Mr Leo and the macet.

Luggage loading. I saw mine go in earlier.

Lights on the water

We are just off shore and all the lights are small boats in the water. Heaps of them.

Getting off the flight in Jakarta.

I didn’t realise that we were going to land in terminal 2 instead of the normal T3. So the AI while at the baggage carousel came to the rescue and I found that all I had to do was get the skylink to T3.

Heading up an escalator to the skylink. No signs but my guess was right.

Looking at the doors for the train - that is one way to stop people getting too close to the edge of the platform.

Each side had these signs and the middle was for people to exit.

Still crowded at 9 pm on the skytrain.

I ditched the idea of pizza and went with a burger instead. The burger was disappointing but the chips came hot enough to burn my tongue and were perfectly salted.

Perfect chips.

Flying backwards in a suit.

A wet night in a massive airport.

So I understand that not sleeping is a thing. Usually I am always tired and able to sleep, why else would I sleep most days under my desk at work? But since Friday I have had no more than 3 hours of sleep each night. I should have conked out straight away when I boarded the plane at 1am but no, I sleep for 3 hours and the body thinks that is enough. Small secret, it’s not! My eyes are a not so pleasant combination of watery and burning. And my arm is burning in sympathy because of the flu and covid shots. On the plus side, my headache has gone and I am sitting in complete comfort, a rug on my lap and an apple juice just delivered to me by a friendly woman who is willing to chat a little about time zones and jet lag.

This plane is fancy. I have traveled business class before, quite a bit really, but I have never been in a cabin as fancy as this one. The doors on the suits, the electric plugs and usb chargers, even the bathrooms are high class with the toilet paper folded like that do in hotels. The thing is, the 51 year old jet lagged me was unable to figure out how to get the tap to work. \240I could change the temperature of the tap but not turn it on. Oh well, wet wipes in my bag worked too.

The brain teaser tap that I couldn’t get to work.

The screen out side of E4 to E8.

Considering everything outside in Doha is sand coloured and flat as a tack, it was quite pleasant to see that they had created a nice green space inside the airport.

Greenery inside Hamil airport.

Take a look at the images below of the beige city. Very clean, the water is a beautiful blue green colour. The buildings have great shapes.

Sunrise in Doha

A stadium in Doha

These are high, and the reflection in the calm water was cool too.

I don’t know what this building is but I imagine it is a fancy hotel, glamorous and chic.

More buildings.

Once again an interesting shape with lots of buildings. I imagine there will be a yacht club in there somewhere.

One of the many golf courses in NY

Court the super shuttle to the Sofitel New York. The hotel was not great. Someone else’s stuff was in the room. They had left rubbish there as well. But I rang reception and they came and got the bags. They left the rubbish.

View from our window

Twin room

Bathroom was ok

Stew came in late that night and we slept about 11:30pm.

Next morning we had left the room before 7am. Jet lag makes that possible! We had a nutritious McDonalds breakfast which I really enjoyed, of course! We had tried to find a cafe called City Caffe, but we went the wrong way and so just ended up with Maccas instead.

We walked ages and found the docs where we had a circle line cruise. It 2.5hrs and boy did we get sunburned. Just look at how red our faces are in the pics over the next few days. But the cruise was great and helped us get oriented as well.

The reason we did the cruise.

Stew and the Lady.

UN building from the water

The anchor. Apparently every apartment has a view of the water.

After the cruise was the Intrepid museum. It was based on an aircraft carrier and was very interesting. The volunteers was were all ex military and very knowledgeable. An aircraft carrier is huge.

Gun.

Stealth jet used for reconnaissance

Choppers

Me sitting in a navigators chair.

In the ‘island’ of the aircraft carrier.

An other interesting part of this museum was about space. The space shuttle Enterprise

Stew and the Enterprise

We were conscious of the time but I also wanted to see the submarine. We walked through the submarine but missed reading the pre information. 70 days at a time 90 sailors stayed on a tiny submarine. I could have done it but it wouldn’t have been easy. This sub patrolled off the Russian coast with nuclear weapons. Apparently all of the men volunteered for this duty. I don’t know why but neither Stew or I took photos of the sub.

