The next leg of our journey was a two night, three day trip across the American Rockies and on to Chicago.  This is always a trip I've wanted to do, especially to cross on a sleeper train; in retrospect I would have done things differently.  Firstly the sleeper train is not very comfortable, being cramped and the ride noisy and not smooth which made it quite difficult to sleep at nights; we should have booked a bedroom as opposed to a roomette for extra room and greater comfort.  Secondly the American Rockies are spectacular as you go over the High Sierra but the landscape beyond Salt Lake City and across the Central American Plains to Chicago is very flat and uninteresting.  Finally, this Amtrak train (the California Zephyr) is a routine, daily service which meant that it was full of people just trying to get from A-B, whereas we were really tourists who wanted to view the scenery with like minded travellers.  The train was noisy with families and children and all things considered this spoilt our enjoyment of the experience.  From conversations I've had with other travellers the best option for us would have been a tourist train (The Rocky Mountaineer) which travels from Vancouver to Banff and there are holidays that combine the train journey with the Alaska cruise; in addition, travellers get off the train and go to a hotel overnight so a good nights sleep is not a problem.

Having said all this the views as we climbed through the heart of the Rockies and over the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas was fantastic and this is the memories I will take from this part of the holiday, even if we didn't have as many memorable photos for the album as I would have liked.  The train crosses the Sierras at the Donner pass which is at 2,150 ft through the 1,659 ft Summit Tunnel and the speed of the train as it climbs this pass is understandably slow but this makes the view even more spectacular.  On one occasion when we were nearing Salt Lake City Jane had a major panic attack when blocked from getting past in the corridor by a rather obese man, and at one point I seriously considered getting off at Salt Lake City and flying to Chicago.  However, we stuck it out and to be honest it did get better as we settled in but even so it was with no regrets when we eventually arrived in Chicago.  I would like to repeat this experience one day using the Rocky Mountaineer instead, passing through the Canadian Rockies further north.

We made our way to our hotel (The Essex Inn) which was right opposite Grant Park overlooking Chicago harbour and not far from Navy Pier which is a must visit attraction.  Although I've travelled to many places for work and pleasure, I had never been to Chicago and didn't have especially high hopes of being surprised; I thought it would be just another American city of skyscrapers and hustle and bustle.  How wrong I was!  I was amazed by the variety, colour and size and shape of the skyscrapers which must be fairly unique to Chicago.  The way in which each building reflected from the glass in the next building which was a different style and especially colour was fantastic and I thought very unusual.  Once again we took a Big Red open top bus tour around the city to see as much as possible in the short time we had; the guide on our bus was a young college student, earning a few extra dollars and he was a keen Man United supporter (very sad I know) and he ended up talking to us rather than the rest of the passengers.  He seemed quite knowledgable and I asked him how he remembered all the facts he told everyone and he said that a lot of it he made up - because as we were all visitors to the city how would we know it was all bs, LOL.

We got off the bus at Navy Pier which originally was to be a dock for freights, passenger traffic and a space for indoor and outdoor recreation for the public.  Many events are held at the pier, such as expositions, pageants and other types of entertainment and is the number one attraction for tourists in Chicago.  It was used for draft dodgers in 1918 and in 1927 was renamed Navy Pier to honour the naval veterans who served in the First World War.  We walked the length of the pier and back before catching another bus into the center of Chicago where we saw the Magnificent Mile which is the location for several renowned buildings such as the John Hancock Center, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Wrigley Building, Tribune Tower and the Chicago Water Tower.  We saw the Willis Tower (formally known as Sears Tower) which when built in 1973 was the tallest building in the world and has the famous Skywalk on the 103rd floor where you can walk out on to the glass ledge and look down at the ground 1,353 below.  We didn't go there but instead took a river cruise along the Chicago river which flows between some of the most attractive glass buildings as some of the photos demonstrate.

An interesting fact about this river is that it is more or less man-made and is the only river in the world that flows in the wrong direction; the reason for this is that to minimise the risk to the city water supply, engineers in 1887 decided by civil engineering to reverse the flow of the river, taking water from Lake Michigan and discharging it into the Mississippi river watershed.

Also on St. Patrick’s Day, the Plumbers Union dyes the Chicago river a bright shade of Irish green and every summer the Special Olympics holds a fundraiser where tens of thousands of rubber ducks race down the waterway

After a very enjoyable couple of days in Chicago we packed up and caught our flight home at the end of a memorable holiday.

My main memories of this holiday are as follows: Fishermans Wharf and the bike ride to the Golden Gate Bridge, Whale watching at Sitka, Glacier Bay, Dining on the Diamond Princess with Josefina and Doris, Sierra Nevadas on the California Zephyr, Chicago Buildings and Skyscrapers, Navy Pier (click right).