The road trip comes to an end: Chicago.

Our road trip sadly had to come to an end but what better place to end it than Chicago? It's a city that neither of us had ever visited before but we'd both wanted to go there for ages. Unsurprisingly after our long drive we were starving so as soon as we'd checked into our hotel we headed out to find food. We accidentally stumbled across Cloud Gate, more commonly known as The Bean!

We took a lot of pictures! It's a really cool sculpture and we loved watching everyone interact with it.

We were heading for Native Foods Cafe because it was the closest place to eat to the hotel we were staying in. I ordered the Chicken Run Ranch Burger.

Can you spot yet another root beer in the back of this picture?!

The burger came on a wholewheat bun and I ordered a side of Crispy Sweet Potato Fries to go with it. The burger was great, I loved the crispy battered burger and the ranch sauce. I wish we'd had time to go back here but I'm sure we'll be back in either Chicago or one of the many other places Native Foods Cafe has locations one day.

After dinner we went up to the top of the Willis Tower to check out the Skydeck and their super fun glass balconies.

 We went up just before sunset so that we could look at the city in daylight, at sunset and in the dark!

Afterwards we went to check out the Buckingham fountain. We managed to time it just right and arrived just as the multicoloured light and music show started. It was pretty cheesy but in a good way!

The next morning after I managed to fall over a speed bump in a pretty epic way we made it to Karen's Cooked for brunch. We both ordered the Homestyle Breakfast...

...which came with scrambled tofu, veggie sausage, crispy potatoes & a side of toast. This was an excellent start to the day, we loved the thick sliced toast and the crispy potatoes were great.

After spending the day at The Art Institute of Chicago we had a very late lunch at somewhere I've wanted to go since I first heard about it, The Chicago Diner. I ordered one of their classic dishes with a twist, the Reuben with Coleslaw and Cheese.

There seems to be a Root Beer in the back of this picture too!

This Reuben came with a side of truly excellent Mac 'n' Cheese and the sandwich itself was one of the best I've ever eaten. I'd never tried a reuben before and whilst this Sauerkraut-less reuben isn't a classic it did come on marbled rye bread with beef style seitan and cheese so it was kinda similar!

We liked The Chicago Diner and the area it's in so much that we headed back there for brunch the next day. I started my day with a mimosa which was perfect because it was already far too hot that day.

We both decided to go for the French Toast Combo Plate which comes with 2 wedges of French Toast, Scrambled Tofu, Seitan Sausage & a Fruit Garnish.

This was one of my favourite ever brunches. The french toast was perfect and I've really grown to love the combination of sweet and savoury on one plate which is something a lot of us Brits aren't down with yet!

On our last night we decided that we couldn't leave America without having one last pizza. We'd heard of Ian's Pizza and so we planned to head there, then we heard that it had closed, then we picked somewhere else, and then we heard that Ian's Pizza had actually turned into Dimo's Pizza and that Dimo's Pizza has impressive vegan pizza too. Bloody hell. It was a bit of a roller coaster of pizza emotions but eventually we were in Wrigleyville gazing at a list of vegan pizza options.

We eventually decided to get a whole Teese covered pie to share and we split it half and half with vegan sausage on Nick's side and vegan sausage and mushroom on mine.

Yet again we forgot that sausage can mean something different in the US! This was a great pizza though, plenty of melty Teese and toppings and just look at those crust bubbles! 

Unsurprisingly I also ordered one last root beer. 

I kinda wish that we could get root beer here but on the other hand it's probably a good idea for me to save it as a fun holiday treat!

Sadly the next morning was our last and we started it off with a leisurely breakfast in bed...

...followed by a trip to the huge Lincoln Park Whole Foods store to stock up on all of the stuff we wish we could get at home. We bought loads of Tofurky Slices, Yves Bologna, Go Max bars, Clif bars, Field Roast Sausages and Veganaise. Towards the end of our shopping trip we realised we were pretty hungry so we stopped at the stall cooking up vegan hot dogs!

We definitely couldn't pass up the chance to eat lunch in the middle of a supermarket and I ordered the Irving Park dog.

As the menu said the Irving Park dog comes with cheese & onion but I wasn't expecting anything this spectacular. The onions were beautifully caramelised and the cheese was meted on top of the dog right on the grill giving it awesomely crispy edges.

This was a ridiculously perfect end to an amazing trip. I can't wait to get back to the US which is good because we just booked a trip to Austin! We'll be there for 10 days at the end of September, so, see ya soon America!