Washington to Milwaukee, via Chicago

Today was both a travel day and a game day. I left at what I thought was a reasonable time to get to the airport, except that the Red Line had delays due to weekend engineering works - something that the UK and the US railways have in common! Fortunately, I had planned for problems and in the end, I just about got to Dulles airport in time for my flight, which, alas, was delayed leaving for 30 minutes. This doesn't seem like all that much, but it was critical for my connection to the train at Chicago's Union Station, which is in downtown Chicago, unlike O'Hare airport, which is a considerable distance out of town.

Having ascertained that the Blue Line wouldn't get me to station in time and that the downtown minibus shuttles couldn't make it either, I asked the taxi marshaller how long taxis took to get to the centre of Chicago and he said 30-45 minutes (I had 45 minutes before my train departed at this point). I decided to try it and was sent to a waiting taxi which was driven by a friendly young Ukrainian man, very fast (I thought) who managed to get me to the railway station in just 25 minutes. It cost $46 with the tip (I gave him a 25% tip) but saved me wasting a $80 ticket for the baseball game.

Amtrak like to give names to their different routes, like some of the operators in the UK do. The "Hiawatha" service runs 86 miles between Chicago and Milwaukee, with three stops in between, one of which is Milwaukee airport. It takes around 90 minutes but you do get to see more of the countryside than from a plane. In fact, the Wisconsin countryside doesn't look unlike the southern English countryside, in particular, I found it reminiscent of the New Forest and Ashdown Forest. We passed through the occasional village, saw lots of corn fields waiting to be harvested and the odd field full of bright orange pumpkins too!

My hotel is just three blocks up 5th Street from the railway station, which is very convenient. The hotel is old, tall and very grand looking - I was on the 16th floor without a view of anything particularly wonderful, but it went up as high as the 25th floor. Being one of the oldest tall buildings in the city, it also has a giant radio mast on top of it, which makes it easy to locate from a distance. They also charge a lot for rooms ($200 a night once you count taxes) and then have the nerve to ask for another $10 a day for Internet access for residents, whilst giving free access to anybody who walks in off the streets into the lobby levels! I used the free access in the lobby on my phone rather than taking my laptop down there. The toilets give aeroplane toilets a run for their money in loudness and viciousness of suck and fail to have any noticeable ventilation. Despite its size, the hotel seemed incredibly busy. They had had 2 wedding services earlier in the day and, as I found out later, hosted an amazing 16 wedding receptions as well at the same time - most of them appeared to stay the night too, as the next morning there would be a waiting list for breakfast!