GlobeToddles

Turquoise river. A classy skyline that's impressive without feeling imposing. The iconic mirror bean statue. These are things that we didn't see as soon as we got to Chicago. Having sat through the 8-hour drive from Toronto to Chicago Mr H and I decided it would be far fairer to let the little ones run around at a local park on our first day, and that we venture no further than the local Whole Foods supermarket to stock up on bananas, fruity bars and all such other necessities. However there are only so many photos of toddlers on slides that you lovely people can take, plus the scenery shots really set the, ahem, scene, so I'm going to start the visuals for this post with some shots of the windy city. It really is mighty purty. Chicago has a free zoo in Lincoln Park , which was quite close to where we were staying (a suburb called Lake View), so we took a trip there on day 2. As it was free we weren't expecting much, but to our delight it'...

San Diego has a strong Mexican flavour to it, in part because it is so close to the border (a mere 17 miles), but also because it was home to the first Spanish settlement on the whole U.S. west coast. The original settlement area is now a quaint, jolly little tourist destination called "Old Town", which is a curious cross between colourful, musical Mexican restaurants and shops, and restored hotels, semi-original buildings and even a wagon museum hinting at the days of the wild west. Mr H and I had been before but on those occasions we'd pretty much headed straight to a restaurant, so this time we arrived mid-morning and took a look around. We then headed into the main square for lunch, where Mr H and I were able to indulge in our favourite cocktail when in California: the margarita! Little Miss H always thinks these drinks look rather interesting, so fortunately we were able to distract her with some cranberry juice. After lunch we headed ba...