Omaha, Minnesota, South Dakota, Chicago, Nashville, Memphis

Since St Louis we have had a real tour. Firstly to Omaha Nebraska to see our friends Shannon and Angel and their kids Ella and Max. After a warm welcome we all headed north to Minnesota to visit Shannon's family where an overwhelming welcome greeted us. So much food, a world tour of beers and some fantastic stories made for a memorable weekend in St Cloud! After returning to Omaha for a days r 'n r we picked up a car and headed on yet another road trip to South Dakota. The main objectives being to see the Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore and stay in Deadwood! Rapid City was our base for most of the time and some winter conditions made the trip all the more memorable if a little colder than expected. Mount Rushmore was awesome. A true national monument the likes of which could only exist in America! The Badlands were as beautiful as anything on our trek but it was far too cold for any serious hiking so we stuck to the tourist route. Deadwood was fun too, a real little gambling town full of cowboys and casinos where all the food is unlimited and the drinks are free! Great fun which required another couple of days rest in Omaha which was no trouble at all with such fine company...

We then proceeded to Chicago to see our second family and had a great time with Tom, Mary and the Boys, so much so that we have changed our plans slightly and are heading back there in a week or so. Our time there was very much a chill out. We went to see Joey play in his baseball games and also went to Mary's, Joey's and Will's school concerts which were cool, a true slice of American Pie!

We were having so much fun in Vernon Hills that we only went downtown one day to see some of the sights, especially the new Millenium Garden on Michigan Ave which was cool. We spent a day at the Museum of Science and Industry with Mary and the boys to see the 'Bodyworld' Exhibition, which is basically a load of real bodies which have been 'cut open' and preserved so that you can see how the different parts of the body work! It was a little too real to be honest and turned my stomach at times but very interesting all the same.

Tom very kindly got us free tickets through his friend to see the Blue Man Group. That was excellent! If you havent heard of them they are 3 guys, painted blue who do a load of different silent acts, based around drum percussion and paint!! Very cool! Karen managed to get my photo taken with one of them at the end which was funny.

So other than that we pretty much shopped and spent time with the 'family'! Plus plenty of wine drinking and 'happy hour' sessions with Mary's friends.

We left Chicago on the 19th and flew to Nashville. The hotel we were in was a bit ropey to say the least. Not much worked (the fitness room was a liability!) and it certainly wasnt somewhere that we would have been walking around at night!

Nashville itself was pretty cool though. Plenty of great bars with live country music. We spent an afternoon / evening on 2nd and Broadway in the Honky Tonk bars listening to some very good music. There were some pretty crazy looking people there too! Either very 'Cowboy' or very 'Redneck'! I guess Karen and I lie somewhere in between!!! Karen was very tempted to buy some cowboy boots and a hat, but no money or room in the bag for things like that!!!

We did the touristy things there - The Country Music Hall of Fame was very cool (bought the tee shirt), Tennessee Sate Museum (which was rubbish), RCA Studio B (where Elvis and many other greats such as Parton, Orbison etc have recorded) and The Grand Ole Oprey which is now located in Oprey Mills Mall out of town (which had a fantastic Gibson Custom Shop so I could leave Nashville with my musical whim was finally satisfied....)

On the 23rd we rented a car and drove to Memphis. It is a really nice city. Went in to Downtown today and just had a wander round and went to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch but Karen spent the whole time puking in the loo!!!! Lovely burger gone to waste!! We went to the Peasbody Hotel which is very swanky so obviously not staying there, but they have a fountain in the centre of the lobby and there are 5 famous ducks that splash around in it all day!!!

Memphis has a really cheap tram that goes round the downtown area so that was handy to use. Walked down Beale street which is where most of the cool shops bars and restaurants are. Due to Karen not feeling 100% we only hung around for the afternoon, so got the tram back to the car, riding past the Memphis Pyramid. A huge glass fronted pyramid which is used as an exhbition center. Really nice. It is on the riverfront which is also really nice. The Mississippi seperates Tennessee and Arkansas, it might have been an idea to cross the bridge before we left so that we could add another state to our list but we didn't because the next day was filled up with Graceland!!!

Elvis' home was great! There were some pretty crazy fans there, dressed up as 'The King'! They dont allow you to go upstairs in the house, as they say they want to respect Elvis's privacy, but Karne was wondering if was because he IS still alive and he's hiding out up there!!

We couldnt go to the Gibson Factory as we planned. The one time that our USA Rough Guide has let us down! We rang the number in the book to check the opening times, and got a recorded message to say the factory has relocated to
NASHVILLE!! And we werent driving all the way back there! Hey ho, I'd seen the custom shop so that was good enough for me....

So all in all, a pretty fascinating chapter in our trip. Just DC, Chicago (reprise), New York and Toronto left before we see blighty again....