Thursday 26 June – A misty cycle ride

I wake up early, and write the blog; we have breakfast and check out of the hostel, leaving all our luggage in the hostel storage room until this evening, when we'll catch the 9.30 pm train from Chicago to Boston.

Our plan is to go to the Sky Deck, on top of the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower, because the Willis Group lease a portion of its space), which at 1451 feet high, is still the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere (but now is only the 8^th tallest free-standing structure in the world). Chicago is famous for its mists which rise up from the cold waters of Lake Michigan and cling to the tops of Chicago's skyscrapers, of which there are many – a huge proliferation in Chicago's “North Side”. People refer to Chicago's North and South Sides, which are separated by the Chicago River, running through the city (although the Loop, Chicago's central business area, is referred to as being wholly in the North side). The North Side is the prosperous area, where you'll find the commercial sector – banking, insurance, businesses, shops and up-market apartments. The South side, we are told, includes the poorer areas of Chicago. However, Wikipedia tells us that much of the South side is a prosperous area, and tells us that people with a wide range of incomes and from many ethnic groups live there.

We look up at the Sear's Building; it's a little misty up at the top, but we've already bought our tickets for the Sky Deck, and this is our last day in Chicago, so we decide to go for it.

Travelling at an amazing speed for a lift, the “elevator” takes us to the Skydeck, 1,353 feet up on the 103^rd floor, in about 60 seconds. On a clear day, you can apparently see over the plains of Illinois, across Lake Michigan to Indiana, Michigan and Winsconsin. Today the lift attendant tells us that visibility is only 3 miles, because of the mists. However, we are pleasantly surprised when we get up there to find that we can at least see a great deal of Chicago from the tower. What astounds me is the number of skyscrapers, and how close they are to one another.

You can stand, or sit, on one of several entirely glass balconies protruding from the building; despite my fear of heights, Reg encourages me to stand on one (he's already done it and I've photographed him) so that he can take my photo. I gingerly step on to the glass, being careful not to look down! A lovely young American lad called Charlie offers to take a photo of both of us on the glass; Reg immediately sits down on the glass and I kneel beside him. Scary!

By the time we leave the tower I'm already feeling tired; we stop at a cafe for lunch and a rest. Not for too long though; we have promised ourselves that we will cycle along the Lakeside Trail, which follows the shore of Lake Michigan; the total distance there and back is about 18 miles, and it's very flat – as is Chicago itself, having been built on a plain. We find the bike hire place (recommended to us by our hostel) near Navy Pier, at the Lakeside; we are told we can hire the bikes for $20 each for a day because of the firm's link with the hostel. Even though it's now afternoon, this is such a reasonable rate. It's also the first time we've been given spare inner tubes, tyre lever tool and a pump. Reg comments that the bikes we've been given are well-maintained and in first class condition.

It's glorious to be back on a bike; we enjoy it so much! It's surprisingly cool near the Lake, and we need to don our long-sleeved tops; the mist increases along the shoreline and inland as we cycle along – but we can still see a lot and it's a really picturesque ride.

There are beaches along the way, and lots of people are enjoying relaxing on the sand, swimming or playing games. We stop at a beach hut and Reg asks for tea; the African American attendant is so friendly but, sorry, he only has coffee! If we had our teabags with us he would willingly boil us up some water, he says. (Our tea bags, which we carry everywhere, are in our backpack back at the cycle hire place – this time we have the tablet with us in the little handlebar cycle bags!!)

“You're from England? That's real cool. Do you know, I like tea. I'm not fond of coffee. I think I'm gonna get them to stock some teabags here, so's I can make tea.”

The young man tells us all about living in Chicago, until he is called away by another customer.

“ It's been so nice meeting you guys,” he adds. “Have a good rest of your trip!”

As we make our way back along the trail to “downtown” Chicago, we comment to each other that the mist is increasing; we're so glad we went up the tower in the morning, as we doubt we would've seen anything much now. Besides, we probably wouldn't have felt like facing all the queues and security checks for the Tower, after our cycle ride.

