Route 66

We drove Route 66 from St. Louis to Chicago after The SITS Girls conference in St. Charles, Missouri. I have posted before about my love of Route 66.  Before we left for this trip I asked a person at AAA for information on the infamous highway between those cities. He told me they didn’t have any because the road is mostly paved over. I’m here to tell you, folks, Route 66 is alive and well. We traveled most of the way on the actual Historic Route 66 highway and I enjoyed every minute. Here are some pics of what we saw.

These two were from the tiny windows in the the Arch in St. Louis when we took the ride up the Arch. And then we hit the road.

The only real problem we had was trying to find Chain of Rocks Bridge which was in St. Louis but could only be accessed from the Illinois side due to recurring vandalism to cars. We spent about two hours looking but never found it. I think we must return again one day.

 

Don’t ask me why, but they were into “Giants” in the days of Route 66 glory. This is one of a few we saw. And another surfing giant here at this well visited place in Livingston, Illinois. We didn’t have time to go in, though I would have loved to. There were just too many sights to see and not enough time on this trip. This was mostly just a drive-by trip.

 

 Check out the front of the elephant sticking out of the building.

I’m not sure the appeal for me with these silly sights but I have bunches more! Our next stop (and we did stop) was in Stauton, Illinois at Henry’s Rabbit Ranch & Route 66 Emporium.

We actually spent a little bit of time here at Henry’s. Okay, a lot of time. “Henry” had a lot of things to tell us about these parts having grown up there, getting his first job along Route 66, marrying a woman who was raised along Route 66. And while we were there a couple came in…regulars if you will, and we talked some more. And when I say talk, I mean listen. It seems the male counter part of this couple has started Ride for the Relay. This is an annual bike ride in September ( bike as in motorcycle) on Route 66, starting in Chicago, Navy Pier to be exact and ending in Santa Monica, for a cause; cancer research. To find out more information visit Ride for the Relay My husband and I were invited to tag alone, though we’re not bikers, so following in a car, which sounds like such a sissy thing to do. I would write, take pictures and post about this journey all along the way. I may just take them up on it!

I loved this Rabbit planting. Reminded me of Cadillac Ranch in Texas minus the graffiti.

Stopped for gas…okay, not really.

Then it was time to stop for lunch. We stopped at Artesian Café in Carlinville, Illinois, a classic place to eat and believed to be the oldest café on Historic Route 66. We had a burger and fries. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

And then we went across the street to a small museum for a quick view of some memorabilia from the day.

This totally looks like the television we had when I was growing up, and I’m not even kidding! Well, sort of, anyway.

I loved the drive-in theater when I was a kid!

Things go better with a Coke™, right?

We continued to drive a little more and saw more sights similar to what I have shown you in this post before we stopped for the night at a Holiday Inn Express in Springfield where we would pick up the trek and journey into Chicago in the morning.