Day 24 - to Chicago

Big day of driving ahead so we upped-anchor early(ish, for us) and slotted into the Interstate for our longest single-day drive.  450 miles from St. Paul, Minnesota to Chicago, Illinois - a trip that takes eight hours non-stop.

Nige took this shot of a groover on his Harley.  The requirement for helmets seems to have dropped off again and - I think the only place we saw them in abundance was Colorado but this dude's cap seems to be doing the job.  I just can't work out how it's staying on though, despite him cruising along at over 70 mph.  Mayhaps there is super-glue involved. 

We crossed the state line into Wisconsin and stopped off for a fuel and food stop at Osseo, Wisconsin.  It was getting a tad cooler, so hot soup was on the menu.  I expected Ritchie Cunningham or the Fonz to come bursting in at any time.

Here's Nige with our waitress, Emma.  She'll be using Nige's extravagant tip to help pay for her college trip to Spain in May.

There we were, on I-90 and we saw a cluster of WWII and other fighter aircraft on display on the side of the road.  We took the next off-ramp and drove back to check them out.  As it happens, they were on an active air force base (Volk AFB) near Camp Douglas.  The guard at the gate wouldn't let us in but did allow us to take a few pictures from just inside the base, though.  As long as we didn't take a picture of the gate.  What is it about gates that are so secretive?    Here's a Mustang.

Just down the road, a bit, we noticed a beautiful lake, so stopped off to stretch our legs.  No surprise the place was called Mirror Lake.

Actually, the shot above is a bit of flooded forest - the real mirror lake was a little unmirror-like and rather murky.  Here's a shot of a cabin overlooking the lake.
 

And Nige taking a nature shot, unaware he was about to walk into a huge spider webby thing.

I've been meaning to show you this for a while.  From time to time we see large trucks, 'piggy-backing' a bunch of others down the Interstate.  It looks pretty cool when you see a large Kenworth, with three other similarly-sized rigs on its back, so to speak.

Still more carefully tendered farmland, particularly on the western flank of our trip today.

I must say, there are pretty impressive Interstate rest-stops (glorified toilets) in Wisconsin.  This one's like something you'd see in the tour of Hollywood Stars' homes.
 

Back in the car and we noticed some other potential stopping points, such as a mile-long collection of Outlet Stores (sorry, Tan and Jen, we didn't stop) and USA's largest water theme park - all indoors, as it's too bloomin' cold to consider taking any clothes off outside.  This place sports the only LOOPING water slide.  Oh yeah.

We also passed a few acres of tanks and aircraft rusting away in a field.  Looking back on this place, the Russell Military Museum has hundreds of exhibits on display, ranging from Civil War cannon balls to a piece of dog poop with a US Government serial number!  A Sherman tank, howitzers, various jets and choppers and other items of interest.  There's even an MGR-1 Honest John Nuclear Missle.  Hmmm.

But time was ticking and we had to get to the Wisconsin Car Museum before it closed at 5pm.  Then disaster struck!  Sheila, our GPS died.  With only minimal warning, she uttered her last retort and went belly-up.  Just like that.  OK, we had been pretty hard on her but we soon discovered just how much we missed her...

Now what?

We resorted to navigation by the stars.  Well, next best thing really, my cell phone.
This wasn't the best, as you can imagine.  But surprisingly, we did make it to Hartford an hour before the car museum closed.

Two classy cars here - a 1982 Delorean and 1970 Corvette Stingray.
     

They were doing an old loco up in the workshop...

Back to the car section and as with all other car museums we've been to here, there were some big names, proudly representing the history of motoring in the USA.

But this is what we came for.  Tucker #48.

Another view of this mighty machine.

You may know by now, Preston Tucker was pretty innovative in his thinking and I really admire his passion and desire to succeed.  If you're keen on following his story and some of the history leading up to the manufacture of 50 Tucker cars in the late 1940s, have a look at the movie "Tucker - the Man and his Dream".

Here's a photo showing the rear-mounted helicopter engine he utilised in his cars.

Some engine detail...

And body detail...

But Hartford was the home to the Kissel.  There were a load of Kissel's here.  Here's an example from 1925.

And another cluster of Kissel's from the same year.

A couple of Kissel fire engines...

And here's the Hudson again.  What a super-cool car.  This was the first automobile to have a back seat wider than the car was tall.

After an hour it was time to leave (or we'd be locked in) and head on to Chicago... without our navigation aids...

First stop was Milwaukee, home of the Harley Davidson motorcycle (they still make them here) and this Calatrava building on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Talking about the lake - here it is.

Somehow, with Nige's questionable navigation skills and my even more questionable Kiwi-American driving abilities, we rolled into Chicago on nightfall.  Land of soul-searching blues music and sky-reaching buildings.

They've got the tallest sky scrapers in the country here - so tall we couldn't see the tops of them due to the misty low cloud that had descended over Illinois.

Our hotel is right in the downtown area - the 'El' or overhead train is just out the window of our 7th floor room.

But even better, Buddy Guy's Legends Bar - the best blues bar in town - was just a half a block away.  So we wandered down there for a session of Chicago Blues...

The place was a museum in its own right.  Signed guitars adorned the walls, from people like Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, BB King, John Lee Hooker, Tom Petty, Keith Richards and Muddy Waters.

We timed our visit well - time enough to grab a locally made wheat beer and find a spot to watch the first of two live shows of the night.

These guys were the Dave Herrero Band, originally from Austin Texas but they're now calling Chicago home.  They played a great mix of Chicago and southern blues - so good I bought a CD that Dave Herrero signed for me :)

Next up where the Chicago Playboys.  These guys were pure Chicago blues.  Through and through, y'all.

But they were also very loud.  So come 11:30, we decided our eardrums had had enough and strolled back to our digs.

Tomorrow's going to be all about sight-seeing - let's see what this place has to offer.

See you then.  PF