We stop again, on our way back, just a mile or so from the bike hire place, and I spot a small shack on the trail side. The blackboard menu outside says it sells green tea! Hey! Most cafes in America sell green tea, but you don't expect to find it in a beach hut. I order an ice-cream and Reg has green tea. I think I recognise the hut-lady's accent.

“Where's your accent from?” I ask her.

“Poland!” she replies. It turns out that she comes from Wroclaw, a beautiful Polish city we visited on our long trip from Bristol to Singapore, 2 years ago. We have a long chat; Reg tells her that he is half-Polish, and we tell her the amazing love story of Reg's Polish Mum and British Dad, who met in East Africa after Kazia was released from a Russian labour camp; she couldn't speak English, Reg's Dad Bob couldn't speak Polish. But love overcomes all obstacles, and they communicated in Swahili. Bob then sent his demob money to Kazia to bring her to England. And the rest, as they say, is history.

After returning the bikes, we take the bus back to our hostel; we have a light dinner in our nearby favourite little cafe with the good wifi and lovely French baguettes, which they serve with delicious home-made soups. I'm not feeling so special as it's been a long day and perhaps, too, the tiredness accumulates.

We collect our luggage and say goodbye and thankyou to the hostel receptionist; a taxi takes us to Union Station by 8.30 pm – the train to Boston is due in at 9.30 pm. The waiting room is packed with people, including 4 nuns and a group of about 16 Amish people. These are communities of Christians who live modestly, mainly off the land, and who shun commercialism, technology, mod cons and the consumerism way of life. They don't use cars; they also dress in a very old-fashioned, oldey-worldy Dickensian way. We've seen quite a Amish people on our travels, always at the train station, or on the train.

The women are wearing plain long dresses and bonnets (even the babies have bonnets), and the men wear loose trousers, braces and boater straw hats; all the men have beards. They are attracting a lot of attention through their strange dress. I notice that one of the Amish has on his (without-wheels) suitcase – a label saying “STOP LOOKING AT ME.” Much as I admire the Amish's Christian humility, my first thought about the label is that if they are going to dress in a manner reflecting the 1800's, people are going to be intrigued by their dress code.

A voice comes over the waiting room speaker system. Surprise, surprise, there's a technical fault on the train and it's delayed. It finally draws up at the station at about midnight. I'm “hanging”, but that's nothing compared to how difficult it must be for the families around, having to cope with small children.

This time it's a really long walk to our sleeping car; the platform just goes on and on, along the length of the train. Finally, relief – we're on the train!

Our compact sleeping car this time is a “viewliner” , like the very first sleeping car we had on the train from New York to Washington DC. Unlike the “superliner roomette”, which we're now used to, where the toilet is situated down the corridor, it has the toilet in the cabin, and the James-Bond wash basin that folds up into the wall of the cabin, the water flowing away as it does so. To the outsider the “viewliner” probably seems the better option, and there's no doubt that there's slightly more room in it when the beds are folded away during the day, and you don't have to go down the corridor in the night to the toilet. When the beds are down, though, the toilet seat doubles as one of the steps up to the bed, and the only floor space in the cabin is a 12” x 12” space in front of the toilet. If one of you is using the toilet when the beds are down, the other has to either be on the top bunk (unless they want a ringside view on the bottom bunk) or has to stand outside the cabin. Also, you are supposed to put all your luggage in a rack just below the ceiling; to do this you need to stand on a ledge above the toilet. It's really difficult to lift large heavy suitcases up to this ledge, even supposing they fit when you manage it.

The train guard offers to put my large purple suitcase in the guard's van, as she can see we are having difficulty fitting all our luggage in the ceiling rack. By this time it's 30 minutes past midnight and I am exhausted and Reg says, niggly. I'm even nigglier as I struggle to get changed into my nightclothes, standing on a penny. Also, the clock will be going forward an hour during the night, when we change states. So it's actually (new time) nearly 2.00 pm by the time we turn out the lights in our cabin, the delayed train making a disappointing ending to a lovely day. But we still enjoy travelling by train – and this is our penultimate train journey!