Girls' Day in Illinois on Route 66
Dwight, Odell, and Pontiac Illinois on Route 66
On Thursday Tony needed a work day, so he decided to stay in camp.
So Kate and I backtracked to a couple of the interesting small towns we had missed on the way to Pontiac. Including Pontiac.
Dwight, Illinois
The first town we skipped on our drive day was Dwight, Illinois. Kate and I headed there first. I have been checking off all the attractions from the Roadside 66 app from Roadside America. Sometimes we only drive by and snap a photo out the window. Sometimes we stop for photos. And sometimes we end up spending more time than we expected at some wonderful sites along the mother Road.
We met author Anne Maro Slanin
There is - of course - an old gas and service station. This was a really cool stop because they have an old fire truck parked inside. Kate sat in the truck and even rang the bell! She said it would be hard to drive and ring the bell at the same time. I think I’ve seen in old movies that a second person stood on the running board ringing the bell, leaving the driver the chance to - well, drive.
We met an author named Anne Maro Slanina who is also traveling - and has done so many times - along Route 66. Se has a series of children’s books about Route 66.
Dwight has a beautiful train station, but we didn’t stop there. It is also the home of a bank building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. We wanted to see the bank, and I needed to withdraw cash, so we did both of those things at this beautiful building.
Following the Roadside 66 app, we stopped for lunch at Old 66 Family Restaurant and shared a sandwich.
Odell, Illinois
Odell is a tiny town with a tiny listing on the Roadside 66 app. In fact, we only made one stop at the 1932 Standard Oil gas and service station. Which is, perhaps predictably, a visitor center and gift shop.
I spent as much time gawking over the 1935 Winnebago travel trailer as I did inside the store. The museum part of the building is interesting with a lot of old tools from the service days.
Pontiac, Illinois
Driving into Pontiac, we passed a series of Burma Shave signs. They read:
If hugging on highways is your sport, trade in your car for a davenport
Burma Shave
We try to video every time we see these signs. We like them almost as much as American Giants. Almost.
The app told me there were a lot of museums in Pontiac, and I wasn’t sure how many of them we would be able to get to. It turns out, most of them are right in one building (four floors) so it was pretty easy after all!
Behind that museum building, we hoped to find Bob Waldmire’s land yacht. Essentially, an old school bs with a wooden second story RV, in which he traversed Route 66 extensively. Unfortunately, it was put away to protect it from a bunch of construction in the courtyard. Fortunately, when that courtyard is finished, it looks to be a really fantastic ode to Bob and Route 66.
We wandered over to the courthouse, where we found President Lincoln leaning on a log fence. We had a chat and took some photos with Abe, then called it a day and headed back to camp. It was time to pack up and move on to our next stop!
