hello all, as promised to my adoring fans i'm back for another update. well Chicago was great, I only wish that we had at least two more days there but could have spent well over a week there. As it was we only did the Field Museum, a natural history museum that took over 5 hours and even then we could have spent another hour or so if we did everything. We also went up to the Hancock Observatory, which is a 94th floor open air viewing platform. we also went to see a totally random play that has been running for over 30 years. 30 plays in 60 mins it's called. it changes every week so you can go see it every time an it will be different each time.

Well after an uneventful 3 hour Greyhound journey we arrived in Madison. We were met by a random guy who was holing up a name tag. turns out hes a friend of Gwen's (the person were staying with for the next few days.) called Tim, he was ok and took us to a coffee shop to await our ride from Tora who looked after us this afternoon. I've fallen in love with Madison already and im going to buy a house here, its really cheap to buy here as well.

We're looking forward to this part of the trip, we are with Gwen for the next few days. then we shall no doubt turn up at David's somehow.

well we have to go out going to a park that overlooks the lake next to the town and it has a bar that severs it so it should be beautiful but I shall let you know.

Hope all is well back home, I've heard the rain has stopped at last so that is all good.

look forward to yous comments and e-mails.
Chris

Amtrak

Hi all.
Dan again, I'll get Chris to do the next update.
We have finally arrived in Chicago after spending over 30 hours on various trains. I have to admit that Amtrak failed to live up to the horror stories we had heard, arriving only half an hour late for both of the trains we caught.

We were also delighted to discover that we were giving copious leg room. I.e. enough for Chris to stretch. In fact the only bad point was the guy playing horror films on his laptop next to us. (I may be a spoil sport, but there's something about having to listen to screams of pain and nasty gristly sounds that fails to appeal to me.) However even he turned out to be a decent lad, and changed the films to Family Guy and X-Men 3 both of which where far more bearable.

The hostel we are staying at looks to be the most professional one yet. But as yet it is a bit early for first impressions.

Hope everyone is enjoying themselves back in England.
Dan.

Goodbye Asheville, Hello Chicago (eventually)

Hi All. Dan hear again.
Sorry about the late update, it completely slipped my mind to update the blog until today. Our stay with Charlotte and Micheal has been great, but we have decided it is time to move on, and are heading up to the windy city. Due to the long nature of this trip, we have decided to risk the trains. (not a prospect I'm to thrilled about, having heard horror tales from other travelers.)

We have had great fun in Asheville, aided by Sam and his friends, including a gorge walk, tubing down a river, (sitting in an inflatable ring, and just drifting down), getting thrashed at basketball (no surprise there) and general laziness. I should also complement, Charlotte on her cooking, which has been uniformly fantastic, especially bearing in mind the irritation of having a vegetarian suddenly dropped on her.

I hope all is going well back in the UK.
Dan.

Noth Carolina Luxury

Chris
Ahh a real bed to sleep in again, and for the first time on this trip, my own room. Greyhound for once excelled itself for the first time to get us here on time despite being an hour late leaving due to a lost driver.

here in the middle of the Smoky mountains with beautiful scenery and quiet roads we find ourselves in a picturesque town/city of Asheville, and in the house of Dan's dear friends Caroline and Mike with their son Sm (who, for those that knew him has grown a beard.)

its really beautiful here and Sam who is 18 has looked after us magnificently showing us around and taking us to all the nice spots, or at least he will when he gets back.
Going tubing again this afternoon but down a river without a motorboat, not sure how this will work but i shall let you know. going on an all day hike with the Dog tomorrow so that should be good.

oh well must be off, my stomach tells me its time for lunch.

hope every one is well
Dan and Chris

Leaving For Asheville tommorrow.

Hi All.

Well, our somewhat prolonged stay in Atlanta is nearly over, and whilst we had a great time, I think that both of us are pleased to be moving on, and are looking forward to getting into Asheville.



The Hostel we where staying at proved a great place for meeting people, and we are leaving with at least 9 email addresses, possibly a few more. The people we have to email so far are 1 Brit, 1 Chinese German, 1 German, 1 Dane, 3 Norwegians, 1 Frenchman and an Aussie. (Chris will correct me if I'm wrong about this) As you can probably guess from the above list there weren't too many Americans there. That's not to say there weren't any, but they where a definite minority.



I think we have now covered pretty much all the sights of Atlanta, from the Aquarium and Stone Mountain (impressive) to Coke World, (pure propaganda.) For me the highlights where Stone Mountain and the Martin Luther King memorial. (I'll get Chris to give his highlights when he next updates, but I suspect they will be the same as mine)

That's all for now.
Dan.
p.s. Thanks to Mum and Dad for their advice, unfortunately we didn't have time to do many of the things you suggested, but I appreciate the thought.

Atlanta (my birthplace)

Hi All
As promised its Dan here. We have now arrived in Atlanta, and found a far nicer hostel than the one we found in Savannah. (it actually is hostel, and has a stove and a kettle!).

Atlanta itself is pretty much your typical big city. Hopefully there will be enough to do to keep us entertained, but there isn't much I can say about it.

We visited the Georgia Aquarium today, which was pretty spectacular, featuring Beluga Whales and Whale Sharks, as well as several other species. Oh and apparently Beth will be pleased to know we saw penguins there. Unfortunately, Chris lost the soft toy penguin he brought.

And well that's about it really. Oh, we keep getting phone calls on our mobile, and we aren't to sure who it is as we cannot answer the calls due to lack of airtime. So if its anyone reading this email us the info as we cannot receive it via our phone.

Dan.

Greyhound and Savannah

Hey all viewers, Chris again, don't worry it Dan's turn tomorrow so you can all have good typing and spelling again.

I hate Greyhound. It sucks, there it is in cold hard print. we've had nothing but trouble with them since the beginning with inconvinent times late buses leading to missed transfers ad yesterday we got pulled off the bus sent to another one that never showed, put on the next one wich we couldnt get on because it was full and hen we had to wait two hours for the next one while our luggage gt sent to heaven knows where. Thankfully it was in Savannah waiting or us in the end, but was there an apology; was there hell.

well moaning over, we only have to make one more journey on them then were going my train everywhere as its too far to go by bus, that thought has cheered us up. Savannah is nice though lacking in things to do, we have a tour booked or 1pm of the city so that should be fun. the holstel which is no longer a hostel is nice though not the cleanest its clean enough depite the majour minus point of not having a kettle so no coffee, thankfully we found some cans of espresso so were making do with those. bloke who runs it is really friendl and helpful though and is little grl is quite cute. thats cute as in awwwww by the way.

lots of love
Chris and Dan

P.s. sorry if i havnt replied to any emails, hotmail is a resticted site here. il reply asap