Our Route 66 trip through southern Illinois
The Beginning of the End - or the End of the Beginning
We are getting close to the end of our road trip - the official beginning of Route 66 in Chicago Illinois.
RV Self Park
Our first stop was to pose Curby at RV Self Park. We spoke to owner Jim Turntine in a podcast episode. At the time we didn’t really know when we would ever make it to Sullivan, Missouri. We had to stop even though we didn’t have time to stay.
Lunch Fit for Royalty
We stopped at a White Castle for lunch. Like the pizza with Provel that we tried in St. Louis, we liked it but we won’t go out or our way to seek it out.
I’m still full, hours later!
Crossing into Illinois
We bypassed the city of St Louis today, which we were able to do because we toured the city yesterday. We made our way across the mighty Mississip into Illinois. It was pretty tough to figure out where Route 66 was located, so we missed a bit of it in the beginning of the state.
Another Big Chair!
We haven’t seen any balls of twine yet, but we are collecting photos of Curby with really big chairs!
Random Big Boy Bob
In Mount Olive, there was a Bob’s Big Boy (not the restaurant, just the Bob) standing in a parking lot. Funny!
Like Family
We passed the towns of Girard (Peggy’s maternal grandmother’s maiden name) and Sherman (Peggy’s maternal grandfather) today. It is as if the whole family is following us along our road trip!
Springfield, Illinois
Just south of Springfield, we passed a Corvair museum! Needless to say, we plan to make this part of the trip westward when we head home. Because we plan to head back to the area, we will also spend more time in Springfield, home of Abraham Lincoln.
Atlanta, Illinois Muffler Man Siting!
Atlanta Illinois is a kitchy little town that’s home to a Muffler Man called the Hot Dog Man.
We intended to stay at a Harvest Host site in Atlanta tonight but, although the town is absolutely adorable, the boondocking location was unclear and we didn’t feel comfortable staying if we weren’t sure we were in the right place. Additionally, the place we thought we were supposed to stay was immediately adjacent to train tracks.
Camp A While
We found Camp A While campground in nearby Lincoln, IL and we were lucky enough to get a site with them overnight. The owners are two young (well, relative to us anyway) brothers from, of all places, Paradise California, just a stone’s throw away from our home base!
We were surrounded by corn fields, with a train track about a mile away. We could hear the trains, but they weren’t overbearing. The owners were really friendly and we had a beer together while we enjoyed the first evening in a long time that had weather worthy of sitting outdoors for a while. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the cornfields.
Close to the End
Tomorrow we will make our way to just south of Chicago. We will save the “into the city” for the following day, so we can once again do our site-seeing without Curby making navigation more difficult.
