Week 9
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1	2	3	4	5	6	7

March 1, 2008

SAT

MAR

2008

Mammoth Cave National Park, Chicago (Illinois), Wisconsin

By Diana and Xuyen

Hi folks,

Another rapid fire 2 more entries posted. How is everybody back home?

MAMMOTH CAVE NATIONAL PARK (KENTUCKY, USA) (26/01/08)
- DAY 166

Cave City, Kentucky has a vast & unique system of underground passageways & caves extending over 800km. South-central Kentucky, often referred to as Karst Country meaning Cave Country, began its roots in 1835 & escalated into what would become the malicious “Cave Wars”. At the time many families had stumbled upon hidden underground chambers filled with mineral formations on their properties & quickly realised their profitable earning potential by turning them into tourist attractions. The competition quickly escalated into a nasty war when vandalism, looting, vicious rumours & other deplorable tactics were carried out including dressing up as law officials & erecting fictitious closure signs to redirect tourists away from the competitor’s caves & towards their own.

Entering Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky

If you really enjoy caving or spelunking which is the more adventurous & thrilling version of cave exploration, involving several hours of crawling, climbing & squeezing your way through narrow, dark & dank underground networks, then you can’t miss Kentucky. Due to the sheer number of cave offerings, I followed our guide book’s recommendation & selected Mammoth Cave, the number one tourist attraction in Kentucky & best known as the longest surveyed cave in the world with over 584km of passageways. At Mammoth Cave National Park, where the cave is located, we purchased tickets for 2 different tours of the cave, paying $12pp. We were fortunate in having a small group of only 4 on the 1st Frozen Niagara guided tour where we boarded a bus to drive us a short distance to the cave’s entrance. This part of Mammoth Cave is considered to be one of the most decorated areas & had a profusion of stalactites & stalacmites & an assortment of calcite formations seen in the underground chambers of the 2km route, although it was nowhere near as impressive as Luray Caverns (again, one of the best caves I have visited – X). Entering a dimly lit chamber with a tall dome, we immediately saw the resemblance of the flowstone formation to Niagara Falls & hence the name Frozen Niagara. Descending down some steps under Frozen Niagara, we stood in the Drapery Room where huge calcite sheets extended almost to the floor & glistened with seeping water.

Frozen Niagara

Plenty of stalactites & stalacmites

The 2nd guided tour took us through Mammoth Passage where we walked through the large mouth of the cave, 1st discovered more than 4000 years ago. This section of Mammoth Cave featured some of the largest & driest passages as well as archaeological evidence of prehistoric & Indian settlement but no decorative formations or stalactites & stalacmites. Always a tradition at the end of a cave tour, the guide switched off all the lights to demonstrate the cave’s pitch blackness with no light filtering through any of the cracks so that not even the hand in front of your face is visible & no matter how long you stand in the darkness your eyes will never adjust. The guide told us a hilarious anecdote of a dim witted tourist who commented: “This cave’s not as dark as the last cave I visited,” talk about duhhh

Descending into Historic Entrance of Mammoth Cave

The dark, cavernous interior of Mammoth Cave

"Broadway" with it's dimly lit stairway

Gothic Avenue

Now that’s one massive room

We stopped for lunch at a petrol station & whilst we were inside chomping away on our hot, freshly made pizza, a constant stream of camouflage outfitted hunters wandered in & out of the store gazing in our direction to give us not too friendly looks, making me feel very uncomfortable. I whispered to X that perhaps this part of the country is a little rough & tumble & not too accustomed to having non-caucasian visitors.

We left Kentucky to commence the long 5hr drive across the border into Indiana where we rested for the night at a Super 8 Motel in Lafayette & paid $44 for yet another king size bed room.

CHICAGO (ILLINOIS, USA) (27/01/08) - DAY 167

We were supposed to rise bright & early this morning to continue our drive to the next destination but once again X ignored the alarm clock’s insistent beeping & slept in. After a 2hr journey on the road, we finally arrived in Chicago only to find ourselves circling the downtown area for another 45 mins before we located parking on the very outskirts of the downtown area & had to walk ½ hr into the epicentre.