The free bus taken from the Stanton Island ferry.

Next on the agenda was the Top of the Rock. We got ourselves on a bus, which turned out to be free, and we were around an hour early so we went and had pizza for lunch before heading back to the Rockefeller Building. The key thing I remember from the presentations was the photo shot on the builders sitting on a beam high up in the building with no safety gear and them just relaxed and smiling.

The Studios were always part of the Rockefeller Centre and are still used today.

Each of the view tours we have been on have video presentations in the lift. It takes your mind off your ears popping and being uncomfortably close to a dozen strangers for a couple of minutes. The view was great.

Central Park - view from the rock.

After appreciating the view hotfooted in back to the hotel, got changed and walked to the theatre to watch ‘The play that went wrong’. It was very funny, Stew loved it and of course this was my second time seeing it (last time was in London). Stew took a photo of the set before the play started.

The set before the show started.

Slept like the dead that night.

The second day started early but not as early as the first day. Still gung-ho but a more chill gung-ho. We started out with a muffin at the City Cafe, the very cafe we got lost trying to find yesterday. The food was ok and we had a place to sit. Next we made our way to the dinner where we met the lead of a TV tour. Stew found it interesting but for me the highlight was having to wait for the police to move out the homeless people out of the ladies toilets. They had been sleeping there but now there was a cue of women who needed to pee. In the end we had to go somewhere else and I was a little worried about getting back to the group on time.

The Ghostbusters fire station.

A view of the entire entrance.

The friends buildings.

Next was the Empire State Building viewing deck. Out of these two I preferred the Rock but this was good two.

Views of NY city

I took heaps of pics of my favourite building- the Chrysler Building.

More views

This is the dancing buildings

After the empire state we headed down to meet Hamish at the UN.

Outside the UN building

Hamish was very kind and we got shown through some very interesting places. Hamish is the same as ever and remains a kind man.

These rooms are quite impressive.

Hamish has worked here for the last six months.

Art or a statement?

In the Security Council’s room.

After Hamish had to leave we went explored the gift shop and Stew got himself a tie pin and some cuff links and Al some earrings all with the UN symbol.

By this time my feet were dying so Stew carried on with the Marvel tour and I headed back to the hotel to rest. Stew said the tour was great - he really learned a lot of interesting stuff.

We saw MJ the musical that night which was great as well. I think MJ might be added to my playlist for a while. Walking through Times Square at night is amazing. There are so many people! The colours and the noise. I purchased a few prints - 3 for $25. My bag is HEAVY!!

I waited for Stew at the Neil Simon Theatre.

The next morning we checked out and caught a taxi to the next hotel - The New Yorker up on 34th and 8th. We left our bags and got the subway to 161st street to have a Yankee Stadium tour. While there we found out that we could get souvenir Yankees shirts if we line up early. So we immediately changed our plans to get there by 4pm to line up. The stadium was great they had a museum that had a bat that Babe Ruth used and heaps of other stuff as well. We got to go into the visitors dugout and visit the memorial.

On the subway to Yankee Stadium

Pano in the stadium

The two bats were from Babe Ruth

Rememberance and retired numbers

Visitors dugout

The screen is the size of a basketball court.

After the tour we visited The American Museum of Natural History. Stew had a hotdog 🌭 for lunch and the we saw a couple of space videos and dinosaur bones. We could have spent ages there but baseball drew us back.

Waiting for the film to start. \240

So many dinosaurs 🦖

Ancient fish

Dinosaur

Me with dinosaurs

Stegosaurus

We left promptly at three to line up for our Yankees t-shirts. Sunburn on sunburn but it didn’t hurt too badly- just looked bad.

Our seats were good and we had hotdogs for dinner. We sat at the end of the row and every time someone wanted to leave we had to stand and let them past. I lost count how many times. Maybe twenty or so.

A loonng hotdog for dinner.

Player just arrived on the field.

