Aftermath: Map of our route

It doesn't include all the stops - you need to fight with google maps to get what you want sometimes - but you get the basic idea of the route we took over the 42 road trip.

Day 41...Cleveland, OH

Well, here we are...one day past what we originally calculated and it's our last night on the road.  Tomorrow morning we head back home to face reality again...and a move! 

We got up today and headed to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame downtown...it opens at 10:00 and we were there right around then.  It's a little pricey, but definitely turned out to be worth it.  The lower level is the biggest...the building is actually an I.M. Pei pyramid, so the floors get smaller as they go up...and it's filled with tons of exhibits with memorabilia from Rock and Roll's Early Years, the Roots of Rock and Roll, Motown, Treasures From the Vault and more...we actually spent over three hours on the first floor.  There are also a few different videos and a bunch of listening stations.

The second floor had Architects of Rock and Roll - Les Paul, Sam Philips and Alan Freed.  On to the third floor, which is dedicated to the actual Hall of Fame inductees.  It has a really cool video with clips of each inductee by year...1986 through 2010.  Finally, the top two floors are for rotating exhibits - right now they are featuring Bruce Springsteen: From Asbury Park to the Promised Land, with tons of his clothing, album covers, video clips and pages from his songwriting notebooks.  We stayed at the museum for at least 5.5 hours...and we could've stayed longer.  One thing we would have also done if we had time was stay for the U2 movie they have, which is only $3 extra, but 80 minutes.  The only issue is that they don't allow photography outside of the lobby area, so we had to check our camera.

We decided to purchase tickets for the Indians game tonight (the other day, we had intended to only spend one night in Cleveland and head to Pittsburgh tonight and go to a Pirates game...but we thought it would just be too exhausting with the driving), so we headed back to our room to get ready for the game.  We were able to get $7 tickets, thankfully.  For dinner, we went to a place right across from the stadium called Local Heroes Grill & Bar.  Our waitress, Patrice, was really nice and the food was pretty decent...we tried some Great Lakes beer, which is local to the area. 

We got to the stadium around 6:30 and took a bunch of pictures...including our very last Facebook contest photo (congratulations, Tim!)  We decided, since there couldn't have been more than 5,000 people at the game, to just take it upon ourselves to sit much closer than $7 buys.  The weather was pretty nice...a bit cold, but sunny.  We wound up staying until around the 5th inning and then headed out.

Now we are back in our last hotel room of the trip...it's definitely a bittersweet feeling.  We are excited to head home (and see our cat, who has been lovingly taken care of by our families and Tracy and Eric, our friendly neighbors...thank you so much, you guys...we literally could not have done this without your help), but at the same time, I think we will miss our road trip lifestyle...it has been amazing, the trip of a lifetime and we are happy to have had you along.  See you soon!

Day 40...Chicago, IL/Cleveland, OH

Well, we are back in the eastern time zone...but not before we spent a little more time in Chicago at the Field Museum.  We overslept quite a bit today...I accidentally hit the "off" button instead of the "snooze"...oops.  So, we missed free breakfast...we walked over to Cosi and then packed up the car.  We decided with the price of parking at the garage, it would be cheaper to just drive over and pay to park at the museum...parking is quite the racket.  Anyway, the Field Museum is the natural history museum in Chicago and it's gigantic.  With our GoPass we also received admission to a special exhibit, The Underground.  We arrived around 11:00 and set off.  This museum seems to be known for Sue, their T-Rex, which is the largest, most complete and best preserved ever found.  She is hanging out right in the lobby to greet you.

Our first stop was The Ancient Americas exhibit.  This took us through 13,000 years of life in the western hemisphere.  The exhibit was huge...and we somehow stumbled into pretty much every other exhibit on the east side of the main floor.  From there, we went across to Inside Ancient Egypt...they even had a replica of a tomb with a bunch of mummies and pieces of walls from real tombs with heiroglyphics.  We checked out the Underground, which turned out to be an exhibit showing what it would be like to live in the soil, if you were shrunk down 100 times...lots of huge, creepy animatronic bugs...blahhh..and a really big penny.  We also saw tons of animal exhibits, one that covered the history of Earth, from its start 4.5 billion years ago, as well as one on dinosaurs...seriously, each section was ridiculously large.  Before we knew it, it was almost 4:00.  Amazing...and we still had to drive to Cleveland...it was time to say goodbye to Chicago.

We took some photos of Soldier Field, where the Chicago Bears play, as well as a few of U.S. Cellular Field, where the White Sox play.

