Cleveland - on purpose, and the Windy City

Day 8 / 9/10/2012 / Farmington, NY - Cleveland, OH [Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame] - Middlebury, IN

After another night at a campground, we set out towards Cleveland. The only program for this day was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. We chose the fastest route to Cleveland which was Interstate 90 and made it to Cleveland in the afternoon after a few hours of driving.




We both had maybe little too high expectations for the museum as we were a little disappointed. There were a lot of nice details and small parts that were really interesting but in general we expected more. I especially liked the part where the exhibition showed the reactions of the people against rock. Also the Elvis stuff and the special exhibition on Grateful Dead was really good, definitely have to familiarize myself more with the band.








We spent a few hours at the museum and left when it was closing time. I wanted to drive a little longer just to make the drive next day shorter. We arrived to Middlebury KOA pretty late and just put up our tent and went to sleep.




Day 9 / 9/11/2012 / Middlebury, IN - South Bend, IN - Chicago, IL

On Tuesday we had to take our car to maintenance as the maintenance required light had been burning for a few hundred miles. We found out from Hertz that we can take the car to whatever Firestone repair store. We found one, ExpertTire, 45 minutes away from our campground and on our way to Chicago. The service we got there was really good, it took them under 45 minutes to do the work and the person working on our car promised to personally contact Hertz to deal with the payment so we didn't have to pay anything or deal with Hertz afterwards.




From the repair store, we had only a couple of hours drive to Chicago. We did manage to stop to Schoop's, a really nice hamburger place which had been chosen to have the best burgers in the region, although I'm not sure which region it was in, it still had good burgers and it was a nice stop before the city.








We managed to time our arrival well and hit the five o'clock rush hour. It took us almost an hour to drive through the city and although we were a little tired when we got to our hostel, the Chicago Getaway Hostel, we went for a little tour downtown.




After doing a little shopping we went to Emmit's Irish pub, which was a pub in the movie Ocean's Eleven.








Day 10 / 9/12/2012 / Chicago, IL

The actual day in Chicago started with a stroll on the beach. It was a great day to do that as the weather was the best on our trip so far, about 30 degrees Celsius and a clear blue sky.




After walking on the beach and having a salad lunch, yes salad, close by, we went no Navy Pier. Although the pier was a little too turisty, we had a nice time there and even got a free ticket to the ferris wheel when some woman on the line to Ben & Jerry's gave it to us because her mother didn't dare go on it.




After the ferris wheel it was time to head to Millennium Park. We decided to make the best of a beautiful day and walk to the park. In the park we went to the mirror ball or bean looking thingy, whatever it's called. The last stop of the day was Willis Tower, formerly known as Prince, I mean Sears Tower. There was one new thing added to the Skydeck from the last time I was there four years ago, there was a ledge made of glass or see through plastic or something, where you could stand on and look down. Overall Chicago was as good as I remembered it being with a great beach next to a great city.












-Riku

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Soccer and shopping - days 3 & 4

Day 3 / 9/05/2012 / Hyannis, MA - Foxborough, MA [Gillette Stadium] - Middleboro, MA

The third day started with some camera problems. We were trying to copy the pictures from the camera to Liisa's iPad without copying the pictures that were already on the iPad and Liisa accidently removed all of the pictures from the camera. We lost every picture from our second day. We used the whole morning to research how we could save the pictures. The innkeepers were extremely helpful, they let us check-out at 2 pm when the actual check-out would have been 11 am. They also knew there would a program available online we could use to restore the pictures. The program, Stellar, seemed to work as it found all of the pictures but we couldn't save the pictures anywhere before buying the program and when we bought it, there was a 4 to 24 hours handling period for the order. So we have to wait to get our hands on a computer before we can try again.

After the camera problems we set out to Cape Cod Chips Factory. There we took a tour of the factory which was a little disappointing. All we saw were factory workers clearly tired of their work. At least we got some chips without preservatives for our trip.




The drive to the factory and from the factory to our next destination, our first campground, was an interesting one as it was pooring. It was raining so hard that it was difficult to see anything and driving on a highway made sure I had no problems staying focused.




We arrived to our KOA campground after the office had closed but they have a very convenient system. If you check-in after business hours, there is a mailbox with all of the free camping spots and you just have to sign a sheet with your information and enclose the money or your credit card information in an envelope and they handle your check-in in the morning and you get your receipt when the office opens.




After checking our tent site we headed to Gillette Stadium to see a Major League Soccer game. My goal is to see a game in every continent, just have figure out how I can see one in Antarctica, maybe the scientists have teams there... When I was about to buy tickets to the game, a guy wearing an employee badge came and gave us tickets to the game for free.











The game wasn't too good but wasn't too bad either. The home team, New England Revolutions won the game pretty easily. After the game we went back to the campground and as it was already well past midnight we decided to just sleep in the car.

Day 4 / 9/06/2012 / Middleboro, MA - Wrentham, MA - Boston, MA

Thursday day was shopping day. We found an outlet mall, or an outlet village, pretty close to the campground and we managed to spend a few hours there quite easily. Even I managed to find something to buy though not as much as Liisa.




Next stop was Boston where we would have our first day without driving. The drive from the mall to Boston was uneventful and we got there before sunset and drove around the city before parking the car. We decided to leave the car to an indoor parking lot. When planning the trip we realized that if we were going to spend time in the bigger cities, we would have to spend money on parking as well as accommodation. For example the car park in Boston cost us $60 and we were in Boston for about 40 hours.

After parking our car we went to the hostel we had booked, Hostelling International Boston. We found out however that the hostel was overbooked. After arguing with the evening manager for about half an hour we managed to get a room in another hostel just ten minutes away. We were really disappointed with the service at HI because they had made a mistake and seemed really unwilling to do anything about it. Luckily the room we got was at 40 Berkeley where the service was great and the whole place seemed like a nice place. Even the breakfast was good, the best so far and the first place that offered bacon and eggs instead of just some sweet things like every other place so far.

After settling in the hostel we decided to go for a beer. The receptionist recommended an Irish pub nearby and since we were in Boston that seemed appropriate. The place was some kind of mixture of a pub, nightclub, and sports bar. Since Boston is the home of Samuel Adams it seems that in every bar you can get at least Samuel Adams' Boston Lager and probably some other Sam Adams beers. This is a good thing because unlike the major US beer brands, like Budweiser and Coors, Sam Adams has really good craft beers and they taste like a beer should taste like. Because I had already had a Sam Adams the previous night at the campground, I decided to have a Blue Moon instead. I also tried something new, Harpoon IPA. If you like IPAs, it's worth a try.




More tales from Boston coming soon...
-Riku

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad