Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, IL

Friday 25 July

Today was a lovely day for the kids and a frustrating day for Mr Jackson. He had the onerous task of catching the blue line train back to the airport to collect our hire car while we had the far more pleasant task of catching a taxi to the North Avenue Beach for a swim in Lake Michigan. Providentially, we had a delicious breakfast of bagels and donuts for breakfast to make up for the fact that with all our running around, we skipped lunch entirely.

After checking out of the hotel, but leaving our bags behind, I caught a taxi with the kids to the beach. Unlike the shoreline we had walked along the day before, this was not sea wall but sand. We arrived just after 11am, who the lifeguards went on duty, and were interested to observe not only lifeguards stationed in towers dotted along the beach but also in rowing boats about twenty metres out, just inside a line of pylons, where they patrolled the wetter edge of the safe swimming area.

The water was lovely - a lake with no stinging jellyfish, no crocodiles, no sharks, no waves... the only problem was the invisible icebergs we were pretty sure must be floating past a few metres off-shore, given the crazily cold water temperature.

Meanwhile, Jeff took four and a half hours to collect our car, which cost an extra $1500 since they had no record of our pre-paying the taxes, despite the PAID IN FULL marked on our Flight Centre receipt.

The traffic was stop/start all the way out of the city, adding three quarters of an hour to our drive to the Quad Cities, four cities clustered together on the Mississippi River. Thankfully, the drive was absolutely beautiful once we were outside the city. We drove along the I-88 freeway, which was liberally dotted with tolls, making its name rather ironic. The corn fields either side of the freeway were dense with deep green stalks, with the farm houses only a kilometre or so apart. Such small farms is an indication that the land here must be very fertile and rich. For the first time I was able to sit with the kids and do a maths lesson or two. In Moline, we finally found a motel to rest our weary heads.