Route 66 Part Two: Day Three

If you recall from yesterday, we stayed with Buffy's friend Betsy at her place near the north side of Chicago. Other than a couple of emergency vehicles running their sirens early this morning, it was fairly quiet in the big city. Once we awoke, got cleaned up and a cup of coffee for Buffy, we were on the road.

We filled up, figuratively and literally, with breakfast and fuel in Willow Springs. And in the Chicago area, fuel can be purchased as high as $4.35/gallon regular unleaded. We got a bargain today in Willow Springs at $4.22/gallon. If you're running diesel, you luck out at an affordable $5.00/gallon.

This is where we more or less planned our route back home. We decided to take US Route 6 along the Illinois River until we hit Rt 29. You'd think a river route might be scenic. Not really so along here. But what do you expect... it *is* the Illinois River. In all fairness, there was a lot of nice wooded areas, but starting out, there was a lot of industrial property. Not all that scenic unless heavy machinery turns you on.

So like I said earlier, don't expect this trip to be as grand as last year's excursion on the Mother Road to California. In all though, a good time was had. I will leave you with additional photos from concluding our Route 66 journey.



Buffy and Rick with Tall Paul, the Buyon's Giant Hot Dog man in Atlanta, IL. Tall Paul originally came from Cicero, IL, where he belonged to Bunyon's Drive-In.










Buffy pretends to refuel Ringo at a refurbished Standard Oil station in Odell, IL. It was first built in 1932 and was refurbished to what it appeared during the 1930's - 40's.






Rick reads the paper at the Route 66 cafe near Gardner, IL. This was previously a horse drawn street car. Sitting behind the Riviera Roadhouse, it was converted to a diner in 1932. It closed in 1939. Recently restored, no food is served there, but the 100 year old trolley remains so history is preserved... and that people like me can get photos like this.


More photos available at my MySpace page at www.myspace.com/rlojr.



Stats:

Travel Time: 5.83 hours

Miles Travelled: 182

Avg Speed: 31.22 mph

Total Miles: 486.6

Fuel Mileage: 24.94 mpg

Route 66 Part Two: Day Two

We are now in Chicago staying at the residence of a friend of Buffy's from high school for the evening. We had a charming evening having drinks on the back deck and enjoying some fine cuisine of BBQ chicken and brats. But what led us here???

We began our day leaving the Holiday Inn Express in Pontiac, IL at 9:21am for a Walgreen's (briefly) and then McDonald's for breakfast. Roughly an hour later, we were on our way heading north on 66. We made a stop in O'dell(sp) to check out a refurbished gas station, originally built circa 1932. Continuing on 66, we also stopped in Wilmington, where the "Gemini Giant" resides at the Launching Pad diner. This was another giant figure of a man, only this has somewhat of a science fiction flare as he wears a helmet and hold a rocket in his hands. After a few photos, we stayed for a milkshake.

Back on the road, we headed on into Chicago. There really wasn't much to stop at between Wilmington and Chicago. We saw a few sites, but nothing that warranted us stopping.

Our voyage into Chicago was much faster than the 4 hours of stop and go getting into Santa Monica last year. But one thing that was confirmed for me today was that Los Angeles drivers are far more courteous than Chicago drivers. If you recall from last year, we accidentally got on the LA freeway for a brief while. To my surprise, I found them to be courteous, allowing me to get off the freeway. No chance of that in Chicago. At one point, I only wanted to go straight through a green light; but the oncoming traffic wanting to turn left just went on, regardless that I had the right of way. Assholes!

Anyway, once our journey on 66 was now over, we parked the car and walked over to Navy Pier for some drinks at the Billy Goat tavern (you know, the "Cheezborger, cheezborger" place). Not knowing what we were going to do now, we started coming up with ideas.

"I wonder what Betsy is doing?" Buffy asked. "Call her up. We can party with them if they are up for it," I responded in so many words. The call was made, Betsy and her "man-friend" were not doing anything and they invited us to their place for dinner and for the night. We had another drink and then headed north to Betsy's and here we are.

What are we doing tomorrow? Check back to find out because I have no idea right now.

Stats:
Travel Time: 5 hours
Miles Travelled: 105
Avg Speed: 21 mph
Total Miles: 296

Route 66 Part Two: Day One

We left the house this morning and first stopped at the local SuperPantry to fill up with fuel... at the bargain price of $4.07 a gallon. For this trip, we opted to take "Ringo" (the name Buffy gave her car, since Ringo is her favorite Beatle). We were finally on our way at 9:30am.

Our first stop was at the Cracker Barrel in Morton for breakfast. Currently, they're breakfast special is "Grandma's Blueberry Pancakes." I highly recommend it. I also proved how dumb I was while trying to solve those puzzle games they have at Cracker Barrel. The best I could do was get it down to 3 pegs.