Traffic on the highways leading into Chicago was horrendous as was the downtown area & we found the roads to be the worst we’ve experienced & in urgent need of repairs with potholes, cracks, bumps & lumps throughout the entire city’s road network. Driving etiquette left a lot to be desired also, with impatient city slickers constantly honking horns, tail gating, last minute merging & pushing in front.

Dominating an entire north eastern corner of Illinois, Chicago is a sprawling, chaotic metropolis, which took us by surprise having travelled through one cosy, quaint town after another. The downtown business district of Chicago is quite contemporary looking with many architectural treasures dominating the city’s skyline. We began our sightseeing tour by visiting Chicago’s most recognisable landmark, the Sears Tower, boasting itself as the tallest building in the USA & 3rd tallest in the world. If you can imagine using Lego blocks to build several towers pieced together with some shorter than the others, then that’s what Sears Towers looks like. It stands at a soaring height of 442m, although if you count its antennas this raises it to 528m, has 110 stories & 104 elevators. We had no idea the queue for the Sears Tower Skydeck would be so long until after we’d purchased our $12.95pp tickets, walked around the corner & saw the line snaking all the way ahead for tens of metres. It didn’t take too long to get into the theatre though to view a brief video on the design & construction of the tower which was completed in 1973. Then there was about a ½hr wait to enter the elevators to the 99th floor as there were only 2 lifts operating & only a certain number of people allowed at any one time on the Skydeck. A higher observation deck on the 103rd floor was unfortunately closed for maintenance. We were lucky to have excellent visibility of the sprawling metropolis spread out below us with the Chicago River on one side & Lake Michigan on the other. Supposedly on a very clear day, you can see three states in the distance but we couldn’t pick them out not knowing where the boundaries began & ended. Descending back down to lower ground required another 15min wait.

Chicago’s famous landmark, the Sears Tower

Unique design of Sears Tower with it's different heights

View of Chicago skyline from the 99th floor observation deck of the Sears Tower

The whole afternoon was spent doing a walking tour around downtown Chicago with X acting as tour guide & taking us to all the various historic city buildings & more modern skyscrapers & landmarks such as the Monadnock Buitlding, Fine Arts Building, Buckingham Fountain (which was switched off in winter so was a real disappointment), Wrigley Building, Tribune Tower, Trump Tower & the Chicago Temple which had a unique Chapel in the Sky but was not open for visitation.

Fire escape stairs common on apartment buildings throughout the USA

Chicago Skyline from up close

Ice floes floating down the Chicago River

Tribune Tower, a Gothic skyscraper is the headquarters of Chicago’s largest newspaper, The Chicago Tribune.

The lit up Chapel in the Sky

I thought the highlight of the walking tour was Millennium Park, a new public space opened in 2004 & designated as a “people’s park”. We enjoyed strolling through & admiring all the amazing art, sculptures, architecture & landscape. Unquestionably the sculpture which drew the most attention & was the subject of countless tourist snaps was Cloud Gate, the centrepiece at AT & T Plaza. The contemporary sculpture, one of the largest in the world, weighs 110 tonnes, is made of polished stainless steel & reflects a mirror image of the Chicago skyline & floating clouds above. Of course we all couldn’t help touching the smooth, shiny surface, capturing images of ourselves reflected back & standing beneath the 4m high arch in the concave chamber (Never seen anything like this before and I was quite taken by the idea. I wonder if any other cities have copied this – X).

AT & T Plaza & Cloud Gate at Millennium Park

“Hello there, are you my evil twin?”

Cloud Gate, a stunning 110 tonne sculpture with the Chicago skyline reflected on its shiny stainless steel surface. It measures 22m long & 11m high

Ice skating rink in the middle of the city

Another unique artwork was The Crown Fountain, also located in Millennium Park. The fountain featured two 16.5m glass block towers at each end of a shallow reflecting pool, although the pool was frozen over & the fountain had been switched off over winter. On the surface of each tower were video images of a selection of Chicago citizens which changed frequently to reflect the city’s diversity & multiculturalism.

