Well firstly, we dodged the bullet! That is, apart from for about ten miles on day two, it didn’t rain at all while we were riding the bikes – had two or three wet nights but nothing in the day. This was just as well given the HD dealer forgot to give us the promised waterproofs and the waterproof trousers I took blew away on day two after me insecurely fixing them to the bike.
Returning the bikes to the dealer and getting to downtown Chicago proved a nightmare. Firstly we had to battle through urban Chicago for forty miles – traffic light after traffic light on bikes that that were air cooled (so became like having red hot radiators between your legs) and which had gearboxes so primitive that finding neutral was a total matter of luck that involved painful clunks up and down the box that gave your foot a very good working out – stiff and heavy as hell. Once at the dealer signing off the bikes was straightforward but getting downtown wasn’t. The dealership is around twenty miles from downtown in a pleasant suburb. However it has no train link or buses nearby. At first the dealer was entirely indifferent to our dilemma saying people got a taxi. When we said we didn’t (as he well knew) know the area, or any taxi companies he reluctantly phoned one. It didn’t turn up. He phoned again – it didn’t turn up. At this stage I started to go into a rant about how we had just spent 6K with this company and their treatment of customers was crap. A little while later one of the staff (usually based at another branch) said he’d got hold of a company van and would take us to the nearest railway station. Great. Two hours after this farrago had started we were dropped off at a very pretty station (just a track and platform – no staff) nearly in the country. We looked at the timetable and, guess what, trains only ran in the morning. Tired, hot, angry, fed-up and carrying very heavy bags we made our way to a nearby ‘posh’ cafe. This is where our luck changed for the short term. To cut a long story short the woman owner took pity on us and we soon ended up in an uber car heading towards a station which did run trains, we had also eaten lovely ice-cream that she wouldn’t take money for. The uber driver’s fare was a steal and we accidentally travelled free on the train. However it didn’t quite end there as we discovered you had to walk to the underground from the main railway station in Chicago and then we had quite a walk to the hotel. So eventually we arrived at our fancy downtown hotel in the late afternoon. And while the hotel’s position was great its rooms weren’t that fancy. But we’d got to it at last! And we finished the evening off with a very nice (and reasonably priced) meal at an Italian restaurant downtown.
The following morning started off with a relaxed breakfast then for me (as Andy doesn’t like heights) a trip up to the Skydeck in the Willis building. You could see for miles. Fortunately we got there early as the queues were very long by the time I came out. We then toured downtown on the overhead railway before brunching and heading off to the Museum of Science and Industry – where we spent a very interesting afternoon and saw a captured U-boat. In the evening we were going to go to a blues club but when we got there we discovered we would be the only white people in the building so decided to give it a miss. However a free music concert was happening in a park opposite and we finished the evening there.
Sunday began with another relaxed breakfast at the nice little breakfast bar we had found near the hotel before starting a guided coach tour focused on Chicago’s mobsters and murders. Sadly most of the buildings they lived in had long since been knocked down or redeveloped. But the tour guide was very good and informative. We were then going to watch a massive March of LGBT & Os which was planned but went to the cities major art gallery (which is right opposite our hotel) instead. In the evening we had a lovely steak dinner downtown. PS what we’ve become really good at is getting senior rates for things, about half way through the trip we found most hotels offered them if asked and practically all the places we visited did to!
And today we’re packing and will shortly be heading to the airport …………. PS The greedy so and sos at the airport charged $5 for the hire of a baggage trolley from the railway station to the airport concourse: so as we had plenty of time on our hands after checking in the luggage, we took it back and hired it out to someone else for a reduced fee. Sorted.
