Tuesday, April 27th - Chicago to Lincoln
This morning we met in the lobby of the Hyatt Printers' Row at 9:00am and took a taxi over to Lou Mitchell's Restaurant for the traditional "hitting the road on Route 66" breakfast:
Our server, Mickey, was great:
The food was much more than any of us could eat; we should have ordered two breakfasts for the four of us. Traditionally, Lou Mitchell's gives each departing female guest a small box of Milk Duds. Been doing it for years. Men get nothing. First thing we see when entering the restaurant was this sign:
Yep; no Milk Duds. They substituted Tootsie Rolls which, in my book, is just fine.
Hailed another cab to go back to the Hyatt. We brought all our stuff down to the lobby and then Buzz and I walked over to the garage (a block away) and rescued the CEs. They were undamaged by their night in the dungeon but bringing them up and out of the hole they were in caused some dragging of the front end chin spoilers. We parked in front of the hotel and re-packed the trunks.
Finally! We're on our way. We knew the official start for Route 66 is the corner of Adams and Michigan:
We drove there without consequence but had trouble finding the sign. Jackie jumped out to continue searching on foot and the other three of us went 'round the block. In one revolution we saw Jackie waving her arms and jumping up and down -- under the sign. Turns out it is mounted on a pole about ten feet in the air, ostensibly so that it wouldn't be stolen.
We positioned the cars beneath the sign for a photo-op and took off West on Adams.
Jackie is the team navigator in the lead car with Buzz; Gael and I bring up the rear of the world's shortest caravan.
Today we'll spend entirely in the great state of Illinois.
Getting out of Chicago is challenging in low-riding cars as Adams is in the process of being resurfaced. The way the work has progressed as of today, there's a subsurface down and all the manholes stick up about two inches. It's a real autocross to make your way down the street avoiding them.
Kudos to the state of Illinois for marking Historic Route 66 so well. There were a couple of places where the signs had been stolen but overall it made it pretty easy to follow.
We made it out of town in one piece and on to our first attraction Del Rhea Chicken Basket in Willowbrook:
This restaurant has been in the Rhea family for nearly fifty years. We weren't particularly hungry (see the breakfast story above) but you just gotta have something in Del Rhea's! My "something" was sauteed chicken livers (one of my favorites) and they were great. Everyone else had soup and a basket of trademark corn fritters.
We met Patrick Rhea (the current owner) and we talked for a while about our trip, Route 66 in general and his plans to do it this summer with a bunch of folks on Harleys. We took some pretty good pictures:
They bottle their own Route 66 line of softdrinks including, of course, "Route beer":
The first iteration of bottles had enameled labels; here are a couple now being used as salt and pepper shakers:
Now the labels are paper (rendering the bottles less valuable as collectibles). They sell the softdrinks in the store but cannot ship (sadly).
We paid our fare and continued our southerly trek.
Next stop was the White Fence Farm in Lamont -- not to eat but for a photo opportunity. Three of the four of us had dined there in 1998 at the first Route 66 Corvette Show at the Route 66 Raceway. It was closed but we took a picture anyhow.
In Joliet we turned into the Route 66 Raceway complex for another couple of pictures. There was a service entrance open (they're doing some work on the track) and we thought (for a second) about driving in for a quick lap or two but thought better of it.
You can't do Route 66 without a stop at the Launching Pad Restaurant in Wilmington. Its identifying characteristic is the thirty-foot-tall green spaceman called the Gemini Giant:
Gael and I had seen it before when we were on the Historic Motorama but this was the first visit for Buzz and Jackie. I know, I know; another restaurant -- but we only bought soft drinks. And I spent a while taking a support call from a client who had tracked me down:
The Launching Pad has several very nice Route 66 murals on the walls:
Next stop was the Polka-Dot Drive-In in Braidwood. It has this great revolving sign:
.. and life-size resin sculptures of Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Betty Boop and the Blues brothers:
 
 
We posed shamelessly...
 
Curiously, I didn't see a single polka-dot...
After a while we came upon the restored Standard Station in Odell:
It's just sitting on the side of the road like it's waiting for customers. The gas prices posted were 23.9 cents per gallon but we were unable to fill up. The nozzle is welded to the pump (dammit!)
Next we did a "drive-by" of the Old Log Cabin Inn in Pontiac.
In Towanda we discovered a real roadside treasure. The local folks have made a park out of 2.5 miles of the original pavement of Route 66 that you can bike or walk along:
Each of the eight states that Route 66 passes through has a sign and the whole map of the US is painted on the pavement with Route 66 highlighted. You really get a sense of history when you walk along this piece of Americana.
 
Here's Gael standing on her original home state and her present one:
 
Next stop (at 5:33pm) was Funk's Grove Pure Maple Sirup located in Shirley:
Yes, it is spelled "sirup" and not "syrup". Maple Sirup is so named because there is no sugar added. We got there 33 minutes after the store had closed -- but Ms. Glaida Funk opened up for us; we were so grateful!
We bought some items, showed her the Route 66 jigsaw puzzle that friend Paul Adams asked us to show along the road and left her some cards as advance notice that our Cowboy Jazz band friends "Cow Bop" were a-comin' down Route 66 a few days behind us.
You shouldn't miss visiting the Dixie Truckers Home in McLean -- and we didn't:
This truck stop has been open for many, many years; legend has it that when it opened, the owner cemented the keys into the foundation as a commitment that they never close. We ran into a couple of chaps on their way from Santa Monica back east in a pickup:
We shared some stories, handed out a dash plaque and off we both went in opposite directions.
We looked for the Route 66 Museum but it was no longer there (so far as we could tell); this seemed like the building it should have been:
Then we drove into Atlanta (yes, they have one in Illinois as well) and there, in the middle of town, found the Paul Bunyan statue:
This was once an image of the legendary Paul Bunyan holding an axe. Somewhere along the line the axe was lost and he's now holding a giant hot dog. Made sense to someone at some time.
Atlanta also has an unusual octagonally-shaped library with a local museum in the basement:
By coincidence, the only day they're open later than 5pm is on Tuesdays so we were able to go in. The librarian graciously admitted us to the basement museum where we spent a happy half hour or so.
Atlanta claims to be the midpoint of Route 66 in Illinois:
..and there's also a guy in town who claims to be the:
Thankfully, we had no occasion to find out if his claim is true!
By the way, if we don't make better time the rest of our trip, I'm beginning to think we should have scheduled only 100 miles/day instead of the 150-200 that we've planned!
We followed Route 66 into Lincoln and found the Holiday Inn Express from where I'm writing these words. They have free wireless broadband -- but only I could get online since the access point they have for wired people was missing its power supply keeping Buzz wedded to (Ugh!) dial-up!
Long day, lots of stops -- and much, much more to come...
Watch for more tomorrow, Day #2 on the Mother Road!
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