Boston to NYC was a dramatic four-hour flood and thunderstorm with constant strobe lightning and a freshly jack-knifed trailer, Port Authority was a feral, post-apocalyptic Hades as expected, and then time warped and bent over the following night and day's ride to Chicago. Past the Manhattan skyline and into the darkness; a stop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania through the early hours, into Ohio for sunrise, and a two-hour changeover at the Greyhound station in Cleveland.
West along Erie, through a vision of post-industrial meltdown otherwise known as Toledo, through the breadth of Indiana, and eventually into the windy city, where we arrived at the apartment of our fine hosts Meg and Joe in surprisingly fair fettle; crashing at that point would've been both rude and an adrenalin-fuelled impossibility, and so a lovely evening was had in their company.
A nearby, very friendly hipster bar with late hours and cheap booze was the eventual death of us, and to say we were grateful for full day and evening's private recovery in a womb-like apartment would be an understatement - thankfully no waste, with the weather closing in outside.
Sunday, and the rain abated, the clouds dissipated and the sun shone brightly; and so downtown to the beautiful Lincoln Park, which hosted half of Chicago making the most of the suddenly sub-tropical conditions. A full afternoon there and along the lake - the very definition of counter-intuitive, with choppy 'waves', bobbing sailboats, ships in the distance, an endless horizon and close-fishing Caspian Terns - was a pleasure, with a close-up, absurdly urban colony of Black-crowned Night-herons stealing the limelight.
An evening in with our hosts, and then back on the road the following day (at least after a Greyhound screw-up put us in situ for a good five hours) before heading further west, this time towards Minnesota.
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