May 8, 2009 Route 66 trip

May 8:

We officially started our Route 66 trip today!!!!

Some of us walked and some took a taxi up to Lou Mitchell’s for breakfast. Busy place, great prices, good food and great service! We all walked to Union Station & took lots of pictures. We all took taxi’s back to the hotel to check out.

Finally left 12:25pm. Angel rode with Allan & Mindy & gave excellent step by directions. First stop was Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket. 1:44pm for lunch. Met a guy named Rob there who had been on 66 and gave us some good information. He was from Nashville, TN.

At 3:35 we arrived in Joliet and stopped at a Route 66 museum. We were planning to be in St. Louis tonight but we got so much info at the museum we decided to do more sightseeing on the way. When we left there at 4:35 Mike & Irene split off to head straight to St Louis to visit family. We missed them but they called when they arrived safely.

We continued on Route 66 and stopped to see and take pictures of the Gemini Giant, The Polk-a-Dot Drive in and the Texaco station in Dwight. A guy named Rich who worked at the gas station when he was in high school (and is about our age I believe now) saw us taking pictures at the gas station and stopped to talk to us. He then led us over to the Country Mansion Windmill. It was beautiful! Then he led us over to the building 1st National Bank that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. And he also led us into a building that used to be used as an Alcohol treatment center with some gorgeous stain glass windows, wood work and marble. It’s fun meeting local people and getting to see things not on the “list”.

We found a Route 66 sign on the pavement & took pics of our cars in front of it.
Then we found the 1932 Standard station in Odell. & of course we took more pictures.

We had trouble finding rooms tonight as there is a graduation going on and all of the rooms were already taken in Normal, IL. We ended up at the Clarion Hotel in Bloomington at 9 pm. About 9:30 we called someone at the monthly car club meeting, Tualatin Valley Cruiser Club, to say “HI” to the group and let them know where we are and how we are doing. That was fun too.

This morning we are staying in IL to see more stuff…