Tues. Sept 6

Most of today was spent in Springfield, Ill  There is so much to see in this city.  Today it was back into the downtown core.  Our first stop was to the building where Lincoln had his law offices.

Could that really be Abraham himself????

We had a tour guide take us through the building where Lincoln had his law offices.  They were on the third floor and later he moved to the second floor.  The ground floor was a dry goods store and the upper floors were rented out as offices.

We then went across the street to the old State Building and toured through that building.  Vicky met a new friend.  He claimed his father was Canadian and that he was thinking of getting Canadian citizenship.  We tried to explain that he may have to change the way he dressed.

After the State Capital Building we went down the street to the Lincoln Museum.  This museum is extremely well done and like everything else in Springfield is all about Lincoln.  We spent over three hours in the museum. 

Vicky again found some more new friends.

This museum is another must see if you make it to this area.

Lincoln as a young man at the home he was raised in.

On our way out of Springfield we stopped at two Route 66 sites.  Shea's garage was not open so we weren't able to go in to see all the gas pumps that are suppose to be inside.  The second site was one that was high on my list of places to see.  The Cozy Dog.  This is were the corn dog was invented and the business is still owned by the same family.  Of course we had a corn dog even though we weren't really hungry.

After our gourmet meal at the Cozy Dog we headed south of Springfield.  Along the way we found a stretch of Route 66 that has been left in its original state--bricks.  Thankfully it only lasts for about a mile.  Not a great way to build a highway.

We ended our journey today in the town of Litchfield.  It still has an operating drive-in theatre on Rte 66.  Tomorrow we will finish our Illinois portion of Route 66.  One state down, 7 more to go. 

Mon. Sept 5/11

Today was the least amount of driving we have done on this trip.  We did a total of 25 miles.  We made up for it by doing a lot of walking through the downtown core to see all the things related to Abraham Lincoln.  The eerie part of the whole day was that at times we seemed to be the only people in the downtown core.  It looked like one of those Hollywood movies where everyone has disappeared due to alien abduction or nuclear holocaust.  Labour Day kept everyone out of the core in Springfield.

We started off by going to Lincoln's home where he lived for about 17 years and was residing when he was elected President.  About four blocks around his home has been made into a National Park and is run by the National Park Service.

Lincoln's home.  We did an escorted tour through the house and it contained many artifacts that were used by the Lincoln family.  I didn't realize that Lincoln had 4 sons but only one lived to adulthood.  One died at age 4, one at age 12 and one at age 17.  The oldest son was the only one to have a long life and lived to 82.

This is the family parlor where Lincoln would lay on the floor to read to his children.  He laid on the floor because all the chairs were too small for his 6'4" frame.  We toured through some of the other houses on the street that were open to the public.  We obtained a lot info on Lincoln's life and law career in Springfield.

They have tried to restore this area to the way it looked around 1850-1860.

Our next stop was the Old State Capitol building.

This was the State Capitol Building from 1839 until 1879

Next we went to the present State Capitol Building.

After touring the grounds we went to the Illinois State Museum.

This hat is at the entrance to the museum.  It was an amazing place.  It had an impressive geologic display about the development of Illinois over the last 65 million years.  The second floor displays are hard to describe because they covered such a wide array of topics.  If you ever make it to Springfield this should be at the top of your list of places to see.

After the museum we headed for the Lincoln Tomb at the Oakridge Cemetery.

The obelisk is 117 feet high.  This is the entrance to the tomb where Lincoln, his wife and three of his sons are interred.  His oldest son is buried in Arlington Cemetery in Virginia.

Lincoln is 10 feet under this marble monument in the middle of the structure.  He is certainly one of the most revered Presidents the Americans have ever had. 

It was a great day that we both enjoyed.  It is actually tiring at our age to try to absorb all the information we found today.  However,  the day was clear and sunny and about 75 degrees F. so it was a most pleasant day for all the walking and exploring we did.  The only downside to our day was to get back to our motel and hear on the internet that the Esks skunked the Stamps  BADLY.  Can't we leave for a short trip without the rest of you not cheering the Stamps on to victory?????  There is only one thing worse than being beat by Edmonton on Labour Day and that is being beat BADLY by the Esks on Labour Day.  We expect you all to be cheering much louder on Friday for the return match.

Tomorrow we will look at a few more things in this area before starting our trip towards St. Louis.

One last picture that shows the Lincoln family tree.  Unfortunately their are no direct descendats of Abraham Lincoln living today.

