Chicago!

Hi, Chris here (Haggy)! We are just leaving Chicago, and are on our way to Mt. Rushmore. We are leaving earlier than planned, so we do not have to drive all night.

Chicago is a great city! The downtown core is wonderful to walk around in and experience! I was not super enthused to stay for any length in the city to start with, but thanks to Tak's insentience, we stayed. Anyway, I am glad. We arrived at a T-Mobile store at around 11am Central Time (gaining a free hour!), we got the sim-card and now have mobile Internet! Across the street we went to Manny's Cafeteria and Delicatessen , which had great food! Their corn beef was excellent. It turns out that both President Obama and President Clinton have eaten there!

We then drove around the city for a bit.  We were all very tired, so we decided to find a place to stay.  Tak found us a motel room at 3pm (Carlton Inn Midway, very nice rooms with good rates!). We then took the orange line train to downtown. The train is raised above the normal city streets, so it is a great way to see the city, and, at $2.25, a great value. The Loop (the track to downtown) was down for repairs though, but it was an easy transfer from the train to the subway at Roosevelt station, which took us straight downtown, in our case, Jackson station on the red line.

After that we went to Willis tower (formally the Sears tower), to do the touristy thing. We did not go up.  In fact, at 5pm the wait was 2 hours, so we deiced not to go. After we walked to Millennium Park, but not really the most direct way, because downtown Chicago was just fun to walk around in! We followed the raised rail to Whacker Avenue. We also saw a Hotel for Men Only that looked a LOT like the one from Blues Brothers, though we did not enter because, well, it looked super shady. There was a crazy amount of limos about; we must have seen 15 to 25!

The police has a very visible presence in Chicago, and some extra fake police cars to scare people into acting/driving right. This is not fully correct; there is a cab company (Blue Ribbon) which seem to drive exclusively ex-cop cars (Ford police interceptors) which look like crown Vic's. By itself, it should not be too confusing, except that the paint job is almost identical to a cop car! I cannot tell you how many times we, or someone we saw, stopped jaywalking when they saw a cab!

When we got to Millennium park, people were wrapping up a chef contest thing, so the park was filled with tents, equipment, and people trying to get other people from getting in the way. The park is really neat, full of modern art and interesting landscaping. We did not stay long though. We went to Navy Pier,  which was also filled with things to look at.  By the time we arrived it was 7pm.

Navy Pier is, well, a tourist trap, but a very nice one though, and worth checking out. We walked around the whole thing, though we did not engage in many of the activities. There is a nice merry-go-round, a Ferris wheel, and other rides. There are some carnival games as well. There are also lots of boat tours and other booths. I think if one was on a date or with a family, it would be more fun.

After we walked toward Roosevelt Station (we decided to forgo the subway because it was nice out) and ended up at Pizano's Pizza & Pasta. It was good and fun to try Chicago-style pizza. At that point it was 10 pm, so we walked back to the station.

It was good to sleep in a bed that night. Afterwards we had breakfast at the motel! Now we are on the road.

That's all for now!

Breakfast

It has begun!

Alexei here, sitting shotgun with Haggy behind the wheel. Despite a small delay, we are now on our way on our first leg of the journey: Montreal to Chicago. As I write this, we have just passed Brockville.

Chicago will be an important stop for us. As the first city in the U.S. where we're stopping on this trip, we will need to pick up some essentials there. First, we will need to go to a T-Mobile to get a Sim card with a data plan that we will use for the remainder of the trip. We'll also need to pick up some other supplies such as a small cooler and some provisions.

Time to go!

Tak here. Chris asked for a bio from everyone on the trip, so I'll delight him with one.

As of last year, I finished my university studies in Marketing.  I spent years studying and working at the same time and never had time to do anything else.  Now I'm on a one-/two-year hiatus from "real life" to explore and live a little.  Planning for this trip was one of the things I've been doing during this time.

Grand Slam version 1 (read: insanity)

Chris and I originally conceived the idea three years ago at a smoothie bar we worked at.  In one of our many crazy conversations, we drew out the most outrageous road trip on Google Maps.  Stretching from one end of the continent to the other, the whole journey would take two to three months to finish.  At that age, we laughed it off and it eventually became a running joke between us.

Fast forward three years later to a January Sunday afternoon in downtown Montreal, where Chris and I were having one of those life-altering discussions while stuck in traffic.  I said we should do something amazing this year and casually brought up the trip as a joke.  Chris stopped the car, turns to me with a serious look on his face and asked, "do you want to do it?"

For once, I contemplated on the feasibility of the idea.  That took about three seconds.  I knew the answer already and it was yes.

THE Grand Slam

We knew we couldn't go at this alone and the only other person we know who is crazy enough to attempt this was our friend Alexei.  We called him out, grabbed some maps, and drew out a route at Scores over supper.  After several revisions, we decided that the map on the right was the one we wanted.

This is going to be our last major road trip before we go on to tackle other responsibilities waiting for us in the coming years.  There is no better reason than that to go all out in the next 3 weeks.

When I was kid, there was an awesome show called the Magic School Bus.  Ms. Frizzle, one of the show's main characters, had a catchphrase that everyone should follow, even for someone like me in my late twenties.  She would exclaim, "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!"  I'm going to take on that quote as my motto for this trip and I hope all three of us will follow through with it.

T-minus 9 hours!

Exciting

I just counted and we will be going through 27 different states, give or take a couple. Exciting!

Welcome!

Finalizing plans!

Hello! This is the Atomic Trip blog!

This is Haggy writing our first post.  Alexei, Tak and I are leaving in a week plus a day for, what we hope will be, the trip of a lifetime!  Over three weeks we will travel from Montreal, Canada to: Chicago, Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, Vancouver (for a wedding!), Seattle, Portland, Crater Lake, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Route 66 to Las Vegas (through Death Valley), Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, Houston, Disney World, then back to Canada!

This list is not everything we hope to do, but a brief overview!

Check back for more updates, including a bio of each of us, the car, etc!!!!