Last pics of Chicago

We spent about 6 hours Thursday walking all over downtown Chicago, from the loop, to Navy Pier, back to Grant Park, and on to the Art Institute for the free late night on Thursdays. Only then did we realize how our inactivity over the past two months has affected out muscles, as we limped all over yesterday:( Well worth it though...I'm quite lucky to be from one of the best cities in the world;)

Click on the photos to make them larger. Clockwise, they are: a painting on a building in the Loop, Union Station, the city from Navy Pier, somewhere in the loop, night time in the city, the Art Institute, the Bean in Millenium Park, a close up of the Bean, the El, Cultural Center, Navy Pier, and the Chicago River.

The Country Bus

Here I was all worried I wouldn't be able to get transport into the city from Steve's folks house, but lo and behold, I found...the Country Bus!

Doing the big pack

Countdown is now 13 days and it's time to organise and pack up, yet again. I've spent part of this morning cleaning my shoes and sponging off the wheels of my suititcases. The former included taking a small screwdriver and scraping out bits of muck and little pebbles from the crevices of my sandals. I'm not being anal---these are Australian environmental rules. I guess if your shoes etc have any traces of soil and whatnot, they get tossed...as would your suitcase!

Detroit & Henry Ford

Spent our V-day this year at the Henry Ford museum and factory. It was surprisingly much more interesting than I'd anticipated;) Best of all, the 300 schoolchildren who were supposed to be visiting that day were stuck at home as school was cancelled on account of the snow. For as many times as I've visited the Detroit area, I don't ever remember seeing the downtown. It seemed like a mini Chicago to me, with some fantastic architecture. Pics, going clockwise, are: the Uniroyal tire on I-96 just before Dearborn, GM headquarters, a Canadian snow plow, a description of pic 5, see pic 4, and a shot of downtown Detroit.

Arizona pics

Here's some photos from our trip to Tucson. Images are small so just double click them to open larger.

From top to bottom, going clockwise from the left-hand corner, they are:

Myself outside the Mission San Xavier del Bac
Hearse at the Bircage Theatre
Grave at Tombstone's Boothill Graveyard
Shop at Tubac
Hotel in Bisbee
Outside of shop in Tubac
Us in the mountains (near Old Tucson Studios & Saguaro National Park)
Interior of Birdcage Theatre

Steve's American experiences

Interesting-nesses:

1. Steve: "Susan, quick come down here for a second."
Susan: "What?" (upon reaching the front door)
Steve: "It's gone now."
Susan: "What's gone?"
Steve: "A rabbit!"
Susan: "Um, so...they're all over."
(I guess they don't have them in Australia. There were so many they built a fence to keep
them out, so you only see them out in boopity-bop-ville.)

2. At Dunkin Donuts one night
Steve: "What flavour is namon?"
Susan: "What?"
Steve: "Namon, see over there (pointing to the Munchkins)."
Susan: "LOL!"
Steve: "What?"
Susan: "That's Cinnamon! The first few letters are covered over by the other one."