Route 66 Holiday - October 2022

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So, I have been asked to do a travel blog on my recent holiday to America. So here it is! The 1stblog is for the Illinois section of Route 66 between from Chicago, Illinois to St Louis, Missouri.

October 12th 2022

Beginning of the Holiday!
We had an afternoon flight that got us into Chicago at around 6.30pm. After we had got through security, collected our bags, got the hire car and arrived at the hotel – it was gone 8pm. We were both tired and hungry so once we got checked in and put the luggage in the room, we headed out to find something to eat. We did a quick search using the free Wi-Fi (thankfully all our hotels had free Wi-Fi) and we found that many places closed at 9pm or 10pm. So, we decided to go to Chik-Fil-A, got 2 burgers, fries, chicken nuggets and drinks. After the meal, we found a store and bought a few drinks and snacks for the room and returned to the hotel to relax and sort out what to do the next day.

October 13th 2022

The night before we had found a city pass that included public transport fares and a number of attractions. We got the 1-day pass with 3 attractions. We chose to visit the Shedd Aquarium, the Museum of Science and Industry and we took a night-time trip up to Chicago 360 – which was just a short walk from the hotel. We left early to grab breakfast. Stephen found an amazing little place called The Original Pancake House. We both had bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs and pancakes. I had a coffee which had free refills. The food was amazing and it lasted us the entire day.

After Breakfast, we went back to the hotel to brush our teeth, grabbed the cameras and our hoodies and made our way to get our city passes for the day. We had to go to a train station to print them off the machines – unfortunately our nearest station was in the opposite direction to the bus stop we needed. As we were walking to the bus stop, I got a few photos of the surrounding area and found an historic water tower which looks like a very tall castle. Once on the bus we took in the views of the city and got a few shots of the buildings on the riverside. Our first stop if the day was the Shedd Aquarium.

This huge aquarium sits on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The aquarium opened in the 1930’s and the décor really shows it. Look up in the main foyer to see a ceiling covered with sea faring creatures. I loved the lanterns as they had octopi on top of them. Among the animal’s housed in the building are Beluga Whales, White-Sided Dolphins and Sea Otters. As well as Sea Lions and thousands of fish. We didn’t get to see the otters or Sea Lions, but we got to see some penguins and I got to touch a stingray and a sturgeon! The stingrays had had their stingers removed so they were safe. Their skin was really soft and smooth and one stingray had part of its tail missing... this one was the friendliest and kept returning to be stroked.

There are a number of displays from various reefs to a rainforest display. The museum has a giant tank in the centre with rooms radiating out from it. I totally recommend a visit here, we spent around 2 hours here but we had to leave as we had to make our way across town to our next attraction. Of course – we couldn’t leave without visiting the shop to get a fridge magnet.

Our next stop was the Museum of Science and Industry. This museum was a good 30-minute train ride south from the aquarium and we had to pay for this trip as we realised our city pass dint cover this train – it was only $2 each so it didn’t break the bank.

Once we had reached our station, we then had a short walk to the museum which was through a park and I am glad we took the walk as the trees were at all different colours due to the change in weather. We both found it quite warm and we took off our hoodies – we didn’t think to bring a backpack with us and so we had to tie them around our waists to keep our arms free.

The Museum is huge! It houses many old trains and cars as well as an entire German U boat called U-505. They built the surrounding room first, then slowly moved the U boat into it – there was a small TV just after the exhibition hall showing footage of the move into it. You can go inside the U boat but it was another $15 each. The museum has a large hall that has interactive displays where you can make rainbows, tornadoes (my favourite) and a Tesla coil hanging from the ceiling – there are demonstrations every 30 minutes and it is very loud when it fires the electricity.

We didn’t have much time at the museum as it closed at 5pm and we got there at around 3pm. However, we saw most of the exhibits including a huge model of Chicago with a working train set, which Stephen loved as he is crazy about model trains. We left the museum at around 4.30pm and made our way back to the hotel, hopped on a train and then a bus. Fortunately, the bus stopped right outside Millennium Park which houses the famous art installation The Cloudgate, otherwise known as The Bean. This amazing piece of art is made of around 200 stainless steel plates and have been polished so that you can’t see the seams between the plates. This mirror finish is just perfect for budding and amateur photographers alike. The City around you is warped like those hall of mirrors you find at funfairs and carnivals. You can walk underneath the bean where you can look up into the centre of the piece and your image is reflected and wrapped around the ceiling as the plates have been curved into a concave apex. We made our way to find the sign for the Historic Route 66 Start – there are actually 2 start signs – one on East Adams Street which is opposite a famous cult film location – The Art Institute of Chicago, where Ferris Bueller went on his day off from school. I didn’t get a photo as I didn’t realise till later that this was the actual Institute. The second sign is a few streets over on Jackson Boulevard – both look the same but the latter is a newer installation. Both signs are small and are placed high up on lamp posts – I actually walked passed the sign as I was trying to look at it on my phone, but I didn’t have any internet.

