Road trip to Yellowstone National Park

The start to the winding roads of the rocky mountains

Hiking in my pyjama bottoms and hiking boots...attractive! All my other clothes were tucked in the boot of the car  in my back pack so its was either this or boots and a dress. Was a difficult choice! 

Lake in the Rocky Mountains

Wild camping...first free nights accommadation! 

Russ playing chef...BBQ pasta! 

Boys will be boys! 

Grand Teton Mountain Range

Camping in Grand Teton National Park. Russ was in charge of the fire while I was tent putter upper and bed maker! Having no roll mats meant we had to make do with layers of clothes under our sleeping bags!  

Sunbathing with the view of the Grand Teton snow capped mountains! I went for a dip in the water and had leeches  on my feet! Luckily I didn´t go any deeper. Eurgh!

Chicago Continued...

A rock tribute band which played all the classics...Richard would have loved this. I did film an awesome guitar solo but I lost my camera...NOOOO.

´The Bean`



Russ and the reflection of the sky scrapers.



Street entertainment...



An amercian wedding...XXL!!



Watching the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field



Russ at his very first american football game. We did some good barting to get these tickets, practically 2 for 1...Winner! 

Laying on the beach with the sky scrapers behind us! Different!



Chicago

Saw this and thought of mum and her serious addiction to cooking...miss home meals already!

Jazz in the park...with a beer and our very own ´hostel´ made pasta.

This photo was taken quite early on. We got there at 6, an hour before the jazz started, and found ourselves a good spot. Little did we know what we had in store! By the time the show started hundreds of people started to arrive and we might as well of had people sitting on our laps! If a tiny bit of grass was showing between our blanket (sheet from the hostel!) and the next persons then somebody would sit there. We even had people come along a place a chair right in front of us...it really was a dog eat dog war! We could only laugh but it was a great night just chilling with a live jazz band. 

The jazz stage all lit up at night fall.

Day two in Chicago we headed to the Lincoln Park zoo...best zoo we´ve ever been to and it was free!

A seal show we went to see. It wasn´t a cruel touristy show it was an open viewing of the zoo keepers making the animals do certain things to check the health and fitness of the animals. If the different animals didnt want to take part then the keeps left them alone. Here the seal is waving so that the keepers can check its flippers for any damage. The shows are only once every other day so we were lucky to catch it.

Otters...these guys were so funny.

Seal coming to say hello...I won´t bore you with too many animal clips I promise!

Leopard...gorgeous animal!

Russ thought it´d be funny for me to have a photo taken with the bears nuts! NICE!

This hippo had a massive enclosure but this part was literally a pool full of fish. The hippo would literally flop into the water, walk along the ground of the pool stepping on anything in its way and catch whatever fish he fancied for dinner. Catching the fish was so effortless. He just swam/walked, opened his mouth and an fish, in the wrong place at the wrong time, just ended up in his stomach within seconds! 

The lion enclosure

Perparing dinner at the hostel...Spaghetti Bolognese. Was so amazing...oh the little pleasures in life!

Chicago down town at night

We wanted to see a show and this was the cheapest! Circque de soleil. I don´t know how we managed it but we had to practically ran across from our hostel to the other side of downtown Chicago to get to the show on time. By the time we were there and got over and sweating and panting the show was over. It only lasted about an hour!

Most impressive part of the show. This was a sphere cage with three motorcyclist going around the inside walls at all angles while a man stood in the centre! Crazy! (Reminded me of the episode of the Simpsons where Homer has loads of attempts to ride one full vertical lap of the cage to win money)and keeps landing on his head!)

Navy Pier was a great place day or night with loads of entertainment, bars, fun rides, shops and restaurants.

Looking back at the sky scrapers from the pier...stunning!

We asked an old guy to take this photo and he really didn´t have a clue! We had 2 pictures of his nose before this one!!

Camping in Devils lake (by Lake Michagan)

We caught the bus over night from Niagara to Chicago and met a guy called Ross who kept us entertained the whole way. He was so funny and turned out to be a hotdog connoisseur! We'll fill you in on the details when we are back. We've been keeping a diary everyday...with a memory like mine I have to. We arrived in Chicago with no where to stay so after 6 hours of walking around the city with our back packs we ended up renting a car and staying in a hotel (the radisson!!!) on the outskirts. lastminute.com was our saviour for cheap deals. We then took the car north to a place to Devils Lake and that's where the pictures begin...

Camping in Lake Michigan with our $19 tent from a supermarket! Our home for 3 nights! The mosquitos were mad hence the striking outfit!

Chef Le Feuvre making dinner of flame grilled sausages!

Dinner time! Russ was very proud of himself as you can tell by the look on his face here!

I was debating whether or not to even put this picture up but here you go. Swollen eye lids from no sleep! Tenting on the hard floor with no roll mats for protection is a no no!

Cereal for Breakfast in the woods...how organised are we!

Lunch down by the Devils Lake

Russ taking a dip in the lake...on his own! It was too cold for me. Notice the lack of swim wear!

On our hike that took us up way above the lake...oh they're Russ's Boxes drying out by the way!

What a view! Loved it!

Further along the path...stunning! It was so quiet up there, good spot to catch our breath.

Part of the walk we did around the lake was like this all the way to the highest point above the lake (loads of big rocks formed stairway to the top) POOPED!!

A stone formation called 'Devils Gate'.

View over the forest below

 

Chilling out enjoying the view...so much more relaxing then marking books and screaming teenagers period 5 on a friday!

Dinner time number three! There aren't any photos of dinner time number two as we couldn't managed to light a fire...we had to have jam sandwiches in the dark!

Proud Man! Chicken burgers and roast potatoes on the fire...that he made! Chuffed? Just a bit!

Roast/charcoal Potatoes...at least he liked them!!