Chicago had been on our list of stops originally but then taken off due to its position which would make it a difficult place to visit, but after some consideration we decided we would head north from Lynchburg and see Chicago after all.

The route we took to Chicago was pretty much the only one we could go without taking several days to get there and as we were already spending nights in the car driving into or through the night we didn't need to add to that, but it meant we hit a road toll which we were ok with as it was only a small amount.

Once at Chicago we felt like we had really found the true American style city that Miami had been lacking in the way of buildings and overhead railways in the street. We had selected a chain of things to visit in one day, we felt this possible as Chicago is a nice place to stop as apposed to a things to do city. We took a route past several statues or buildings that had importance in either a financial way or art deco way meaning there was either something or nothing to see depending on which one it was.

On our trip round the city we went to 'Millennium park', which is a massive place set over different levels and bang in the middle of the city with some bizarre things in it. It is popular with families as it has two big glass block towers at its front which are flat water falls, the water runs down all four sides of the towers and displays different faces on one of the walls via some clever lighting. When the mouth of the face opens a jet of water shoots out around 20 feet in distance from around 15 feet up the wall, soaking anything or anyone in its path! Obviously the kids play chicken with this which makes an interesting watch for the parents reaction.

A giant silver allegedly cloud shape object, also known as 'the bean' sits on the top part of the park and has a perfect mirror finish, it does however dip inward or upward inside making for a short or fat or thin you depending where you stand. A nearby garden is a place of tranquillity for the overworked Chicago office staff who quite clearly come here to escape the reality of the stress of work, grabbing ten minutes for a coffee or sandwich before checking their watch and dashing off back to work.

Outside of the local gallery and museum there was a clear problem still at the forefront of the American peoples minds, this was the war in Iraq and the now ex president George Bush. It was hard to get the full gist of what exactly the group were trying to achieve especially seen as Bush is out of office, but still there they were.

After generally taking in the views we headed to the far side of the city to see a fountain said to be quite a sight spurting out 100's gallons an hour. Now admittedly this was a beautiful piece of work and quite big but it was a fixed one so had no dancing pattern so only warranted a short viewing.

Chicago was very pretty and had some amazing things in Millennium park but as it was all looking as apposed to doing the best way to put this place across to you is for you to look at the pics and see what we did, so enjoy.