We got back to the hotel and rested for a couple of hours to rest our feet and to look for dinner options. We opted for TGI’s as the restaurant was close to our last location of the day which was the Chicago 360. The Chicago 360 experience is located on the 94th floor of the John Hancock Centre. Which was the tallest building in the city when it was completed in 1968. The building has 100 floors consisting of apartments, restaurants shopping mall and offices. The 94th floor also has a bar and an extra attraction called the TILT – which Is a moving platform that tilts outwards of the building at a 30-degree angle, giving the participant an astonishing view of the city streets below. The elevator ride to the viewing floor was really fast and the height of the building made our ears pop a couple of times. The floor was very cold as we discovered that in some places, there were no windows on the top half of the frames, so the wind blew through the building. The great thing is that you can walk around the entire building (hence the 360) with very little obstructions to the view, there were some columns and beams but that is to be expected. I took some pictures of the city at night – however I discovered that they were not very good – never had been any good at night time photography – plus it didn’t help that I had other tourists were elbowing me and jostling for the perfect position for the obligatory Instagram selfie.

After around an hour, we decided to leave as we had a very long and busy day and we were both very tired. Of course, I could not resist a visit to the gift store – yes there is a theme in this trip where I visit various places with a gift store and buying fridge magnets, t-shirts and other things. I picked out a fridge magnet and a t-shirt and we left. When we got to the hotel, we packed our bags and left out the next day’s clothing and our cosmetics as we had to leave early the next morning due to a long drive to our next hotel in St. Louis.

What we discovered on this trip, is that 2 weeks was not enough time to see everything we had on our list. The drives between each hotel were anywhere between 4 to 8 hours without stopping. In fact, we missed out an awful of the actual Route 66 route as well as many significant points of interest. I purchased the official Route 66 Passport that encourages you to drive on the original mother road and visit various places such as museums and information centres for a stamp on the passport – you also get a free gift, either a sticker, keyring or token. We missed a lot of these spots as they were either closed due to the time we got there or they were closed as it was a Sunday. I took a notepad with us and wrote down the route to take as well as the places we wanted to visit - this helped us out a lot as it made it easier to navigate with the sat-nav.

October 14th 2022

Our first stop out of Chicago was Joliet Prison, which featured in movie The Blues Brothers and the TV series Prison Break. This old prison was in use for almost 150 years before being abandoned in 2002. There are now tours of the old prison and there is a haunted prison just opposite the main building.
Our next stop was a town called Wilmington to a place called the Launching Pad – which has been known as the official starting point of Route 66 in Illinois. Outside is one of many fiberglass “Muffler Men” called the Gemini Giant. These statues were put in place in key places on the route as well in other states in America and they stand at around 30 feet tall and all are dressed different – the Gemini Giant is dressed as a Spaceman and is holding a rocket. There are others that hold a giant hotdog, an axe and one dressed as a chicken.
The Launching Pad was the first of the places on the passport – unfortunately it was closed. It has been closed for a while due to effects of Covid. However, I emailed them when I got back to the UK and they emailed me a stamp to print out and stick into the passport. I have done this with another place that was closed and the owner was really amazing and is sending me a stamp and a gift in the post. I will be doing this with the others, but the fun is actually going to these places. Hopefully we can visit route 66 again in the future and hope to visit the places we missed.
Next stop on the route was Pontiac and the Route 66 Association of Illinois. I got another stamp and a postcard. The association building had a museum that covered 4 floors as well as another museum located across the street. Behind the main building is the modified yellow school bus that the famous route 66 artist and map maker. He turned the bus into a campervan where he lived whilst on the road, travelling all over Route 66. All along the route are many drawings and maps made by Waldmire, including a mural map of the mother road that is located near the bus. There is also a VW Camper which is now housed in the Route 66 Hall of Fame. This Camper was the inspiration for Filmore in the Disney Movie Cars. Waldmire’s parents owned and ran the Cozy Dog Drive-In, located in Springfield, Illinois. This is said to be the place where corn dogs originated. As must as I would have loved to try one – we passed this diner early in the morning and we had just had breakfast.

The next place on the passport was Ryburn Place in Normal, Illinois. Ryburn Place was previously a gas station called Sprague’s Super Service. On from Normal, we stopped at the Logan County Tourism Bureau where there are bronze casts of Abraham Lincoln’s hands. Near this location is where Lincoln is said to have christened the city with watermelon juice. A few roads over is the Logan County Courthouse – there is a bronze line on the floor which marks out the border of the location of the front wall of a courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practised at. From here, we drove to Springfield, Illinois – there are a lot of places called Springfield in America, so I am using the states they are located in to avoid confusion.

Here we visited Lincoln’s House. Again, the museum, house and visitor centre was closed when we arrived, however you are allowed to park for free and walk to the house. The house and the street it is on has been amazingly preserved. The whole street looks just like it did in Lincoln’s time. All the original houses still standing as a monument to the 1800’s. From here, we drive to the old US State Capitol building, where there are a number of statues and plaques with information of Lincoln and his family when he lived and worked in the area. it was getting late by now and we and another 2 hours’ drive to our hotel, so we made our way to St Louis.

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