As I said, I wasn't feeling right the night before and still wasn't feeling right in the morning. So since I was in Chicago I decided to take at tour of a real Chicago ER (Northwestern University Hospital, walking distance from the hotel). Noah Wyle and George Clooney were not there, but like the TV show the residents were handsome young males and the female nurse was guiding them through the use of supplies for some procedures. It turned out there was nothing seriously wrong with me, but they discovered I have a minor condition which may need further treatment in Philadelphia.
While I was sitting in one of those hospital gowns that makes your bum stick out, Peter got breakfast, wrote postcards, and packed for both of us. I was able to check out of the hospital just in time to check out of the hotel and we hit the road a little after noon. I decided to take I-90 all the way to the Falls instead of going through Canada because I hadn't been that way before and I secretly hoped to have time for dinner in Cleveland. Plus I thought Peter would rather travel through American states than a Canadian province (no offense intended to the great province of Ontario). We stopped for lunch in Indiana, but for dinner we didn't have time to go roaming through Cleveland so we went to a TGI Friday's in a suburb of Cleveland.
At about 12:45 a.m. we arrived at Olde Niagara House, the downtown bed and breakfast we would be staying in for the night. It was kind of expensive, $65 a night for two beds with a private toilet and sink but a shared shower. But Let's Go USA advertised it as having a hearty breakfast and it was the Thursday before Labor Day weekend so it seemed reasonable. Plus I had never stayed in a bed and breakfast before.
It turns out the "hearty breakfast" label was ironic--as she gave us the tour the owner pointed to the kitchen and said, "there's tea and coffee and toast and cereal in the kitchen, help yourself in the morning." The real highlight though was when the owner offered us our choice of two rooms until she realized there was a bat flying around in one of them! Still, the pastel walls and quilted bedspreads were kind of quaint.