Wednesday, April 28th - Lincoln to St. Louis
This morning we met in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express at 8:30am:
.. and, after breakfast, hit the Mother Road (again).
We have a lot to cram into today as we have an invitation for dinner with my cousins Ann, Paul and Cathy in St. Louis at 6:15p.
Our first stop is the famous Pig Hip Museum (neatly spelled "Musem" on their banner) in Broadwell. Ernie Edwards, age 87, has been the proprietor forever. When we arrived, Ernie was not in evidence so we decided to take a few pictures of the outside. While so engaged, here came Ernie. He was on the phone and saw us out of his window and raced next door to the museum to open it for us.
We had an hour or more of stories from Ernie, some tall, some not so tall. We learned of his tenuous connection to the Mob (in the 30s), of his lifelong friendship with Col. Harlan Sanders (founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken) and his love/hate relationship with the founder of Steak and Shake.
Here's Ernie (in chef's toque) and a bunch of pictures of his museum and Route 66 memorabilia:
(We weren't the only visitors this morning..)
We gave Ernie one of our dash plaques and he put it right up! Look for it when you visit the Pig Hip Restaurant:
As we made ready to leave, Ernie asked if he could have a photo with the ladies; of course he could...
(Methinks Ernie likes the ladies..)
Our next stop was the Route 66 Dream Car Museum in Williamsville:
Where else can you pay $5 and have the owner personally describe every one of the twenty-plus cars in his collection? We enjoyed our visit with Phil Hawley and his outstanding collection of Dream Cars:
(Here's Phil with one of his many beauties)
After that we made our way into Springfield and scheduled a visit to the Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie House; turned out the scheduling for their tours didn't match up with ours so we moved on after taking a few pix of the exterior:
And on to sample the original Corn Dog at the Cozy Drive-In on the way out of Springfield:
We'd been invited to lunch by Nick Adam, owner of the Ariston Cafe in Litchfield so we couldn't eat much at the Cozy Drive-in -- but we did have one corn dog each (Gael and Jackie's first ever). They were great!
As we raced along Historic Route 66 we almost zoomed past the Our Lady of the Highway shrine in Waggoner -- but we were able to stop in time and back up down the highway for this photo:
Then on into Litchfield for a sumptuous luncheon with Nick at his Ariston Cafe. This is a really beautiful restaurant with outstanding food:
In the Ariston we ran into David Eberle who was making his way from the SouthWest up Route 66, traveling alone on his Harley:
We shared stories and tips, posed for our now obligatory group shot:
(That's proprietor Nick Adam in the center)
..paid the check, went outside to see David off:
.. and headed off toward St. Louis.
Next we visited the restored Soulsby's Shell Station in Mt. Olive. Like the restored Standard station from yesterday, this one looks ready to pump.
Our next visit was with Rich Henry at Henry's Route 66 Rabbit Ranch in Staunton:
Yes, there are rabbits (about forty of 'em) and they are an integral part of Rich's shop. Rich couldn't have been nicer and we enjoyed seeing Molly (his star) almost perform her trick!
Rich took our picture and we're off again:
Our final visit for today is the Chain of Rocks Bridge in Mitchell. Closed to auto traffic (just not safe) it's still a bicycle and hiking opportunity. We walked off (most of our) lunch on this famous old bridge over the Chain of Rocks Canal.
Finally we made it to tonight's hotel, another Holiday Inn Express in St. Louis. This one has hardwired broadband so both Buzz and I can get on line. We were later arriving than we'd hoped and just had time to jump in and out of the shower and dress for dinner with my cousins. Here we all are just before departing their home for a wonderful meal.
Long day, lots of stops -- and much, much more to come...
Watch for more tomorrow, Day #3 on the Mother Road!
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