Travelling back on the train was an experience. We were all packed in like sardines but the mood of the crowd was upbeat. The Yankees won 3-0 and people were happy. With only a couple of turnarounds we made it back to the new hotel and checked in. We met a couple in the lift that were going on our tour and they let us know the meeting time of 8am.

So yesterday we actually met our tour guide John. Such a nice man and very helpful. We started the tour with the group but ditched after the 9/11 memorial.

The new World Trade Centre

Memorial 2

It was really funny when the group ran into a squirrel. Now the majority of us are Australian so we don’t see squirrels and we are fascinated by them. We all stopped following the guide and instead started taking pictures of the squirrel 🐿️. He kept walking and turned around when he realised we weren’t following. What’s going on he said. Oh, a squirrel. Foreign tourists!

A squirrel near the 9/11 memorial.

We did the observation deck in the new WTC - it has the best views, better than the Rock and the Empire State.

Another view of Lady Liberty

New York

Me

A great view of inside the oculus building. An amazing place.

Next we found the North Face and got a New York T-shirt for Stasia and me. My feet were done for a while so I went back to the hotel but Stewart kept going. He saw the Library where they filmed ghostbusters and he walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge

The bridge

And again

Steps of the library

Art in the library

More art

Desks in the library

Later that night we caught the subway to 42nd street and ate at Dallas BBQ, caught the train back and was in bed by 10pm. We can see the basketball stadium from our bedroom window.

Madison Square Gardens

Heading out of New York.

We are travelling to Washington today but first we go through Philadelphia.

NY to Philadelphia

Our first stop in Philly was at the rocky steps, the steps in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The Steps.

Rocky

Stew went to the top and could see right down into the city.

View of Philadelphia city centre from the top of the steps

We have stopped off for around 2hrs near the Philadelphia visitors centre. We made our way to see the liberty bell and learn a little of its history. Typically American, the view is that it is a symbol of liberty for the world. If it is a symbol of liberty in Australia, I haven’t heard about it.

The Liberty Bell. The current bell is in the bell tour in the distance.

We wandered around a little looking to buy a Philly cheesesteak and found Betsy Ross cottage. She was the first person attributed to making the first 13 star flag.

Me at the cottage.

Info on the cottage.

The museum

We have popped in to a small cafe for the cheesesteak and a hoagie.

Old City Cafe.

We hotfoot it back to the bus, but are on time. We will eat on the bus. We have stopped at the Biden Centre (yes, that Biden) and had a cinibun. It was good and very sweet. I napped in the bus and we have another 2 hours drive until we get to the hotel so I may be napping again! 😴🤪

A share pack - so long it will last days.

We are at another older hotel but clean so I am happy.

The Sheraton Hotel in DC.

We went to dinner - crab cakes and fruit for desert. Now we are off to look at the sights.

The Hall of States

The Hall of Flags

This is such a lovely building. It has an amazing feel to it. Like it hasn’t been tainted by the politics even though it is used by politicians.

President John F Kennedy

While JF Kennedy is featured here I understand that it was his wife who had a lot to do with the diplomacy that was done here.

Another Hal - more flags in this one than the other hall. l

Diplomacy

Skyline

Skyline Sunset in DC. Stew says Hogwarts is in the distance. 😉

It is fully dark now so the pictures will either be great or a complete miss. We went to the World War II Memorial. It was very impressive.

WWII Memorial with the Jefferson Memorial in the far centre.

The wreaths are called Arsenal of Democracy and each has the name of a state underneath it.

The American flag flies at the memorial.

To finish the tour and the day we went to the Jefferson Memorial and walked up the steps to see the statues.

Jefferson memorial

Again the Thomas Jefferson Memorial from the side.

The dome was impressive- maybe more so than the statue.

The hall where President Jefferson resides

Getting back onto the bus I noticed that a lot of the people are tired. They are quiet and a little grumpy lol.

US marines memorial

Bell tower

Arlington Cemetery

It currently has around 400,000 and is expanding to add about 85,000 more. About 20 added here each week.

Next is the women’s memorial from the Vietnam war. 8 women died in that war - all nurses.

