2014-10-21 Travelin' Day to St. Louis

After 5 days at the Illinois State Fairgrounds parking lot we are moving further south along Route 66 to St. Louis today - about 140 miles. Ours is the Silverback 5th wheel.

60 miles down the road in Litchfield is the Ariston Cafe that was closed yesterday. So we left a little late this morning so we could stop there for lunch. The lady at the museum told us the desserts were so good we had to come back. There was a sign inside that confirmed her story.

I had pork over bread over mashed potatoes covered in gravy. Karen had a cheeseburger.

And the Apple Pie with nuts and caramel WAS delicious as promised.

Here's a very cool looking, restored 1926 gas station in Mount Olive called Soulsby Shell Station. He only sold Shell gas for more than 65 years.

Oddly, the building was never big enough to service a car inside so they had to do oil changes and such outside. What they DID do inside was television and radio repair. Huh?

The place was open but no one was there. It's a museum and gift shop now.

How do you describe Hare It Is in Staunton, IL?

This guy LOVES rabbits - both the furry ones and the automobile ones.

It's a gift shop made to look like a gas station.

The owner was there and we talked about 15 minutes about his rabbits and his rabbits. He has a story for each of them. The furry ones all have distinct personalities. The car ones have to be cut in half and put in the ground so that the local city will consider them "art" while he parts them out.

Henry's Rabbit Ranch is a great place to stop and chat along the Route.

Time for some shopping at the Pink Elephant Antique Mall in Livingston, IL.

They have everything the Route 66 traveler could possible want.

Muffler Man? Check!

Giant Tricyle? Check!

Space Ship? Check!

Shirtless Boy Wonder with an ice cream cone and a pet elephant? ??? Check!

...and a huge antique mall on 3 levels inside an old high school gymnasium that Karen would have liked to spend another hour or two in.

We pulled into Hamel and found another Route 66 marker. I pulled off to the side of the road about 100 yards past the marker and Karen went back to get the picture.

An old gentleman from across the street walks over to the truck and says, "You know, that's a very special place right back there. This is where the trolley tracks used to go right down the middle of this road. Went from St. Louis all the way to Peoria."

We chatted for about 10 minutes while light traffic whizzed by behind him. He was 74 and lived here when Route 66 was alive before the Interstate.

There was this old garage/service station next to my truck. The guy's friend had bought it years ago to preserve the building and he turned it into a single stall car wash. These are the interesting people and great stories you hear when you stop on the Route.

2014-09-30 Moving South & Our First "Muffler Man"

It is finally time to start heading south. We've been fortunate and the weather has not turned cold on us yet, BUT it is almost October and we are expecting it.

We hitched up the 5th wheel and uneventfully made the 120 mile drive to our new RV park - Leisure Lake Membership Resort at the intersection of I-55 and I-80 where we will be staying for 9 days.

Along the way we picked up a toll transponder at an "Oasis" on the Tri-State Expressway that would allow us to zoom through toll areas without stopping. We preloaded our account with $40, attached the transponder to the windshield, and off we went. It's a great time saver, gas saver, and the tolls are half price.

The next day we relaxed and had a leisurely morning at our Leisure Resort. Feeling antsy, we headed out after lunch for a walk on the Illinois & Michigan Canal trail. We found a couple of locks (no longer being used) and dams along the way and some guy's yard that was like an antique farm museum.

We had our itinerary with us and so we headed for a stretch of Route 66 a short distance away to see what we could find.

The Schutten-Aldrch House was really cool looking.

I may as well take a few moments and explain what a "Muffler  Man" is because you'll be seeing lots of pictures of them in later blogs.

Muffler Men are large molded fiberglass sculptures that were placed as advertising icons or roadside attractions. They are anywhere from 18-25 feet tall. We will see these guys holding a variety of items on our travels. International Fiberglass of Venice, California constructed most of them.

This one we found standing in Wilmington, IL outside of the closed Launching Pad fast food restaurant.

Times must really be tough because this place had tons of Route 66 memorabilia inside.

We tried to help out and bought $50 worth of diesel in town before heading down the street to Nelly's for dinner.

The food was great and they invite you to "pull out the ladder and write on their ceiling".

We headed on down the road where we'll be searching for more great cities and things to see and eat along Route 66.