The Crown Fountain projects video images of the citizens of Chicago from different multicultural backgrounds.

The Crown Fountain & it’s 2 glass block towers

Throughout our walking tour through downtown Chicago we were taken aback by the multitude of homeless people on almost every street corner, all holding up old cardboard signs with the same message: “Please spare some change, hungry & homeless” (and then there are some who obviously have spent all their money on cigarettes and alcohol, holding up brutally honest cards reading something like “Thirsty, need money for beer!” – X). We have found it rather disconcerting on our travels throughout the USA to encounter so many brazen individuals who have approached us on the streets, in grocery stores & at our motels asking us to spare them a few dollars for gas, food or medicine.

I had cravings for Vietnamese food again so for dinner we drove to Little Saigon which X located on the SatNav. X has commented repeatedly what an indispensable item this device has been on our travels, saving us valuable time not to mention our relationship 'cause if X had to rely on my non-existent navigational skills, his patience & composure threshold would have been very low.

Little Saigon turned out to be quite a big district with plenty of Vietnamese food offerings to choose from. We chose one that had just recently opened & looked fairly busy with local diners, although the food turned out to be mediocre & X complained that his deceptively looking big bowl was all for show with little content. We ended up having to buy him additional take-out (from a different restaurant) for a late night snack later on as it we’d eaten dinner early.

A search for cheap lodgings for the night proved to be difficult with most motels not even within the city radius charging at least $80. We drove all the way to Waukegan, about 64km away to stay at a Motel 6 for $44 (sounds crazy doesn’t it but considering fuel would only cost $4-5, I figured the 40 min drive was worth the saving – X).

CHICAGO (ILLINOIS, USA) (28/01/08) - DAY 168

This morning we woke up to a miserably cold & windy day, experiencing apparently quite normal temperatures for Chicago which is aptly named the Windy City. I haven’t coped very well at all with the freezing below zero temperatures as I experience massive migraines even though I prefer the cold. At least it gives me the perfect excuse to give X every night hey

?

We drove into the northern part of the city to explore the Magnificent Mile, a dining, entertainment & shopping promenade famous for its rows of ritzy brand name designer stores, fancy hotels, historical buildings & architectural gems. We didn’t spend all that much time here even though we fed the parking meter for 2hrs & discovered that apart from shopping in the exclusive, wallet draining stores there was little else to do. X took some photos of the John Hancock Building, a stunning looking structure of black steel & glass, followed by the Water Tower which was the only structure to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 which swept through the city & razed the entire downtown area.

John Hancock Tower

The Water Tower

After that we wandered up & down the streets to do some window shopping but soon the ferocious gale force winds picked up again, forcing us to retreat back to the car. Walking there was no easy task as the gusty winds dragged us backwards for each step we moved forward, so little wonder that Chicago is called the Windy City!

You would think the crazy weather conditions would deter us from any further outdoor sightseeing but we still had one more destination left on our list so battled on like brave soldiers. Navy Pier is Chicago’s top tourist attraction & a premier family friendly leisure & recreation destination with over 50 acres of parks, shops, restaurants & entertainment attractions. Today, however the crowds & shoppers were nowhere to be seen as we wandered through the almost empty centre & braved the chilly winds to walk along the pier. All of the waterfront attractions & activities such as the ferris wheel, rides, shows & boat cruises were closed for the season but I would imagine that during the warmer months Navy Pier would be an exciting day out for the family & bustling with activity as throngs of people gather here for fun, excitement & entertainment.

The closed down attractions of Navy Pier

Crystal Garden at Navy Pier

Braving the icy, blustery winds at Navy Pier whilst gazing across at the Chicago skyline

We drove all the way back to Waukegan to check in for another night at the Motel 6 (this time it was on the way to our next destination so no wastage of petrol or time – X).