Women nurses

Women nurses

Three soldiers memorial. First African American soldier in a Statue. You can see them in tropical gear.

So this is the Lincoln memorial.

Stewart with Lincoln.

The view from the top.

Next is the Korean War memorial. The weather in Korea was either very hot or very cold.

Korean Memorial

Very poignant and true

Dead USA, 36,634; Missing 8,177; Captured 7,140 and Wounded 103,284.

Next stop is the Martin Luther King, JR. Memorial.

Quite a nice carving of Martin Luther King.

On the side of the memorial it says Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope.

Selfi.

The view across the water/pond is nice. 😊 started raining ☔️ so back to the bus well within our 20 minutes, lol. 😜

View across the water from the memorial-Jefferson memorial.

WWI memorial.

A visit to Washington isn’t complete without a visit to the Whitehouse.

The Whitehouse just before it started raining.

I left my rain jacket in the bus. When I asked Stew if we should bring it he said ‘What for?’ Now we know what for and I am wet 😜.

Tim is our first lost person. John Stew and Aaron have gone to look for him. Lost at the Whitehouse. I hope he doesn’t get lost at the baseball tonight!

Next stop, the Capital Building.

The Capital Building

This memorial is for General Grant.

General Grant on horseback.

Another war memorial in the nations capital.

After all the memorials we were taken to a stop just outside the natural history museum. And because we had already visited the natural history museum in New York we chose to go to the International Spy museum instead. It was primarily aimed at 12-18 years but all the information was factual and I thought it very interesting. We spent a happy few hours solving puzzles and watching videos.

A screenshot of the beginning of a series of puzzles.

A screenshot of me on disguise.

A screenshot of Stewart in disguise. He really does look different I think 🤔.

By the time we finished spying we had just enough time to eat at a fast food pizza place (we didn’t eat pizza but something round that looked good but I think I would prefer pizza in the future) and get back to the natural history museum to pick up Tim and Aaron and go to the baseball game.

A fountain on the way to the station. I sat on a chair and got a wet but. The wind must have been blowing the water from the fountain.

This is inside the train station. So much cleaner than the subway in NY.

We made it to the Nationals Ball Park but we found the rules a lot stricter here that in NY. We had to hire a locker to put our backpacks in.

We had front row seats and we watched the team warm up. The kids kept waiting for the players to throw them a ball.

Unfortunately the weather turned bad and a lightning storm caused the game to be cancelled. They don’t give refunds, only transfer to another game. We are out around $100 USD.

Putting the covers on the field.

We caught the train back to the Pentagon City Station and then waited for the hotel shuttle bus to arrive and go back to the hotel. Early to bed - and probably needed. The only good thing to come from the storm.

A maps screenshot of the drive today.

We spent some time on choosing optional tours.

Our choice of tours.

The country views are lovely.

Rolling hil views from the bus.

We stopped at a Maccas around 10:20 for half an hour. I went into a pharmacy for some Panadol. You buy in bulk here!

Apparently Acrtaminophen is Paracetamol.

Heading north we past someone’s version of the Statue of Liberty. Made out of wood and Venetian Blinds. A rich kid with nothing better to do. We continue on while listening to old peoples music 🎼🎵🎶

A 17 foot high Statue of Liberty.

We stopped at the Wegmans for lunch. Stewart found some Luck Charms, milk and a spoon. He even went back and bought seconds and thirds and ate them all at lunch.

The Tioga water ford.

Another stop, the Dansville Travel Centre, full of cultural differences like selling scratchies in a vending machine, rows of Jerky and a mini hardware store and men’s clothing. I reckon a heap of tradies would go through here.

Travel stop in Danesville.

A scratchie machines for bored or desperate truckers.

When we finally landed at Niagara Falls, we dumped our luggage and set out to see the falls. We got distracted on the way and ended up on a zombie ride, a toy ride that made us sick (🤢 Stew had to shut his eyes), dinosaur golf, a wax museum (which wasn’t much good) go carts and lastly the Sky Wheel.

Zombie ride

18 holes of dinosaur golf. Stew won 54 to 56.

