Day 296, 26 April 2013, Navy Pier, Accidental visit to the Smith Stained Glass Museum, Farewell Chicago and hello to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York via Amtrak sleeper to Buffalo-Depew (New York State) - Niagara Falls here we come!
We had freshly made & toasted sandwiches and a coffee and wifi hit next door to our hotel (the venerable Inn of Chicago) and then headed off on foot to visit Chicago's iconic Navy Pier (yes - once home to a training facility for the US Navy). These days it's a massive entertainment facility including a ballroom, a fun park, retail areas and the Smith Museum of Stained Glass - which we'd never ever heard of. We have of course heard of Tiffany however. That's right big shop with the little blue box was started by Louis Comfort Tiffany who's main claim to fame was glass. He revolutionised stained glass when he essentially started painting with glass instead of painting on it. That's right - lampshade man. We were stunned at the beauty and impact of some of the windows he created using different types/colours and effects on glass. For an accidental museum visit it took quite a while to walk through but eventually we made it to the end of Navy Pier. It was on the way back, along the outside, that we saw our first really disturbing dietary extravaganza. Fried dough. Yep - not a doughnut (donut?) but actual flat out fried dough. Which of course isn't quite unhealthy enough - so you can jazz it up with cream, nuts, sugar syrups etc. (Photos in album for anyone else fascinated with culinary delights). We were finally exhausted and headed back to the hotel to collect the bags and decamp to Union station - the next leg of the adventure begins with an overnight train journey to Niagara Falls. We were on a more modern train this time and the evening started (and finished) with wine and cheese in the dining car - too late for dinner unfortunately with a 9.30 pm departure. Funny old night - it was 11 ish by the time we settled into our bunks and the room attendant woke us up at the ungodly hour of 6.30 am. Which I couldn't figure out as we didn't get to Buffalo til 9 am.... As it turns out we crossed a time zone in the night and clocks had jumped forward an hour. Just not ours! We jumped off in Buffalo and looked out hopefully for our checked luggage. And looked. And looked and asked and looked. James visited the bathroom and came back to see the train leaving the station..... Arrgh. No drama - they'd hidden the bags in the station masters room and just as we were starting to exhibit strong signs of concern (PANIC!), he popped his head out the door and said "Anyone with checked baggage?" And off we went to Niagara Falls (our second waterfall visit on the world wide adventure - will be interesting to compare to Victoria Falls in Zambia).