We headed out, planning to get to Cleveland around 9:30...not happening.  About a half hour in, we realized Racquel, our Rav4, was getting a bit testy.  We had noticed a couple of days ago that the tires were looking a little worn down, so we decided to give Hertz a call and see what we could do.  We wound up at the airport location in South Bend, Indiana...they could give us another Rav4, no problem.  Whew.  Of course, we will miss Racquel...she was so good to us for almost 9,000 miles and it will be sad to finish our adventure without her.  Our new Rav4 is less fancy, but newer, and should hopefully get us home...oddly, she has New York plates...maybe it's a sign that it's time to head back.  We are taking name suggestions...come up with the best name for our new car and win a prize :)

Day 39...Chicago, IL

We started our day with the intention of visiting two of Chicago's museums...the Museum of Science & Industry and the Field Museum.  We took the Metra electric train (similar to the LIRR) down to the Museum of Science & Industry first.  With our GoPass, we received admission plus tickets to the IMAX film Hubble, narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio...fancy.  We decided to catch the 11:40 show, so we had about an hour to check out exhibits beforehand.  The museum was huge, but super crowded with school groups.  They had exhibits on everything from space, to trains, to farming, to weather and inventions...and on.  Science museums are my favorite, so I could have spent all day there.  After our Hubble viewing, which was excellent, by the way, we realized we would probably spend more time there than we anticipated...so, we've decided to hold off on the Field Museum until tomorrow morning before we leave.  We actually didn't leave until almost 3:00.  We headed out into the rain, back to the train station and found out our train wouldn't be arriving for a half hour or so.  Oh, well.  We finally made it back to the hotel to get ready for our trip to Wrigleyville and the Cubs game.

We had about a 20 minute subway ride to the game, so we left around 5:00 to head out.  After arriving in Wrigleyville (the whole neighborhood surrounding the stadium, filled with restaurants, bars and tons of Cubs merchandise), we decided to go to Goose Island for a pre-game beer.  Good stuff...Andy actually had a Bourbon County Stout, which was incredibly strong, but really, really delicious.  We headed back over to the stadium around 6:30 or so to take some pictures and walk around a bit before the start.

We actually had some pretty decent seats, but it seems that there aren't too many bad seats at Wrigley...what a great place to see a baseball game.  It was quite windy, but the rain didn't actually make it over that way, so we decided to hang out until the 7th inning and then head out to catch our subway back...but not before finding a real Chicago-style hot dog...yum.  We had one in Arlington, at the Rangers game, but you HAVE to have one in Chicago...amazingly, they aren't as easy to find as you'd think.  As far as the game, turns out it went into extra innings, but the Cubs won 4-2 in the 11th.

Day 38...Chicago, IL

Today was our second day in Chicago...we woke up a bit later than we had planned, but we made the most of it.  After breakfast, we purchased tickets to the Chicago Trolley tour, where you take a double-decker trolley to 16 different stops around the city and you can get on and off wherever you want.  We chose a few stops to visit and for the rest of the tour, we listened to the guide speak about each area we drove through.  It's a great way to get a feel for a city in a short amount of time.  Our first stop was Millenium Park.  It has some great sculptures (including the silver bean, which has a more official name, but the silver bean makes more sense), a beautiful flower garden and some funny face fountains, among other things. 

We got back on the trolley and drove through the next few areas.  Our next stop was the Adler Planetarium.  We decided to purchase the Chicago GoPass, which gets you access to four different museums and either the Hancock Building or the Willis Tower, which both have viewing decks, and it's good for nine days.  With our GoPass, we got admission to the planetarium, as well as tickets for two shows...so, we chose the Night Sky Live, which is a more traditional planetarium dome show that detailed what tonight's actual night sky would look like in Chicago, as well as the Cosmic Collisions show, narrated by Robert Redford.  Both were really interesting and just leave you feeling like space is even more incomprehensible than you originally thought :)  There are also two floors of museum exhibits. One of the nice things about this stop was that it was right on Lake Michigan and the view is gorgeous...there must be food coloring in that water, it is such a perfect shade of blue.

We had originally planned to go to the Field Museum afterward (right down the block), which is Chicago's natural history museum, but it was already around 2:30 by the time we left the planetarium and we had to be on our final trolley back to our original stop by 5:00, so we decided to save that for tomorrow and get back on the bus.  Our last stop was Navy Pier.  We were told it is the most visited tourist attraction in the mid-west.  It's comprised of a long narrow building with different stores, restaurants and places like the Amazing Chicago Crazy Maze...or something like that...and convention space.  Then down the one side is a a street for pedestrians only, with restaurants and food vendors.  Finally, there's the mini carnival area with the famous ferris wheel.  It gets quite windy and cold out on that pier, so we started off with some beers in plastic cups...yup, another place you can walk around with an open container.  We had some tricky-trick Chicago-style hot dogs for lunch...claimed to be Chicago, but were just regular old hot dogs in poppy seed buns...not cool...but still delicious.  