Go carts

Go carts.

Wax museum.

Wax museum.

After the wax museum we went up in the sky chair. The view was great but there was a lot of reflections in the cabin so the photos were not the best.

View of the falls from the chair lift.

View of the put put course from above.

After that we went along the shore and took many many pictures of the falls. The closer to the falls the wetter we got. All the fog looking stuff is the mist of water from the falls.

Both parts of the falls.

They change colours sometimes. We missed out on the rainbow when we were down there.

Red falls.

Blue from just behind them.

Temple

Part of the temple complex.

The water comes out here from the falls. It’s flowing very fast and hard.

The water at Niagara Falls originates from the Great Lakes, specifically Lake Erie. The Great Lakes are the world's largest surface freshwater system, and Lake Erie, in particular, contributes significantly to the Niagara River flow. Precipitation and groundwater replenish the Great Lakes. The water then flows from Lake Superior, through the Niagara River, and eventually empties into Lake Ontario, and then the St. Lawrence River, before reaching the Atlantic Ocean.

The river flow changing direction.

Next is the Flower Clock. It has been around since the 1950s and around 16,000 flowers are used making it.

Niagara Parks Clock.

The clock is fine but I preferred looking at the Tulips.

Tulips

Tulips

BTW, this is our bus. Comfortable leather seats and table trays are great. Also Stew and I have 2 seats each to ourselves- makes a big difference in comfort too.

Our bus 🚎

I was last getting on the bus this time. I thought I was waiting for some others getting on but it turns out they were from another group. My own group was watching me and wondering what I was doing just standing there. Stew says he was all embarrassed 😳.

This is where the water from the falls makes a right turn.

Around 5,000 bodies have been recovered from the base of the falls. 19 people have tried going over the falls in barrels 6 died.

I did a slow mo of the falls.

The Horseshoe Falls at Niagara Falls-slowmo.

We did a behind the falls tour. The cruise doesn’t start until next week so we missed out.

We were given ponchos to wear because the spray from the falls is like a light rain when you are this close.

The Falls are loud and amazing to see up close.

The tunnel had blue light. I asked one of the employees and he had no clue as to why the light was blue.

Another tunnel - no blue. You can’t see much really, but this is behind the falls. Some people have thrown in money.

Good luck coins and the falls.

A lovely sea green colour in the falls.

A family of ducks - I doubt they swim in this part of the river. The little ones would be dragged out.

A maple cream cookie - delicious 😋

Tomorrow we will visit the Henry Ford museum so today during our travels today we are watching a documentary about Mr Ford, who undoubtedly was a genius with machines but wasn’t really a nice man.

We stayed at the Best Western last night. The hotel is pink and the call it the pink palace. I prefer the pink peril because the place is a rabbit warren and you are at danger of getting permanently lost.

All the corridors have picture after picture of classic cars, there would be several hundred of them.

The Pink Peril.

No cars pictures in the rooms though.

Our room

Tomorrow visit the Henry Ford museum today.

The bell tower at the main entrance to the museum.

Presidential vehicle

Presidential vehicle

Early vehicles

This one reminds me of the chatty-chitty bang bang vehicle.

Old car

Lovely old car.

Vehicles in WWII were very adaptable. This jeep could transport people, transport wounded, and become a mobile armoured machine.

Speed racing

Apple computers that I remember from childhood.

I had one of these

And one of these

And this one too.

My best friend Catherine had one of these in 5th grade

This picture is for Al. A combine. Stew sat in it and I took some photos for Al.

There were several doll houses

Henry Ford was a bit of a fiddler and enjoyed the music and dancing. In later life he bought several violins that he like the sound of.

Dining room chairs. Why are they here? Who knows.

Folding tables for mum. I think perhaps my grandfather was something like Mr Ford.

A pull-out of a model T Ford.

An experiment on probability.

We made it to the bus with 2 minutes to spare. Mac and Cheese for lunch. Now we head to Chicago.

We have arrived in Chicago and it really is the windy city! It is cold and windy but beautiful too. The phone is saying it is 10 degrees right now.

