"Life is short and the world is wide" 

Before I start I would like to say that I am not affiliated with Trek America, all views/opinions are my own and I just want to share my experience with you all and hopefully give you an insight into what my trip involved if you are looking to do one yourself, which I would definitley recommend!

** I would also like to add that if I state any activities that I took part in, I will be going into more detail with these in a future post.

Thursday 4th July 

Due to the previous nights weather, we had a slight change of plan to the itinerary as we were no longer able to hike in the Badlands so Cat decided she would take on a much longer drive for us today and get us closer to Chicago. So our set off time was 6:30am, our first stop of the day was at the 1880s town which was really cool to look around! When it was lunch time we stopped off at McDonalds. We had another weird attraction stop at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota and then we were supposed to visit the Spam museum but that was closed. Due to our tents collapsing in the storm and even though we only had 3 nights left of camping we still needed new tents to carry with the trek and also for another group when the trip comes to an end. Our final stop was to see the Jolly Green Giant statue in Minnesota. It was around 6:00pm when I looked at my watch, it was such a long day and we were all really tired, but we still had another 3 hours or so to go to make our drive the following day a lot shorter. We had crossed over the Mississippi  River into Wisconsin which was strange as the last time we saw this river we were in New Orleans! As it was a late night we decided as a group we would order pizza instead of cooking late. We picked up our pizzas from Pizza Hut around 9:30pm and we arrived at camp and finally got our tents up. So it was gone 10pm by the time we had ate. We were all so hungry and needed sleep but a few of us had laundry to do as everything was still soaked. So by the time everything was dry it was around 1am so we all went to bed. I was kind of disappointed and I think a few others were too because we missed out on the 4th July celebrations that we all wanted to experience plus which had been advertised as part of our trek, but it was down to circumstances that couldn't be helped and Cat was really great with everything, none of our personal belongings were damaged luckily and our clothes, sleeping bags etc all dried out! American weather... you just never know what you're going to get haha



Friday 5th July 2019 

So this day was supposed to be the long drive to Chicago but due to the change of plan and only having a shorter drive day, Cat let us have a little sleep in this morning and we sat off just after 8am. We arrived in Chicago around 1:30pm but unfortunately we couldn't get our room keys for our hostel until 4pm as our rooms were not quite ready due to a mix up with another trek group I think. In the hostel they had a floor that was like a chill out area so it was full of sofas and had a pool table. Some decided to head out early and some of us including myself decided to stay in this area and wait for our room keys. Us girls used this opportunity to do our makeup ready for the evening and I also facetimed my parents. We finally got into our rooms (I really liked staying in hostels as it was nice to share it with all of the girls and get ready together) and got dressed for the evening as we were going out to Giordano's for Chicago's famous deep dish pizza! So good but so filling! I would definitely recommend Giordano's if you are ever in Chicago, but make a reservation as it was so busy and such a long queue! Afterwards as part of this trek there was another free bike tour to take you around the city at night, but again due to me not being able to ride a bike, I had to sadly sit out of this activity again. I walked back to the hostel as I started to feel slightly unwell and had an early night, I think I ate too much pizza haha!





Saturday 6th July 2019

This was our full free day in Chicago. This day the group kind of just separated and went off to do their own things in smaller groups or pairs. So I just took the opportunity to have some me time and go off to explore myself. I stopped off a Dunkin Doughnuts and got myself a breakfast croissant, I walked over to see the Bean and I also found the beginning of Route 66 sign which I had to get a photo of as I saw the end sign in Santa Monica. And what do I do best? Shopping! Yes I managed to find myself a Sephora and an Ulta store. I was so excited about the Ulta store as I had never been in one before and picked up some goodies. I did the usual souvenir shops and also went to sample some chocolates in Fannie May's. The hostel was in a good location and quite close to the main areas so I just walked back to sort out the things I bought. I then got in contact with Anna as we were going to the Lincoln Park Zoo, we got an uber there and was only about 30 minutes away. I hadn't been to a zoo in ages so I was really looking forward to it. We got an uber back to the hostel when we had finished and freshened up for the evening. We met up with Hayley, Saskia and Jurn and headed out to this American restaurant where I had Cajun chicken alfredo pasta. Beautiful! We all wanted to do the Willis Tower to see Chicago at night so we set off on our walk to find it.






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