From there, we got back on the trolley and took it all the way to our original starting place by the Willis Tower (if you're not sure what that is, it's the Sears Tower...a company named Willis purchased space inside the building a few years back, along with the rights to change the name...we just aren't sure why they would.)  We walked back to our hotel to get ready for dinner.  We decided on a place called Miller's Pub, a few blocks away.  It got great reviews and had a pretty extensive menu and turned out to be pretty good.  We actually met a guy from New Jersey traveling for work while we were there...thanks again John, for the coupon...safe trip home :)

After dinner, we walked over to the Skydeck at the Willis Tower...it's open until 10:00 PM and we had heard lines are crazy during the day, so it seemed like the perfect time to get a bird's eye view of Chicago.  The first stop is a couple floors down to a bunch of exhibits featuring different areas of the city.  Then there's a video about the history of the building...and finally the 60-second elevator up to the 103rd floor.  The audio tour was included with our GoPass, so we were able to learn a lot about the different sights from each side of the building.  There are also more exhibits up there, as well as four sky walk areas, with clear glass on all four sides...very freaky.  We wound up staying almost until closing time and then we headed back down the 103 floors and "home" to our LQ.  More tomorrow!

Day 37...Milwaukee, WI/Chicago, IL

We checked out of our LQ around 9:30 this morning and headed dowtown towards the Miller Brewing Company, so we could get on their first tour of the day - 10:30.  Since we were a little early, we decided to detour over to Miller Park, where the Brewers play, just to get some pictures. 

We got to Miller a little after 10:00 and checked in for our tour ticket (free!) and our beer-tasting wristbands.  The tour starts with a 15 minute video that goes into the history of the company, as well as all the fancy things they have going on that makes them one of the largest breweries out there...they also throw the term "Miller Time" around every 45 seconds or so, actually claiming Miller Time is the reason couches were invented...you'll have to visit for yourself to see how that adds up.  From there, we went to the building where all the beer is actually put into the bottles and cans and is stored once it's packaged...the volume of beer they produce daily is insane.  We then walked over to the brewing building and then onto the Miller Caves, where the beer was once stored to keep it cold...we even got to meet the ghost of Mr. Miller.  Lastly, we were taken to the Beer Garden, where you get to try three of the beers they have on tap that day...we stuck with the classics: Miller Lite and Miller High Life.  Granted, we aren't huge Miller fans ourselves, but it was interesting to see a facility that brews in such high volumes, since we tend to visit microbreweries.

We set out in the direction of the Windy City and said goodbye to Milwaukee.  Luckily, on the way, we were able to stop at the Jelly Belly Factory!  Also a free tour, we arrived shortly before it started.  They actually do the tour via the Jelly Belly Express...a train that goes around the factory and makes stops at different video screens, which explain the various steps that go into making the beans.  The process is pretty interesting, but the tour really just takes you around the storage area, so you don't get to see the factory so much as the volume of inventory, but you get to ride a train, wear a fun paper hat and get a free bag of jellybeans at the end, so I say go for it if you get the chance.  I will note that the employees do not seem nearly happy enough for people working around candy all day long.

After we went on a wild goose chase for some coffee and a decent route to Chicago (our GPS was being ridiculous), we got on our way.  Traffic was a bit rough, but we finally made it to our hotel around 4:30.  I think we probably did pretty well, actually, but we are so used to being on empty one-lane highways in the middle of nowhere, so the volume of cars we encountered today was a bit jarring.  We checked into our LQ, which is in a pretty decent location downtown and spent some time figuring out our plan for our time here...we are actually spending three nights in Chicago, the longest stop.

Around 6:30, we headed out for the train over to dinner.  We were excited about having some Chicago-style deep dish pizza, which I've never had, so we settled on Lou Malnati's.  We jumped at the chance for an outdoor table in order to avoid the 1.5 hour wait...they can only fit 20 people inside, so they will take your pizza order when you put your name on the list and promise to have it out to you 15 minutes after you're seated.  Since we sat right away, we had to wait a little longer for our deep-dish sausage pie, but it was a lovely night and we were able to do some fun people-watching (man dressed as hot dog dancing across the street pretty much the entire time we were there.)  I would say the pizza definitely lived up to the hype...great decision by us.

