Niagara Falls, did it all. The Queen of the Mist boat trip and everything. To be so close to the falls and hearing the thundering noise of the water exploding down over the drop was exhilerating. We also went down the stairway to under the falls itself and got absolutely soaked from the spray coming across from the falls. The yellow rain coat hoddies were next to uselss as the air was being forced so rapidly by the falling water, it was like standing in a hurric...

Galesburg, Illinois, last main stop before Chicago. Managed to reach the rental car company and relieved that they are open till 8:00pm. Can stop stressing now about missing the car pickup.

Crossing the mighty Mississippi River at Burlington, Illinois.

These country towns are quite quaint compared to our Aussie towns. Well just 5 more hours till we reach Chicago, but the downside is we are now over 2 hours late which means the car company may be closed. Will try to call them once I am in a signal area. Try to keep them open till we get there.

Once we came down out of the Rockies into Denver everything started to change almost instantly. After a peak of around 9,000 ft we came down into Denver at about 5,000 ft. Over night by the time we reached Iowa we had dropped to 2,000 ft. Now into Iowa it sits around 900 ft, so we're closer to the normal altitudes we are used to in Australia. This countryside is much like OZ, undulating pasturelands. The only thing that tells you it ain't OZ is the architecture,...