Check out the waves in the water!”0

This is Kapernakis, the polish astronomer. He sits in front of the planetarium (which isn’t open while we are here 🤨).

We drove past the North Face store on the way to our hotel so we walked there and got Anastasia her shirt. Now we are sitting in Gino’s East pizza place wait for what John says is exceptional pizza.

Gino’s East of Chicago.

The City is very proud of their Pope.

There is a lot of history behind baseball in this city. The Sox came to this stadium in 1991. Both teams are low on the ladder but we are hoping for a good game. They are playing a bit of AC/DC before the game starts. Good choice. 👍 we have seats that aren’t as good in NY but we paid heaps more in NY and now I understand why.

The field from our seats. Lots of kids around us because we wanted the Harry Potter hat.

It got dark while we were at the game - it got colder too!

Migraine day today so I’ve missed a bit that Stew did. I’m totally jealous! He walked about 10km before coming back to the hotel though so I was better off sleeping 🛌.

Stew went to Navy Pier first. It was close to the hotel.

Navy Pier has a lot of fun things including the wheel in this picture, a children’s museum, opera house, theatre and park.

Flags on the pier. The second flag is the US one and the third flag is Chicago flag.

Baseball is big in Chicago

A view of the pier.

Tulips and the Chicago skyline.

This is the peanut at Millennium Park

Stew was really taken with the peanut at this park. He thought it was great. It’s on my agenda for the next trip 🤪

I like the reflections.

This is under the peanut. Still lovin the reflections.

This is an amphitheater

A monument to the people who created milenium parks.

Stew caught the train and the L, and visited the library as well.

We left for the Architectural Cruise on Lake Michigan at 11:30am. We walked, and it was really nice to see the detail on some of the older buildings.

Buildings

More buildings. Funny, there are many many buildings in a city!

Trump tower from the tour boat.

We are in the loch here so we can be raised 3 feet and get into the lake.

Lake Michigan is freshwater and supplies around 5 million people with water. It is one of the 5 Great Lakes, the most populated of the 5 but Lake Superior is the largest.

The end of Navy Pier from the water.

The lighthouse warns sailors of the break wall that protects Chicago from the waves.

The gap in the break wall so boats can enter. \240

The Corn cob buildings. These are residential and the have valet parking only.

This building is privately owned- once by the Kennedys.

Lunch at Portillo’s. Good hotdogs. The cake was excellent.

We bought some popcorn too!

We saw this car on the way to the game. Stew was pretty taken with it. It wasn’t only us stopping to take a picture of it.

The Field Stadium

And then we caught the train to the game, with Mark, Tim and Aaron. And when we got there we found Phil (she is a Philamena) and David.

The White Sox won 6 to 2 against the Marlins. Home to bed ended the day.

Today’s travel plans.

We are here so early I could stand in the middle of the road to take this photo.

The middle of Michigan Avenue.

Road sign.

I just saw the Gig on the Green Instagram post. It looks fantastic. I wish I could have been there and here at the same time.

Check out the video.

Screenshot of Gig on the Green video.

Out of the city the land is flat and green. The buildings are sparse. You feel like there is lots of room and you can breathe more freely.

Fox River.

There are lots of big buildings now and I realised after a bit that they are all related to vehicles- Honda, Gulf etc.

Car factories. 🏭

John tells us that we will see a lot of farms today. Primarily dairy and some corn fields. Apparently Wisconsin is known for its cheese.

Dairy farm.

We passed the Chrysler factory and it was so large I took a video. I didn’t get it all so double or triple the size of what you see in the video.

Video of the Chrysler factory.

Our first stop was at 10am just outside of Wisconsin. We had a choice of Breakfast at 10 or lunch at 11am. Stew and I are holding out for lunch but in the meantime we are snacking on lollies, lol 😂

Welcome to Wisconsin.

The Harley Davidson was invented in Wisconsin. But farming is the main product here.

The bacon and maple taffy wasn’t that great. Just edible, never again.

Further on our travels we get to Madison.

Madison’s capital building is the tallest building in Madison. It’s surrounded by lakes.