Sunday, Sept. 4

At last we got some cooler but very pleasant weather.  We backtracked  to Pontiac, Ill to see the 2 museums we missed yesterday.  We ended up staying there until 3:00 p.m. They were having a Treshing Weekend and they had a parade that started at 1:00 and lasted 2 hours.  Marching bands, Shriners in funny little cars, and something different than our parades---all the local candidates for state senate, circuit judges, county clerks, county treasurer etc.  passing out candy to the kids and pens, emery boards?????, and brochures to the adults.  The best marching band was from a black high school in South Chicago.  They combined a marching band with fantastic dancing that only black people seem to be able to do.  Also, interesting to see that whenever a military group or firemen come by, everyone stands, removes their hats and applauds.  U. S. patriotism is a wonderful thing to see.
The following pictures are from the parade:

This replica of a radio flyer wagon is actually street legal and licenced.  Someone obviously has too much money and too much time on their hands.

We took lots of pictures of the 21 murals throughout downtown Pontiac

Vicky taking Abraham Lincoln for a ride around town

We toured the Pontiac car museum.  This was my favorite because it shouldn't use as much gas as the corvette.

The best museum of the day was the Veterans War Museum which was started 7 years ago by a man named Estes.  He landed at Omaha Beach in WW2 and also took part in the Battle of the Bulge.  The picture below was his uniform.  His son Bill was looking after the museum today and it had a fabulous collection of uniforms.  Everything in the museum has been donated by local people.  It has uniforms and artifacts from WW1 right up to Iraqi and Afghanistan.

The following picture is Bill standing by his uniform from when he fought in Vietnam.  The uniform beside his is from his best friend who didn't make it back because he stepped on a land mine.  A very interesting man and very knowledgeable about everything in the museum because he helped his father set it all up.

Finally we headed south again to Bloomington where we started the day.  We wanted to see the David Davis mansion. He was a lawyer and he was instrumental in getting Lincoln elected President.  Lincoln had worked in Davis' law firm.  Unfortunately the mansion was closed for tours by the time we found it.  It seems like 4:00pm is the standard closing time for museums.  Also the mansion is only open for tours from Wed. to Sun. so it will not be on our list of places we visited.

We contined along Rte. 66 hoping to make Springfield, Ill which we have managed to do.  We will stay here for 2 days as this is where Lincoln lived for much of his career until he became President.

In the town of Atlanta, Ill we came across the Bunyon Giant.  If you remember the Gemini Giant from an earlier blog,  they are related.  In the heyday of Rte  66 these giants were used to advertise for muffler shops that existed along 66.  When the shops went out of business many of the towns kept the giants but took the mufflers out of their hands and inserted something that meant something to the locals.  Again, doesn't it seem like people in these areas have too much time on their hands???????

The following picture shows a cafe in Atlanta that also served as a stop for Greyhound Bus Lines.  If someone needed to be picked up they flipped a switch inside that put on a blue light on the top of the cafe sign

Sat. Sept. 3/11

Our last day at Downer's Grove was another clear sunny day.  They are predicting cooler weather overnight which will be welcomed by everyone in this area.

We made our way back to Joliet, Ill. where we left off yesterday.  The first sight we saw in Joliet were about 95 motorcyclist.  We caught up to them later in Wilmington.  They are from all over the U.S. and one person from Canada.  They are doing a ride for cancer and had started at the Navy Pier in Chicago and were going as far as Springfield, Ill today.  They are going all the way to Santa Monica, Cal.  and are doing 200 miles per day for 12 days.

Dick's is located just on the outskirts of Joliet.  This is where we saw the bike riders on their way to Santa Monica. We met up with them again in Wilmington.

This is the Gemini Giant in Wilmington where we met the bike riders again.

This biker had a neat trailer on his Harley that looked like a corvette.  Vicky has decided to complete the trip with him.  Only kidding----she doesn't like the wind in her hair that much.

We stopped at this neat diner in Wilmington and talked with the bikers and looked at the neat murals in the diner.

At Dwight, Ill we stopped at this 2 cell jail on Rte. 66  It was mainly used to keep vagrants off the streets of the town at night.

At the town of Gardner, Ill we stopped at this gas station which has been redone to the standard it was at during the 50's on Rte 66.  We spent about half an hour with Tom and Louise Tock who volunteered at the site.  Tom was born and lived all his life in Gardner except for 2 years in the U.S. Navy.  He and Louise operated the newspaper in Gardner called the Gardner Star and Herald.  He sold the paper when he retired and it lasted about 5 years after he sold it.  One of his daughters started a paper in Gardner in 1999 called "The Paper" and it has been successful.  Tom and Louise gave us a copy.  They wanted us to take their picture by our corvette and then took our picture.  They said if we email the pictures to their daughter's paper, they will ask her to publish them with a small write up.  Is this how you got started as a columnist with the High River Times, Richard????