There was only one option for dessert following our pizza...Molly's Cupcakes.  Molly's is semi-famous outside of Chicago because of the radio talk show Ron & Fez.  Molly's owner is a friend of the show and when he opened the bakery, he named one of the regular cupcakes after Ron, and it's become the best seller.  Ron & Fez have pretty much accompanied us on all of our weekday drives, so we had to try this cupcake.  At around 9:00, the place was still hopping, so we decided to get 4 cupcakes to go.  Andy was very excited to get to meet Mike, the owner, who seemed really honored to have some R&F fans in the house...he even let Andy try on his famous "$3000 sunglasses."  I can't begin to believe they were actually $3000...but that's the rumor.  Turns out we are leaving NY just in time for Molly's to open up, but for those of you New Yorkers out there, you should be able to try your very own Ron Bennington shortly.

Time for bed...we have a very full day of sightseeing tomorrow!

35/36...Sioux Falls, SD/Milwaukee, WI

So, yesterday was our day to actually "visit" South Dakota.  We left Rapid City (sadly without having tried out the indoor water park) and drove to Mount Rushmore.  I think we were both a little unsure what to expect, as far as how big the sculpture would actually be (or I was, at least.)  As we drove up through the Black Hills, it was snowy and lined with pine trees...and suddenly you get a glimpse of the mountain!  We finally arrived and walked up to the Visitor Center.  Besides the actual sculptures, there are some walking trails and a museum.  Of course, the snow prevented us from getting on the trails, but we got some decent photos.  We learned there would be a ranger talk at 10:00, so we hung around for that, which lasted about a half hour.  We learned about the history of the area and the mountain, how it got its name, why they decided to carve and how they chose who would be on it.  We also got to see some mountains goats.  Afterward, we went down to the museum and saw a video about the history and one about the plants and wildlife in the park.  Our pictures are kind of sad because they all have water running down their heads, but it's definitely worth a visit.

As we continued our drive, we saw signs for one of the world's biggest tourist traps, Wall Drug.  The array of different items being advertised on these billboards was just too much to pass up...free ice water (the brilliant idea of the owner's wife back when the store had yet to build a reliable customer base in the 30's), an 80' dinosaur, an old-timey art gallery, free donuts and coffee for honeymooners...to name a few.  It's in the town of Wall, which wasn't too far off our route, so we had to stop.  Congratulations to Craig who won our Facebook photo game, featuring this must-see!  It's kind of hard to explain...it's really a bunch of smaller stores all attached to a pharmacy, like an indoor mall...and  you can't forget the backyard area with photo props, and the arcade building with the animatronic dinosaur.

From there, we drove over to Badlands National Park, which is made up of crazy rock formations, prairie lands and fossils, dating 34-25 million years ago.  When we arrived, on the opposite end from the Visitor Center, we were told at the entrance that the main road was being worked on, but we could proceed - it turned out to be miles of dirt and gravel, so it was a sloooow drive through, but we were able to get some nice photos at that speed.  We decided to get to the Visitor Center and then choose a short trail to visit, since we would have to backtrack.  The Visitor Center has a museum dedicated to all the animals that had been part of the park's history, including the ancestors of many animals we know today.  While Badlands looks like it should have been home to dinosaurs, we learned it had been underwater at the time, so they had crazy prehistoric marine life.  We chose the very, very short Fossil Trail, which has fossil display cases along the route.  From there, we drove out of the park and on to Sioux Falls, SD, really just a stop-over to break up the driving.

Not to get too much into it, but our Motel 6 in Sioux Falls was by far the worst hotel we've stayed in...we don't recommend it...enough said.  We were actually in such a rush to get out this morning that we were up and at breakfast by 7:30 AM.

Our day today was mostly driving.  Our friend Ariel had told us about a huge Jolly Green Giant cutout in Minnesota that we should check out...it had appeared to be on our route, in Le Seuer, but we had forgotten about it.  As we approached Blue Earth, MN today, we saw a billboard for a 3D Jolly Green Giant...so, we had to stop and get a look.  Turns out, Le Seuer is the birthplace of JGG, but for some reason, Blue Earth went ahead and one-upped them with this 60' tall fiberglass 3D version...good times.

We decided to spend the night in Milwaukee, WI, after much debate on which route to take to get to Chicago.  Turns out there are actually a couple of interesting tourist traps here that we'll be able to do tomorrow.  They also have a nice River Walk area downtown, which we went to tonight for dinner.  We wound up at a fun cheese shop, The Wisconsin Cheese Mart, that is also a small restaurant and bar, with cheese, beer and wine tastings...it kind of doesn't get much better than that combination.  We started off with some wine and beer and did a cheese tasting.  Then on to dinner: ham and cheese panini for me and a Usinger's Famous Sausage bratwurst for Andy...delicious.