We stopped for ll a 1.5 hr lunch and we went through the state building. Very interesting and as usual full of history. There was a farmers market that was grea and if I was staying here I would have bought heaps of food- all fresh produce and delicious looking.

The State Capital Building

I tried to get the size but couldn’t quite get it.

I did two panoramas, one for horizontal and one vertical.

The building was about 6 stories.

View from the observation deck.

Other side view.

Stew getting creative with his photos. I settled with the panoramic pics.

This is what he came up with.

The roof. Was it worth while?

Lunch - a cheese and pepperoni thing. I still prefer a pizza but this was pretty good. 👍

Back on the bus 🚎. ………….. we arrived at the hotel and I went to bed but Stew went to the game with the others. He was up in the nosebleeds this time but thought the position better than the night before. I had the best seats though because I watched the game on the TV 😜

Target Field is the home of the Twins.

View from level 3

Scoreboard

View of the field.

A Stew selfie.

The game was over by 8:15pm. Home for an early night.

From the first side.

A bird I haven’t seen before. It is all black with a red and white spot on the side.

The second side netted better pictures and the views were beautiful.

Sign post.

There were walking trails on both sides.

The Mississippi is used for hydro electricity

View of the skyline. 🏙️

We next visited the sculpture gardens and there was a art fare on with some nice stuff. Once again I would have loved to have bought some things but no room in the bag 💼. The sculptures were very modernist and so not to my taste but there was a big blue chicken. Ugly but I knew what it was. No clue as to the meaning behind it.

Blue chicken

This one is called Saint in black. He was in a black brick circle.

We arrived at the Mall of America.

The North entrance.

Ok so the Mall is just a mall with a fun park in the middle. We did the ‘cruise over America’ and ‘Cruise over Hawaii’ which were great videos where you sit in a seat that is raised off the ground and you feel like you are flying with wind in your face. I loved it. 😻

We had lunch, went to the North Face for Anastasia (they didn’t have the shirt she is looking for) and went to a boot store and got Stew a couple of belt buckles. Then we went to the Minnehaha falls by bus and train.

Minnehaha Falls

The river leading to the falls.

There is a popular park nearby. The lines for food and drinks were insane.

Kids playing with bubbles in the park.

Then we headed back to have dinner and an early night.

Today’s itinerary

Google maps for start to destination but we didn’t go that way, we detoured for the corn palace.

Alternative route for the corn palace.

A typical farmstead here.

Our half way. Shows the states we have gone through so far.

A normal view from the bus on Monday. The place is very flat.

The Corn Palace. You can see the corn cobs if you zoom in. \240They died the corn in different colours to make the pictures.

This is the basketball court with the corn pictures on the walls.

In the stadium the images are swapped out every few years but the picture designs remain the same. I imagine the corn would get a bit beat up because of being hit by the balls! \240

The outside corn pictures.

The corn outside is changed every year and the new pics are designed and created by art students at the local college. They change over every September. This years theme was wonders of the world. You can pick them out if you zoom in.

The sign outside with the Statue of Liberty behind.

Cornelius

We only had another hours drive to the hotel but we stopped of at the Lewis and Clark memorial first.

This is the Indian lady that was important in the travels of the expedition successful.

Wigwam.

Lewis and Clark memorial bridge explanation.

View from the memorial. If you zoom in a lot and a bit more you will see the memorial bridge.

The marina behind the hotel.

Sunset at nearly 9pm

View from the marina.

Stew and I thought to watch a baseball game but couldn’t figure out the tv. We gave up and went to bed instead!! 🤪😂

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

I needed 2 screenshots to cover today. 🙂

The route today, which of course may change.

More flat farmland

While I have a free minute between educational videos on the bus, today they are about prairie dogs and the badlands, I thought I would mention that we have rotating seats on the coach. We move clockwise about 4 seats every day. That means that today I am sitting on the left side of the bus. There is usually a better view on the side I am not sitting on. 😜😂 I expect the terrain to change as we move closer to the badlands.

We have just had our first stop and saw prairie dogs.