We finally arrived in Springfield, IL at exactly 12 noon. We parked and headed into the Abe Lincoln Presidential Library.

The place is very modern and there are some high tech stuff there. We first looked around at some of the other non-tech exhibits before heading into the high tech hologram stuff. One stop was a room that looked reminiscent of the back control room of a TV station. It showed a number of monitors as if it were broadcasting a news program. It featured Tim Russert, the now late NBC political commentator. The program it was showing was a mock TV news program from the hot presidential race of 1860. It was kind of humorous as the news ticker at the bottom of the screen claimed that France was considering allowing the new motorized cars to run on the streets.


There were two other high tech shows that were very interesting. Definitely, if you haven't been here, try to visit sometime.

We were finally done around 2:30pm and then left for Rt 66. We stopped at a few locations to check out some oddities. This would include seeing the Tropics sign in Lincoln and the giant hot dog man in Atlanta (were we stopped for a drink at Chubby's).

We finally stopped for the day in Pontiac and set up camp at the Holiday Inn Express. We went out for dinner at a local family restaurant and then adjourned to a local watering hold called Bob & Ringo's. This establishment features a number of stuffed animals, ranging from deer to bison to squirrel to rooster. It also features a number of firearms hung on the wall. And they had at least I'm guessing $15 grand in bottled booze behind the bar.

People in the joint were very friendly. We couldn't help but notice a note hanging above the cash register that says "Do Not Serve (name withheld)." We had to inquire.

Apparently, Ms (name withheld) has multiple personalities, and on several occasions, she has forgotten to take her medication, so she sits and has conversations with herself, laughs to herself and argues with herself. In all, quite entertaining, but she also causes some difficulties with the patrons. So, the management would rather not serve her at all.

This was a really cool place. After a couple of other drinks, we headed back to the Holiday Inn for the evening.

Tomorrow, we plan to get to Chicago and have absolutely no idea what to do next. We'll keep you posted.

Stats:

The stats are in the car and I'm too lazy to go out and get them. I'll post them tomorrow... sorry for the inconvenience.

Update: As promised, here are the stats...

Elapsed Time: 8.375 hrs

Avg Speed: 22.8 mph

Miles Travelled: 191

Total Miles: 191

Quote of the day: "and there's that 'ol onry John Wilkes Booth!" from an Abraham Lincoln Library worker, telling us that we could not use our camera in many of the areas of the library, but we could photograph the wax figures.

New Toy

I have ventured into the world of the Mac.  I broke down and purchased a MacBook Pro and so far, so good.  My previous laptop was a Sony Vio with a 17 inch monitor.  I got it least 5 years ago.  It was a great computer in its day and still a decent computer.  However, I pick up the MacBook and it is so much lighter than the "lead weight" of the Sony.

I got it home and the thing was pretty much ready to go.  But...  I had some difficulty using my wireless network to get on the Internet.  After some trial and errors and some research, I finally deduced that my old 5 or 6 year old Linksys router just did not work with newer technology.  So it was back to the store to pick up what Apple calls "Time Capsule."  It's basically a wireless-n router with a 500GB hard drive for backups... and they claim it's compatible with PCs.  We will see.

So tonight, after some minor difficulties, have been setting up the Time Capsule and the MacBook.  I cannot believe how much faster the Internet has been running using the new Apple router/Time Capsule.  Much faster than that old Linksys wireless-g router.  There's a couple of different quirkly little things I'm trying to get used to on the MacBook, but so far, I'm really liking it.

Next week, Beth and I plan to travel the section of Route 66 we have not been on, so I will have the MacBook with me to travelblog.

Happy Anniversary

Today marks Buffy's and my 10 year wedding anniversary! And we have nothing really planned.

It was Friday, June 12, 1998 (photo on left) when at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas, NV we said "I do." It's sort of difficult to believe it's been 10 years. A lot has happened since then... built a new house and moved in, gained an extra nephew, lost an array of family members, job changes, made new friends, terrorist attacks, war, got a mid-life crisis, started a band, became a blond. Yep, we're now just your typical old married couple.

Our anniversary was somewhat overshadowed by Buffy's parents 50th wedding anniversary last weekend. All the family came in town for happy hour on Friday then a dinner the next night. But, we are tentatively planning to finish our Route 66 trip for our anniversary, perhaps next week. If you recall, we followed Route 66 for over 2 weeks last year (which was travel-blogged about here). We got onto 66 just north of Springfield, IL. So we plan to go to Springfield and check out the new Lincoln Library, then follow 66 north from Springfield to Chicago. It will only be about a 3 day trip.

UPDATE: We wound up going to dinner at Tavern on the Water and then to the first night of "Scumboat Days" for our anniversary.  We met up with Ted Sumner, Dubby and Rusty Greene and watched Rachel's Hippo play.