22nd September - We found out last night, after doing some research on the internet, that the State Capitol is actually open for tours today, and it's the Old State Capitol that is closed until Tuesday.We therefore went back into Springfield and managed to get there just in time for the hourly tour around the building.We were taken to the Senate Chamber, House of Representatives, Hall of Governors and other areas of interest around this Capitol building, which seems to be mainly made of marble from places in Europe such as Austria, Germany, Italy etc.During the tour we were informed that although the senators take a break between May and January, (this is not their main job and they are not paid for it, so unless the senators are of retirement age, most have full time jobs as well as their roles as senators) they had been called in to the Senate today to debate and vote on a special bill, which happens when there is a bill of special interest that needs to be voted on and cannot wait for the Senate to be reconvened in January and therefore the senators are recalled.We therefore decided, after the tour, to get some lunch in the Capitol cafeteria and wait for noon, when the Senate would be recalled and we could watch American government in action from the public gallery.Well noon came and went, as did 1 p.m.The American public in the gallery were increasingly unhappy, talking to us about their tax dollars being wasted, as at 1 p.m., an hour late, only 10 senators out of around 80supposed to be there had turned up.When they finally decided to get going at about 1.15 p.m. the display was a real shock. Senators spoke loudly to each other about their weekends while the Speaker of the house was trying to read out the bill, they continued to eat, drink and greet their old friends on the Senate floor, it was a real disgrace and no one could hear a word of what the Speaker was saying.The public in the galleries were obviously disgusted by this, but it seemed that this was quite a normal way to conduct business in the Illinois State Capitol!As soon as the Speaker had read the bill they called a recess!They were an hour and 15 minutes late and they called a recess almost immediately!Cue even angrier American tax payers. We then decided we could not wait any longer for things to actually start as our parking would be running out so we stepped out of the Chamber and some Americans who we had been on the tour with apologised to us for their Senators display, saying they were embarrassed and that this was a terrible example of how laws are made in America.They told us they had seen the Senate in action in California and, although it is quite relaxed there too, the Senators there would never show the disrespect of eating, drinking, being on their cell phones etc. while the Senate was supposed to be voting on a bill.We left feeling that the British way of government may not be the best in the world, but at least they show respect and actually bother to turn up when they are meant to!We then got back to the car to start out 5 hour drive to our next destination, Galena, also in the state of Illinois.

23rd - After a good night's sleep we drove about fifteen miles to the former home of Civil War general and subsequent president Ulysses S Grant. Which was closed! It is getting quite annoying but once the American's consider summer as over (i.e. from Labor Day, 1st September) all the tourist attractions start to either close on Monday and Tuesdays or only open on a weekend, which is really frustrating for us.Still the house is a pretty little wooded house on a hill overlooking the pretty little town of Galena in north-west Illinois. Although it was closed we looked around the grounds and peered in at the few windows without blinds before buying a few bottles of wine from a local winery and heading to Des Moines, Iowa (another good drive). A few miles into the trip we saw a couple of hitchhikers and decided to pick them up since they only wanted to go to the town we had slept last night, which was on our way. By the time we pulled over, the police had beaten us to it and were checking out the hitchhikers. Our minds started racing and we wondered whether hitchhiking or picking up hitchhikers was illegal here. Before we got time to decide whether to stay or drive off and leave them a cop had come over and asked if we were offering them a ride. We said yes and he started joking that a driver had phoned them to say a couple of juveniles were hitching (it was two women aged 23 and 25) so they had come from the department to ensure they were not kids. As we got chatting to our (very smelly!) cargo they told us they had hitched and jumped on the back of freight trains all the way down from Michigan with a friend who was on his way to Chicago and they were now heading back home. We didn't know that people could still get around America by hitching rides on freight trains (how Huckleberry Fin), but it sounded quite fun, if slightly dangerous. We dropped them off at the freight train depot and kept the windows down a bit to get rid of the smell - they'd not showered for a good while - and drove across Iowa and its endless corn on the cob fields to a place just outside the capital of Des Moines. Tonight we decided to go bowling (and, naturally, I beat Kirsty 2-0 - just!) before eating that much steak and ice-cream that we spent the rest of the evening waddling rather than walking.