Prairie dogs and their mounds

Prairie dog standing up.

Great Rest stop. Lots of tourist stuff to buy.

Heading into the badlands.

There will be several stops through here and I will take heaps of photos so I hope this won’t be too boring 🥱.

A notice.

The badlands

We stopped at the visitors centre and the had some informative displays on palaeontology, erosion and the grasses and animals. The erosion is supposed to have begun around 500,000 years ago and they are predicting that they will be gone in another 500,000 years. They get a lot of snow, not much rain but flash floods and prevalent in this area.

The visitors centre is located at the bottom of the badlands.

An example of the displays they have in the centre.

A video may be better to see the vast magnitude and magnificence of the badlands. Also, it was named the badlands because of how hard it was to pass through them. The French named them in the 1700s.

Press play to see a short film of the badlands.

We did a fosil trail that tried to inform us about fossils, evolution of dogs and horses etc. Of most interest to me is the age of the soil and rock that is left.

A sign about the layers of rock.

Layers of rock. 34 million years ago, at the bottom, was a sea or river.

Rock.

More rock!😮😜

Here I am!

I can see for miles and miles.

The red is iron oxide and the yellow is Sulfur from volcanic activity.

Red and yellow colours in this rock.

Juniper pines amongst the rock

There were great views at the pinnacle site. Lovely. I could share photo after photo and I wouldn’t be able to show how good it was in person.

At the pinnacle lookout.

Rocks.

We saw some bison 🦬 on the plains. I know, you can’t see them, but they are there!

Interestingly enough, once you are out of the badlands you go back to flat plains and farmlands.

We have seen so much today and we are only now having lunch! We had lunch at a tourist town called Wall. Tourist shop after tourist shop. I bought a silver belt buckle that I love and put on in the bus straight after I got on.

We are travelling now towards Mt Rushmore which has the 4 sculptures of US presidents. Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt.

In the visitors centre there were some photos.

More history

More.

Flags and presidents.

I took heaps of pics that look pretty much the same.

Pines and presidents.

We travelled to Crazy Horse tonight for a tour and then dinner. Crazy Horse is suppose to be way bigger than the previous sculpture and you can see that and it is nowhere near finished yet.

This a poster at the front gate.

My Rushmore covers 10,000 square feet and the crazy horse encompasses 300,000 square feet.

Crazy Horse had been in progress since the 1970’s. New technology is making the progress faster but they still have no expected end date.

They have a bone yard of old machines previously used to build.

Part of the bone yard.

We had a buffet dinner which was really quite good and then wandered about a bit looking at Indian art and the gift shop. Stewart bought another buckle. He will have lots of choice when he returns home.

A gate full of animals found in the local area.

Pictures on the wall.

Tee pee

After arriving back at the hotel I did some washing and read while waiting, sitting on an old but reasonably comfortable chair.

The ‘waiting for my clothes to dry’ chair.

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and cold. I need to wear layers!

Lovely views. Beautiful pines here and the reflection is great too. I will probably take too many photos of the same thing lol. 😜

Today’s agenda.

We are expecting to see more bison today and some big horned sheep. Saw some pronghorn. They have a white behind and look like deer, but are actually pronghorn. (I’m quoting John here, I’ll have to look that up).

Pronghorn.

There is a big sky in Wyoming. Beautiful place. The clouds are so low!

Low and beautiful.

In the distance you can see Devils Tower.

We watched a video of Devils Tower but it wasn’t in our itinerary. Next trip.

We broke after 2 hrs (Wendy, our driver has to rest every 2hrs) and had breakfast at yet another tourist and truck stop. I ate a cheese pizza and Stew has pop tarts! \240As you can see, today is all about the healthy options.

Back on the bus they are watching a film about the latest forensic findings on the battle of Custer. I have turned up Spotify as loud as it goes so I don’t have to listen to the identification of gun shot wounds and axe wounds. It actually hurts me to think about war today. Good thing I never made it through the physical for the RAAF.

The Wyoming landscape continues to keep me enthralled with its beauty and, as it is overcast as well, I am happy.

Cloudscape.