WAUWATOSA (WISCONSIN, USA) (29/01/08) - DAY 169

Another day of grey, dreary & cold weather greeted us as we made our way north. We crossed the border into Wisconsin & made a stop in Wauwatosa to visit the Harley-Davidson plant. In case you’re wondering if we’re fans of the world’s most coveted motorcycle, have one secretly stashed away in our garage or are members of a Hells Angels gang, the answer to all is no. The factory was listed as an attraction to visit in our guide book so I assumed X being a typical male, would enjoy feasting his eyes on these huge beasts of a machine (my brother’s sold 250cc Honda Road racer was one of quickest accelerating vehicles I have ridden. But Harley-Davidson bikes probably would not be my cup of tea – X). We signed up for a free guided factory tour of a behind the scenes look at how these legendary motorcycles are made, not realising until the tour began that this facility only handled the engine assembly. Our guide informed us of 2 plants in other states where we could visit to tour the factory & view Harley-Davidsons assembled from scratch. The walk took us through the noisy factory where we watched employees, machines & robotics perform various tasks in piecing together all the components that would finally become the powerful engine of a Harley-Davidson (not sure about their efficiencies though, and correct me if I am wrong but from the look of the engines, they are still based on push rod head design, dating back decades ago – X). X seemed to enjoy the tour & understood all the technical gobbledegook the guide was talking about, although the same could not be said for moi who trudged along, nodding my head & feigning interest. The guide informed us that about 50% of the employees ride Harley-Davidsons & because they’re entitled to a discount on the motorcycles, most upgrade to a new model every year.

Harley Davidson Plant

X needs to grow a bushy beard & put on some muscles before he’ll look like a tough bikie dude.

Looks like fun careening around the corners in one of these doesn’t it?

All we need now are the black leather outfits

We continued on to downtown Milwaukee where we paid a visit to the Miller Brewery, America’s 2nd most popular brew. Isn’t it strange that we never make the effort to visit places like breweries, churches, city halls, art galleries & museums in our hometown yet when we travel abroad, we go out of our way to see everything listed in the guide book? Given the fact that I don’t even drink beer, I don’t know why I’m so interested in the brewing process & certainly don’t come along for the free samples at the end of the tour. The free guided tour began with a short video on Miller’s history & the German immigrant who started it all. The walking tour then took us outdoors to 3 separate facilities which housed the South Packaging Plant where we viewed the bottling process, beer cans & cases moving along conveyor belts, the Distribution Warehouse where 500,000 cases of beer per day are stored waiting for immediate delivery & the Brew House where the hops & secret ingredients are added to giant stainless steel kettles to bring out the characteristic bitterness & hop flavour of beer. Then of course the part that everyone looks forward to at the end of the tour, 3 free beers at the Miller Inn whose interior & decor resembled a German beer hall & had interesting displays of decorative steins in different designs. Before I could ask for a non alcoholic beverage, the waiter had placed 2 large beer glasses in front of me, identifying them as Miller Light & Miller Draught. I took a sip from both but didn’t like either so just munched on some pretzels whilst pretending to take a teensy sip every now & again. I managed to drink half of one glass but left the other one untouched so they didn’t bother bringing me the 3rd sample which was Leinenkugel’s beer. X didn’t do much better than myself, but asked for all 3 so he could compare them & declared the last one to be the best tasting of the 3 (though Grolsch remains my favourite – X).

Walking tour through the Miller Brewery

The Miller Brewery free guided tours start here

South packaging plant

The mammoth brewing kettles in the Brew House

X standing outside the Miller Inn

Large display of steins at Miller Inn. Steins are traditional German beer glasses made of porcelain, copper or pewter & have a hinged lid & handle.

X sampling his 3 free beers at the Miller Inn

We took to the road again, arriving a couple of hours later in Madison where we located an America’s Best Value Inn & checked into a room for $47.

More blog entries to come folks,

Diana and Xuyen

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March 1, 2008

Mammoth Cave National Park, Chicago (Illinois), Wisconsin