24th - Happy birthday to our friend Libby!!Our first stop today was the Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge where our guidebook tells us there are elk and buffalo (buffalo and bison are apparently the same beast). The state of Iowa bought 8000 acres of farm to burn and replant with indigenous grass and animals to restore the area to prairie land i.e. how it was before the first settlers came. The visitor centre is quite good with lots of interactive stuff for kids and Kirstys to play with and a stuffed buffalo and elk. But, on our drive around the refuge, we were unlucky and saw no animals except a rabbit sized mammal that we couldn't identify despite getting within a few feet of it, possibly an otter. They have nearly 50 buffalo at the Refuge but they must have been hiding today. Disappointed we went to the next place on our list, the state capitol building in Des Moines and… oh my god… it looks like Liberace asked Austin Powers to do his interior décor! With more gold leaf, stencilled ceilings, mosaic floors and marble columns it is quite a beautiful eyesore. I don't mean it is ugly, it's not at all, it's just so opulent, busy and garish that it makes your eyes sore. We did the usual tour of the building taking in the political history of Iowa, the House of Representatives and Senate but here they give the public more access and let you see the Governor's reception room (and his office when he isn't in - and today he was), the old supreme court and the whispering gallery in the giant dome cupola (although you did have to climb about 130 spiral steps to get up there and it's quite dizzying and a long way to look down when you do). Next stop was Kansas City, Missouri, some 200 miles away through the rolling fields of America's breadbasket, where we found a cute little bistro selling pot pies (overly rich and salty unfortunately) and grabbed the first available hotel room before collapsing for the night. This part of America is so flat and hot that it's a completely different world from the cities and towns.

25th - We drove the short distance from our hotel to the visitors centre for ex-President Harry S Truman.President Truman lived in Independence for most of his life in the house where his wife was born (she later died there too in 1982).Independence is an incredibly pretty little American town, more like a village really, as most of American towns are, although the sunshine we get day after day does help.The first thing we noticed about this place was the amount of churches.You can not be in any part of Independence without having at least 3 churches surrounding you at any one time.Churches fill entire roads, side by side, one after another.The guidebook also said that this town is the centre of the Community of Christ, a Mormon splinter group.Overwhelming amount of churches aside, the town was really pretty and inviting.We bought tickets to tour Harry Truman's home from the visitor center and they put a video on for us there about his life in the house.It was a good video and really informative, with lots of photographs of him and his wife and daughter there.He spent so much time at the house, and tried to even when he was President, that it was nicknamed "the summer White House".We then went and met our tour group (just one other couple!) outside the house to begin our tour.Well, the house was amazing.As President Truman's wife Bess lived in it until her death in 1982 and then it was immediately transferred over to the National Park Service for people to come and visit, it has been left exactly how it was on the day she died, like a house frozen in time.Although Harry Truman died around 10 years before his wife, she missed his terribly and was lonely without him and so hadn't changed anything or touched anything of his since he died, so the house was exactly as it was when he died in the 1970's.It was so sweet to see she had left his coat and hat at the side of her coat in the hallway, as if he was still around. There was soap she used on the day she died exactly where she had left it, a calendar from 1982 with the days crossed off by Bess, the last date crossed off being the day before she died.Although you only get to tour the downstairs of the house as the Park Service felt that touring the upstairs would cause too much wear to the area, you really get a snapshot of their life, which was a fantastic experience as often the Park Service gets such historical homes a while after the famous occupants have left it, meaning they then have to try and do some recreation work.Our fantastic guide Jeff told us that when they went upstairs they even found President Truman's shorts, shirts, pyjamas and razor still laid there, as Bess had never moved them since he had been gone.All in all it showed what a down to earth man Truman was and that he had really tried hard to make sure that his stint in the White House didn't change him.It wasn't a massive house either, just a regular family home.Kirsty has decided that Truman is now her favourite US President (although that will all change if Obama wins the election!).Leaving there we started our 4 hour drive to our next stop, Hutchinson in Kansas where Ralph wants to visit a Space museum where he will be able to photograph the final Apollo space capsule of the set - no more hunting round for them after this!!On arrival we went to a real American hog pit food stop, where you could buy anything to eat as long as it was smoky, covered in barbeque sauce and accompanied by Texas toast - cheap and lovely!We went back to the hotel early as Kirsty wanted to watch season premieres of two of her favourite American shows, Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy, so I was left to play computer games on the laptop - and I feel I've been neglecting Championship Manager recently!!

