested that we pitch our tent outside the station and catch some sleep. Aside from breaking a piece of the tent pole, operation Urban Camping was a success. We got 4 hours of sleep, boarded the train and slept some more on our way to Chicago. 

Urban Camping

I think the most striking thing about Salt Lake City for me was how friendly everyone was. Every one we passed on the street greeted us and we were always talking to strangers about all sorts of things every where we went. We also got to know the counterculture side of SLC where there is a thriving gay community, plenty of vegan restaurants, and lots of great people to get to know. The city was exceptionally clean, the surrounding mountains were beautiful and the weather couldn't have been better. 

We had a great time in SLC but are happy to move on to our next destination, Chicago, Illinois!

This is living...

    The ride through the Sierra Nevada was wonderful. We spent most of the ride in the observation car. Actually, we stayed until we were told that bags were not permitted.

Nevada is desolate and unexpectedly beautiful.

 

Some people make bad decisions...

     Just as we were picking up speed (GPS said 80pmh), the emergency brakes began hissing and the train came to a fairly abrupt stop. A car raced our train at an intersection and nearly lost!

7/13/11 --On The Train!

F#@k Amtrak!

Back-story: Bonnie purchased our USA RailPass over a month ago. She tried twice to make reservations over the phone and twice she was told that our passes were invalid. After much arguing the agent on the phone instructed her to take our passes to the Davis station where things would be sorted out. As you may be guessing after reading the first sentence of this post, they weren't. The agent at the station told us that we would have to call the 1-800 number. We explained to her that we were instructed to see her. To top it all off, we learned that RailPass travelers are lowest on the pecking order. This means that when the train is 75% full, the quota for RailPass seats is reduced to zero. This is so that they can sell the remaining 25% for cash. After waiting on hold AT THE STATION for close to 45 minutes and threatening to cancel the entire trip, they reluctantly issued us new passes. They even had the audacity to lecture us about making our reservations sooner! Well, guess what? Now that we're on the train headed to SLC, we've got all day to sit around on hold. I'm gonna call “Customer Relations” and ask for a little compensation for our trouble.

7/12/11

     After leaving the river, we drove to Redding to purchase sunglasses for Bonnie (lost at the wedding) and shorts for me. We had planned to spend the day at the water park there but decided to hit the road instead in order to have dinner with Jim and Kathy Stewart at Raja's Tandor in downtown Davis. If you like Indian food, check it out!

7/11/11

     After tying up all the loose ends at home and at the Manila Community Center we threw our packs into the truck and made our way up CA 299 to The Trinity River Bed & Breakfast. Although we arrived a little later than we wanted, we were still able to enjoy a wonderful dinner! After a couple of cocktails and a bottle of champagne we, um, went to sleep.

The next morning we were treated to coffee, orange juice and omelets made with produce fresh from the garden! After breakfast we lounged around on the deck that overlooks the Trinity before heading down to the river bar for a bit.

The B&B is located in Hawkins Bar and is run by Emely and Randy Wilson. The 

food was great, the room was comfortable and we highly recommend staying there.

Mmm...Facon.

Bonnie with Emely Wilson.

Randy Wilson with the morning's catch.

We done did it...

We got hitched!

Under Construction!

Thanks for checking out our weblog.  We look forward to posting pictures and thoughts as we cris-cross the United States on our honeymoon.

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