Chicago to St. Louis

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Something I forgot to mention yesterday was the bridge of death we encountered. Our name for it could be considered a little extreme I guess however at one point I actually thought I was having a heart attack! There are a few road bridges in the middle of Chicago over a river which split in half across the middle to lift up for boats to go underneath. We saw one in action and had a discussion where I'm sure I read in a newspaper about some poor woman getting stuck in the middle of one when it lifted up and having a terrible accident where she died (We talk about the loveliest things!). Anyway it must have been about five minutes later when we were walking over one of these bridges. I was lagging behind taking some footage of this cool round multi storey car park where the sides are open (see pic) with Kerry and Steph in front. I'm not a fan of bridges anyway so imagine my horror when I was stepping onto it to see a big gap where I could see straight down to the river below (why do they always do that???!!). I walked quickly across that bit and up towards Steph and Kerry to catch them up. When we were all right in the middle of the bridge about to cross the middle all of a sudden there was a huge bang and the side we were on dropped about an inch then went back up again. We all for a split second thought the bridge was collapsing or lifting and felt some panic along with the other two people coming towards us at the time. I think it was just a heavy double bus or truck going over causing it to do it but my heart was racing for a good five mins afterwards, much to the amusement of Kerry and Steph who shouted run Katie as I was walking faster ahead of them to get off the thing! Anyway we've called this the bridge of death.

Today we set off on the first official day of Route 66. We got a cab from the hotel about 9am and have to say it was the weirdest cab driver we've had. He seemed like he was twitching and when someone was trying to turn left they weren't supposed to he said 'these people look they're just trying hold us up'. Then he started doing some weird hand signals with his right hand and told some joke that wasn't really a joke at all, but by this point me and Kerry just fake laughed and then we got out the cab at the destination, glad to be out his car!

We checked in at national rent a car and found we'd got a navy blue jeep compass. Fitting all the luggage in was a bit of a struggle as the boot isn't actually that big. We found out the car is also a 4x4 which might come in handy later on in the trip. We left the car hire place and put the satnav on to get out of the city centre. Kerry was first up driving with me as co pilot and steph in the back. We set the mileage tracker to 0, programmed Ogden Avenue into the sat nav then set off. The weather was a lot better today with blue skies and sun shining even though it was still cold. We 'reached our destination' pulled over to try and link up where we were with the step by step directions in the ez Route 66 book. After five mins of me and Kerry trying to make sense of the directions we decided we didn't have a clue and set the sat nav to St. Louis hoping we could pick up the directions once we'd got out of the city. Steph then took one look at the directions figured out where we were and started directing from the back. So we were off, the tunes were turned up and the car karaoke begin.

We headed off driving through Wilmington past the Gemini giant through lots of other small towns, stopped off at a belko supermarket to get a few bits where steph managed to smash a bottle of peach snapple on the floor! They won't forget us in a hurry! We got out of there and then carried out with continuing perfect weather. The road runs as a frontage road alongside the highway for parts which is strange why they decided to build a new road rather than extend the old one 'back in the day'. The jeep only has one cigarette lighter and no USB connection so were going to have to get an aux cable for the music on our iPhones where we can. This left us with the radio stations along the way, who only seems to have about five songs to play, we've had multiple plays of Lord's team, Passengers Let It Go, Katy Perry's Burn and a couple of others we're sick off already!

We stopped for lunch at a pizza place in Normal - that's the town name! We then power on through Bloomington, passed the giant hot dog man and through Lincoln where we got a bit lost. We couldn't find our way to see the large Abraham Lincoln so decided to carry on as we were pushing for time. We followed the directions perfectly until we hit a road closed sign then had to turn to google maps for help and had to get on the freeway missing about 20miles of Route 66. This was a shame to do on our first day but it was nearing 4.30pm and we still had about 135 miles to go to out hotel. Our trip through Lincoln had been interesting for all the wrong reasons but we did manage to go down a street called Kickapoo which amused us all!
We carried on and then came across Abraham Lincoln's memorial. It was in a 'real working cemetery' as steph called it and it seemed a little strange going to see a attraction in a cemetery. It was as grand as expected and there were a few other people there taking photos.
During today's trip we went through lots of small towns which each had their own individual water tower with the towns name on apart from one that had a giant yellow smiley face on, which was pretty cool.

After Lincoln we visited the cozy dog restaurant and me and Kerry ordered a corn dog each. To be honest the whole experience was a disappointment, considering they are one of the famous Route 66 attractions it was just like ordering from a McDonald's. The corn dog was a hot dog encased in what tasted like fried unsweetened doughnut, like you ones you get at the fair. Kerry left hers after a bite and I managed to eat mine but I definitely wouldn't buy another one, we were literally in and out in about 15mins and on our way. Steph made do with some greasy fries.
The next couple of hours driving were very pleasant along a frontage road with the sky going down and the sun starting to set. At one point we took a wrong turn but came across a pretty lake with wild deer grazing by the side of the road. Then the 'fun' really started as the sun went down and we desperately tried to get to the chain of rocks bridge. We managed to get on the right road and within a mile but just heading towards it there was a sign saying it was closed from dawn til dusk and as it was pitch black by this point we turned around a little disappointed. We then decided to use the sat nav by this point as we still had about 40 miles to go and it was about 8.30pm. The sat nav directed us to get on the interstate however the junction was closed so we ended up going in a circle, with the sat nav trying to reroute back to the same junction. It was pitch black by now and all roads looked the same at which point the petrol light came on, we set the sat nav to take us to the nearest petrol station which was closed so headed to the next one for a fill up and a toilet stop. We managed to fill the tank up for the jeep spending only $44 which is probably half the UK cost.

Then Steph managed to use google maps to get us over the missippi river into St. Louis. I was driving and it was a little hairy in some parts in the dark with four lanes doing 60miles on roads we didn't know. To be honest it's probably the driving conditions I hate the most! We drove through the city on the highway going passed the st louis arch which looked nice lit up at night. After another closed junction we were supposed to go down and another hour and half we finally pulled up to the hotel, skipped dinner and went straight to bed.



We've skipped quite a few of the main sites today purely because we've really struggled for time and for anyone else doing route 66, I'd definitely recommend doing Chicago to St. Louis in two days rather then one But we've said all along we're most looking forward to the mid west onwards.

so anyway day one which is the worst driving day done!

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