Tom and Louise Tock

It's kind of hard to see in this picture but we holding a copy of the Gardner "The Paper"

Another example of a Rte 66 restored service station in Odell, Ill

For about 30 miles you can see the original Rte 66 that now lies between the second alignment of Rte 66 and the I55 freeway.  You can see that it was made of concrete sections.  Kind of reminds one of parts of Deerfoot Trail  in Calgary

We spent the largest part of our day in Pontiac, Ill.  They have about 4 great museums here that are dedicated to Rte 66 as well as 21 murals on buildings.  We met up with many of the bikers from earlier in the day and chatted with them again.  It was very hot today again as you can see from the following photo.

The following photo is an example of the 21 murals

All the museums were closing at 4 pm so we continued down Rte 66 for 30 miles to Bloomington, Ill.  We are spending the night here.  Luckily  as we were driving a lot of clouds moved in and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees and it started to rain.  It was a welcome relief from the heat we have had since we arrived in the Chicago area.
Tomorrow we plan on returning to Pontiac to see the museums we missed and then continue on to Springfield, Ill. where Abraham Lincoln lived and practiced law before he became President.

Friday, Sept. 2/11

Another very hot day in the Chicago area.  Temperatures in high 90's with hi humidity--not that I'm complaining.  They are expecting some cooler temps in the next few days.

Today we decided to do some of Route 66 again as we had been on some of it coming out of Chicago yesterday.  We are staying in a suburb called Downer's Grove, so we decided to start at Cicero and go to Joliet on Route 66.  Cicero and Berwyn are not very affluent areas.  They seem to have a lot of Hispanic people.  We stopped in Berwyn to get the Corvette washed as it was carrying a lot of Montana, Minnesota and Wisconsin dirt.  The picture below was taken in Berwyn.  It was advertising a Route 66 car show in the town on Sept. 10.  Unfortunately, we are planning to be in Branson Missouri on that date.

We continued on Route 66 through some other small towns and then had to go on the I55 freeway for about 10 miles befoe going back onto 66.  They have many brown coloured signs that say Historic Route 66 which really helps to stay on track.  We passed the Joliet State prison where the Blues Brothers movie filmed the beginning scene of their movie.  In Joliet we found their Route 66 museum and spent a couple of hours there.

Vicky found the Blues Brothers relaxing at the Route 66 Museum in Joliet

Inside the Route 66 museum.  An original Corvette???????

The museum had a section about Abraham Lincoln, an area dedicated to the development of Joliet which had a lot of rock quarries and has a large canal that was built on the Des Plaines River to join the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River.  Goods could be transported to and from New Orleans. 

Before we left Joliet we found a Harrah's Casino.  We spent an hour or so and ended up winning $15.00.  That's almost enough to pay for 4 gallons of gas for the Corvette. 

Tomorrow we continue our trip from Joliet.  If you're following the blog--we hope you are enjoying it.  Dennis,  I am enjoying your comments.  I'm surprised at how much you know about Route 66

Thurs. Sept. 1,2011 Chicago

Today was our foray into the middle of downtown Chicago.  If you think construction on roads in Calgary is bad,  you would be amazed at what is happening in downtown Chicago.  It seems like every second street is being worked on and that two or three buildings in each block are being restored.  However, it is a beautiful city with a gorgeous shoreline with plenty of green space and lots of boats

The architecture and green spaces are well used.  Millenium Park is beautiful and has a large outdoor amphitheater.  There was a jazz festival going on and admission was free whereever they were performing.  We spent some time in the Cultural Buidling which was the old library and they had a jazz group playing in one of the open areas.

Vicky is standing on one of the levels in the Culture Centre where we saw a jazz group


There are many fabulous photos to look at of the buildings and parks but it would take too much time to include them all. However,  we did find the beginning of Route 66 for those travelling west to Santa Monica,
California and the end of Route 66 for those who have travelled it from west to east and end in Chicago.  These two signs are on different streets one block apart because each of the streets are now one-way streets.  Now our adventure truly begins after 50 years of thinking about it.

Let the adventure begin!!!!!  By the way,  the weather was very hot and humid today but we enjoyed it.  Cooler weather is forecast in about 2 or 3 days.