Illinois is a really, really long state from north to south!\u00a0 Today we made about 175 miles because of the number of things to see.<\/p>\n
After a restful night and breakfast\u00a0in Pontiac, IL we “decamped” from the Best Western around 8:30 AM.\u00a0 We spent about 2 hours walking around the downtown area viewing many of the murals that had been painted on the outside of many buildings.\u00a0 We spent time in the Pontiac Oakland Automobile museum and the Walldogs sign painting museum.\u00a0 We also explored the Artcars that the town had sponsored artists to decorate.\u00a0\u00a0By 10:30 we were on historic Route 66 heading SW to take in other sites and gather some more geocaches.<\/p>\n
Towanda\u00a0was our first stop–and an unanticipated one at that!\u00a0 We found\u00a0a really olde route 66 section that had been converted to a bike trail.\u00a0 The really neat thing that prompted us to stop was the presnece of some\u00a0\u00a0Burma Shave signs that you read while driving by.<\/p>\n
Moving on to Normal, we took in\u00a0Sprague’s Super Service gas station.<\/p>\n
Funk’s Grove was another unanticipated find on the route.\u00a0 At this small attraction outside of\u00a0town, maple sirup was made.\u00a0 Now you may wonder at the spelling, but apparently in earlier times, sirup was made from boiling down the the juice from maple trees whereas syrup is made from adding sugar to the\u00a0 fruit juice.<\/p>\n
We next stopped in the town of Atlanta.\u00a0 The primary objective here was to locate a geocache.\u00a0 Since it was near time for lunch we determined to eat at the Palms Grill Cafe which is frequently referenced\u00a0on Route 66 information sites.\u00a0 We had pulled pork BBQ\u00a0(that should be no surprise) with homemade chips and baked beans.\u00a0 But we split the lunch and also had homemade peach pie.\u00a0 Both were delicious!\u00a0 We also saw a large\u00a0Paul Bunyon statue holding a\u00a0hot dog on loan from it’s owner.\u00a0\u00a0The geocache was\u00a0found after some more reading on geocaching.com and some additional time spent looking for it!<\/p>\n
The town of Lincoln has the\u00a0world’s largest covered wagon.\u00a0 For us, not so impressive and we didn’t find the geocache that was located on the wagon!\u00a0 We also discovered The Mill an original sandwich shop.\u00a0 We met one of the owners while taking photos of the site who offered us an inside look.\u00a0 It is a project under restoration and hopefully will result in both a Route 66 museum and a WWII museum because the addition to the original structue came from a US Army barracks that was procured to make the site a larger food service facility.<\/p>\n
In Springfield we were\u00a0discouraged by Illinois State Fair traffic.\u00a0 We did get to see\u00a0Bill Sheas filling station (closed)\u00a0and the Dana Thomas Frank Lloyd Wright house (closed).\u00a0 We took the opportunity to photography both of them.<\/p>\n
Next was Litchfield where we found a\u00a0geocache at the Ariston restaurant and took photos of the neon signs out front.\u00a0 Some incoming customers asked if we’d like to have our photo taken together and so we did.\u00a0 We also saw the Rout 66 Museum outside and photographed it, but it was closed by the time we got to town.<\/p>\n
Moving on we arrived in Mt. Olive where we visited\u00a0Soulsby’s Shell Station and took some photos.\u00a0 The geocache that was hidden there remained undiscovered by us!<\/p>\n
So the last planned stop for the day was Staunton to visit\u00a0Henry’s\u00a0 Rabbit Ranch.\u00a0 Once again, we\u00a0were unsuccessful finding the geocache.\u00a0 Henry apparenlty is\u00a0taken with VW Rabbits as there were a number\u00a0buried nose down in the dirt–a la Cadillac Ranch!\u00a0 Joyce knew, but was giving me a surprise–there were no breathing rabbits present!<\/p>\n
Edwardsville for the night.\u00a0 Got a Comfort Inn on Priceline for $69 (+ tax of course).<\/p>\n
Nighty, night!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Illinois is a really, really long state from north to south!\u00a0 Today we made about 175 miles because of the number of things to see. After a restful night and breakfast\u00a0in Pontiac, IL we “decamped” from the Best Western around 8:30 AM.\u00a0 We spent about 2 hours walking around the downtown area viewing many of … Continue reading Illinois Continued….<\/span>