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In the observation car on board the (nine hour) Amtrak ride from Chicago to Omaha, Randi and I encountered Henry: a young British tourist on his way from New York to California. Because of course he was. No matter how many times you remind us how ginormous the US is, we’re constitutionally inclined to seek out the railways to get from A to B. And if you have the time to spare, it’s still the most rewarding strategy. Nine hours pass very quickly when you have that much legroom, a half-bottle of wine and a table from which to watch the Midwest roll by.

I won’t even pretend that we were going to Omaha for any reason other than reaching another state. But it’s a strange place. Omaha is the largest city in Nebraska – and by ‘largest city’, I mean it’s around 400,000 people, with 1.3 million in the Greater Omaha area, against a state population of 1.9 million in total. So most Nebraskans are here.

They just don’t come out very much.

I’ve been to ghostly city centres before – St. Louis comes to mind – with an eerie emptiness at the downtown core. But that’s because they’ve been depopulated by suburbanisation. Omaha feels different. There were some unattractive stretches, but on the whole everything was perfectly pleasant. It wasn’t run-down. There were restaurants and bars, and – as you’d hope – they looked pretty busy on a Saturday night. There just didn’t seem to be anybody on the streets between the restaurants and the bars. Short of apparition or an extensive floo network, I assume the mystery is explained by lots of very direct car journeys from home to work to play. It’s a shame.

Fair play: it’s a tall fountain

The border

A red telephone box in the Old Market

Winning!

Blessed with great weather, we bucked this custom by walking around a lot, but we settled into a wonderful bar in time to watch the Cubs advance to the World Series. (To the uninitiated, this a Big Deal. They haven’t got this far since 1945, and if they won, it would be the first victory since 1908.) Despite being two states over, Omaha turns out to be a hotbed of Cubs fans and the atmosphere was perfect for the occasion.

Special thanks to Cory, an amiable bloke who joined us at the bar and answered many of my remaining Nebraskan questions. (The quintessential activity is pheasant shooting, apparently. British readers might note that, even here, I still get asked in cabs about Brexit.)

The moment the Cubs made it through to the World Series

The latest in my ‘posing with Presidents’ limited edition art series

Other adventures in Omaha included adding predictive post-it notes to Gerald Ford’s birthplace, wandering around the ‘Heartland of America’ park, learning about Prohibition and railway history at the Durham Museum and taking advantage of the bike rental scheme by the riverfront. Although technically most of the actual biking was in Iowa since the Nebraskan trails were still mostly in ‘proposal’ stage on the map. (This was also where my shoelace became unfortunately entwined with the bike, and Randi had to beseech some strangers for a fearsome-looking pocketknife to set it free. Guns don’t save people, pocketknives do.)

We improved it

Technically Iowa

That’s pretty much it for our weekend in the country’s only unicameral state. But we have been busy in Chicago too, including grinning and bearing through the final Presidential debate, phonebanking into Nevada (ten minutes of conversation with one wavering Republican woman made her feel, and I quote, “a lot more confident” about voting for Hillary – probably the first and only time I’ve had this effect on anyone) and playing Betrayal at House on the Hill with Chloe. This is a fun board game where one player suddenly turns hellish defector halfway through, and came highly recommended by Katie.

We also saw two more plays! Merge, by New Colony at the Den (which, I think it’s fair to say, is our favourite theatre here) told the story of the rise and fall of gaming company Atari. It’s the kind of thing I would happily read a book about, so seeing it on stage instead – at a breathless, quirky pace – was an enjoyable alternative. And then The City of Conversation (directed by Marti who is most definitely our favourite director, anywhere) showcased the decline of a Washington political elite through the Carter, Reagan and Obama years. The lead character, socialite Hester Ferris, was particularly well played and the entire production was well worth the trek up to the treacherous ‘pavements optional’ land of Skokie. Doubly so, because we also got to have lunch with Robert and Grace beforehand, who joined us in glaring awkwardly at the one person who voted for Reagan in the pre-show Carter vs. Reagan vs. Obama poll.

Pretty much every Minnesotan I’ve met for the past two years has urged me to go to the Minnesota State Fair, and this Labour Day weekend I finally experienced it for myself with Randi, Simon and Steve. And it was amazing!

Minnesota (keep reading and we’ll get there)

But first: Simon and Steve arrived in Chicago after some extensive road/plane/train-tripping across the United States already, so we had a couple of days to relax and introduce them to important Chicago institutions such as Kuma’s Corner and the Cubs. (In their game against the Pirates, which we saw with Todd and Carolyn, the Cubs were thoughtful enough to throw in some unnecessary drama at the end where it looked like they might squander the whole game’s lead, but they ultimately triumphed in order that Simon and Steve could hear the victory song.)

For the first time in too long we also saw Improv Shakespeare, who rejected our suggestion of ‘President Trump’ (wise) and performed The Coughing Lumberjack instead: a worthy saga combining the industrious Don Lumberjack and a dastardly French invasion of England.

And then it was roadtrip time! Highlights of our journey included a ferociously weird Spotify playlist (I Feel Like Jeremy Corbyn became the trip’s anthem, which you can Google if you must) and multiple stops at Culver’s. By Friday night we reached our hotel in Madison – a popular town if my friends are anything to go by – and spent Saturday morning exploring the farmers’ market and/or arguing with creationists (Simon and Steve took one for the team here) before moving on.

If you weren’t there, you won’t understand how funny Simon’s slow and laboured air mattress inflation was

The state capitol

One of Todd’s favourite shops provided colouring-in

On Saturday evening we arrived into Minneapolis, ate some non-fried non-American food and shared some beers with Catherine while we prepared ourselves for Sunday. Fair Day. There’s so much I could write about the fair itself because it’s so vast: we arrived at 9.30am and left eleven hours later, and not once did we get bored or run out of things to do. To start with, there is so much food: most notable (for us) were the incredible cheese curds, the famous cookies from Sweet Martha’s Cookies Jar and some delicious corn on the cob. There are fairground rides, political stalls, a host of farm animals (some within the ‘Miracle of Birth’ tent) and an art gallery. We saw the finalists of the Princess Kay of the Milky Way contest carved out of butter, rode the cable car over the fair and and the Ye Old Mill canal boat through pitch black tunnels underneath, cheered on a lumberjack competition and admired many, many tractors.

In short, it was wonderful. Apart from the GOP’s Trump tent. Which was less wonderful.

State Fair!

On the incredibly fun (and incredibly wet) River Raft Ride

On the tractor

Princess Kay butter sculptures

Turns out ‘all you can drink’ milk is a mixed blessing

Prize winning corn

In the Democratic booth

My Hillary badge became a talisman

Almost dropping the cookies

We weren’t the only ones going for the cookies

The Crazy Mouse ride: our final attraction

There were a couple of other pre-fair events back in Chicago which I should mention. I went to a very compelling one-day course from Edward Tufte: nominally on data presentation, but he has the moral authority and professorial gravitas to talk about whatever he wants and make it compelling (plus he’s friends with Randall Munroe from xkcd). I made use of both Jason’s pool and the wonderful, free public pool in Pulaski Park before the summer ends. And we had a three-way dinner date with Robert, Grace, Luis and Marti before seeing The 7th Annual Living Newspaper Festival: a collection of topical short plays inspired by newspaper stories. (The most enjoyable was set in a robotised future classroom in a Trumpian dystopia. Election day draws ever nearer.)