26th - We genuinely woke up early this morning (for us) at 9.30! We'd set the alarm for 10.30 so we'd gained an hour. It's not as bad as it sounds, we didn't get to bed until 2.30 last night because of prolonged internet research to find a drive in movie theater that was still open in Autumn in Kansas. On our doorsteps was the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center which has the last Apollo capsule to complete the jigsaw. The museum starts off with a full sized, mock Space Shuttle, a genuine SR-71 Blackbird spy plane and a T-33 Talon NASA practice jet suspended in the lobby which are all very impressive. Then the museum itself has displays that takes you through the history of rocketry with a large emphasis on the Nazi's V1s, V2s and the London blitz; the Cold War (with an understandable bias towards the saintly leaders of the free world) and then the space race which chronicles the American and Russian efforts equally well. There are lots of Russian capsules and an original Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsule that have all flown in space. The Apollo 13 capsule completes the set for me (of seeing the Apollo 11-17 capsules that attempted moon landings - technically Apollo 8 and 10 also went to the moon but I'm ignoring them for the sake of Kirsty's sanity as they weren't technically lunar landing missions, although Apollo 10 is in a museum in London so I think I will be arranging a trip there on my return!). It was one of the better museums in terms of explaining the full story of post WWII politics, the Cold War and the Space Race. We then went straight back to the Hog Pit for me to get some more barbeque beef and ribs (they were so good last night) and Kirsty went to Freddy's for frozen custard (which is a Kansas speciality - and advertised as a smoother and creamier version of standard ice cream) and a malted chocolate milkshake that used frozen custard as well. The sugar will keep her awake all weekend and the calories should compensate for her having lost over half a stone since New York City. We then drove to Abilene, about 60 miles north of Hutchinson, but still in Kansas, to get a cheap hotel before we looked around another Eisenhower home and his burial ground tomorrow. The Eisenhower Curse struck once again as we found that the hotels were all doss-houses and full up! The closest place with available hotels was Topeka (the Kansas state capital) about 80 miles away so we've got ourselves a nice Hyatt hotel for two nights and we've had to, once again, give up on seeing an Eisenhower home. The plus is that we should get to go to a drive-in cinema tomorrow night.

27th - Today was always going to be a rest day, once we'd booked the nice hotel. We only came to Topeka because it had the closest hotel that was palatable and there's nothing to do here on a weekend day. I woke up to listen to Nottingham Forest get beat again, while Kirsty went to have her eyebrows waxed - ouch; and then we did our usual housekeeping (emails and journey planning). It was nice to webcam our parents and friends have a good chat - in Kirsty's case, by typing because we have an audio problem with MSN. Then we went down to the pool to have a sunbathe/swim, because this part of America is lovely and hot, before the main event today - an authentic drive-in movie! We turned up with our Chinese takeaway, paid about nine quid and parked up in the car park next to one of the wooden posts with a moveable speaker on it. There were only about a dozen other cars there but those with pick up trucks or station wagons (estate cars) had parked away from the giant open-air screen, opened up the back of their vehicle and sat underneath the stars to watch the film. Although you can get the sound by tuning into a specific frequency on your car radio, we had a go at hooking one of the speakers over the car window (as you are meant to) to listen to the 1950s music they played before the film started, in order to get the 'real feel'. We had a bit of a panic five minutes into the film (Righteous Kill with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino) when our food misted the windows up - we'd never considered that - but, because it was hot, we just wound the windows down and mopped the windscreen. The film was dreadful, in my opinion, but the experience was wonderful and you can stay and watch the next film if you want - no extra charge! Obviously we did (Traitor with Don Cheadle and Guy Pierce). With the seats back and our legs sticking out of the windows it was just wonderful. This film was much better and four hours had just flown by with the gentle chirp of crickets and the stars above to accompany the entertainment. This will always be considered one of our American highlights and if anyone ever gets the chance to go to one you have to do it - it's a once in a lifetime experience and a flashback to another era.We drove back to the hotel and crashed out - it was 1am by this time.

28th - Happy birthday to our friend Mark Hunns!Woke up to a few mosquito bites - the legacy of having car windows down for four hours! We now faced an eight hour drive ahead of us to reach Valentine in Nebraska and we even spotted a small cloud and a hill!.Half way through the journey we stopped off at Omaha (also in Nebraska) to see the birthplace of Malcolm X.The only thing of note as we started our journey was that Kirsty got chatted up at the gas station by an African American who, so confident in his skills, still tried to get her phone number even when she told him that she was here with her husband.It took Ralph returning from the kiosk before he finally gave up and drove away, still saying "sexy, soooooooo fine!" out of the window as he left!!We started our drive through Nebraska and noticed that this is where America hides its cows!We have often before said that we cannot understand where all the beef comes from that the Americans eat so much of, and it seems a large amount is from Nebraska.We have seen the odd cows here and there across other parts of America, but Nebraska's ranches seem to have a much larger number, each ranch holding pen after pen of cows. More importantly though; we saw our first herd of real buffaloes in a field. Shortly afterwards, on our long drive through the heartland in the blistering sun, the radio station was interrupted by a public information warning telling us (I presume it wasn't just for us though) that there was a thunder storm on its way with golf ball sized hail stones. I scoffed confidently that as we'd only seen one tiny cloud in 500 miles, and that was hours ago, there was no chance on Earth. The sky went dark and the bass rumblings around us were only outdone in their attempt to prove me wrong by the magnificent flashes of lightening and the occasional fork in the sky. By the time we got to our hotel we were treated to the most spectacular light show we've ever seen. There were (no exaggeration) two or three flashes that lit up the entire sky every second and an ominously close fork of lightening every twenty seconds or so, with hail stones, wind and rain that lashed down in accompaniment - all of which are still serenading us now as I type, two hours later.