Stats

I took a 24hr break and arrived back at noon today.

While driving I saw
11 dead opossums
5 dead raccoons
5 dead small unidentified creatures
2 dead medium unidentified creatures
1 dead large bird

...and rather unpleasantly 5 very large splats of blood and fur that I take to be the remains of deer meets truck.

I did also see a few living creatures - not good statistics proportionally though.

2 deer munching in a field
1 completely bonkers red squirrel - skimming along a railing on a bridge with it's body low as possible looking somewhat like a SAS recruit.
1 hawk like bird
3 trillion small black birds swooping and darting around in an enormous 'cloud'

And I think that was it.
I saw the Illinois river - a tributary of the Mississippi and I saw the Mississippi!! I was very excited about that.

And this morning on my way back, I put petrol in the car at a the incredible rate of $1.66 a gallon!!! A definite change from the $3.40'ish that we put in the car in Florida just a few weeks ago!

Lincoln in Springfield

Abraham Lincoln - standing outside the building in which he practiced law.

The house in which he lived with his wife and 4 sons

The gorgeous stove on which they cooked. This was my favourite thing in the house!

My last days off

I'm not managing to get to my blog these days and it's not for lack of time.
I am holed up in a hotel suite with a family in Springfield, Illinois. We're awaiting the babies to be well and fit enough to travel back to London.

Last weekend I took the train into Chicago and met up with Jane who flew over from NY. We had 2 nights (Jane had 3) together and stayed in a hotel quite central.

I had been told the architectural boat tour was very worthwhile and so had Jane so on the first day we dropped our bags and went off to do it. I loved it and I think jane enjoyed it, although we were both somewhat cold throughout the whole thing... I caught my first snowflake of the winter on my glove.

The boat was open on top and we sat there in the cold (temperature at freezing point...) listening to a very interesting woman disecting the city into eras, architects and styles. The cold aside, it was brilliant. Chicago's cityscape is awesome. So diverse and bold in the design.





We took a walk uptown the next day and on the way walked along the edge of Lake Michgan.





It has whet my appetite for Chicago and now think I need to spend a week or more to really explore.