The day started out pretty wet and rainy – nothing severe, but some locally heavy rain. I left Morris, headed to Joliet and started down the road. I saw parts of Joliet the day before, such as the prison and some of the murals and attractions, so I was interested to see what came next.
Past Joliet, Illinois was primarily a lot of small “near the highway” towns… I’d guess about half of them actually had signs from the interstate. A LOT of these towns had their old gas stations restored, and they had done a beautiful job on the restorations, including the period correct fuel pumps. It was incredible to contemplate the hours that went into all of that.
Once I got on some of the more rural stretches of highway, Route 66 ran parallel to the train tracks. Today’s “Historic Route 66 Byway” is actually a 2 (sometimes 4) lane road BETWEEN the original Route 66 and the tracks. So where is this going… well, once I hit Livingston County, I was headed down (the new road), and I saw a classic red barn framed by some trees, with the old 66 in the foreground as I passed by. I wanted a photo, so I needed to turn around. Roughly every half mile or so there was a cross road heading across the farm fields – this cross road ran across the old 66 and off into the fields. I decided it was easier to just use one of those cross roads, and double back on the old road. It may have been abandoned, but there was no signage, no barriers, no indication at all that I couldn’t be up there (it was a bit above the new highway grade). As I was headed backwards, going maybe 40 miles an hour or so, I noticed a beige explorer on the new road, kindof looking at me… and sure enough, his grille had some sort of extra parts on the corner. I knew I was about to get pulled over. No point in stopping what I was doing… but I did slow down a little. Sure enough, he pulled up on to the road behind me and lit me up just as I got to the barn.
“What are you doing?”
“Well… I wanted to get a photo of that barn, so I turned around to get back over here”
“licence”
“here you go”
“What’s your business in Illinois”
“Well… I grew up up in Berwyn, and I’m driving Route 66…”
“This section gf 66 is closed.”
“It is? oh, I didn’t realize that”
“That’s why it’s broken up a little bit on the end. Stay here. ” (goes back to run my license).
(Comes back) “here you go. Stay off of this part of the highway and stay on the road”
“Yes sir. Hey.. can I get a picture with you?”
“No. I have places to be. you can film me from there.” (walks back to his cruiser and leaves).
Well… I can honestly say that the only time I got pulled over on the first week of my trip was ON the original Route 66 pavement! Now… a shout out to Livingston County… your officer was a bit gruff (the photo of would have been fun, and good P.R.)… McLean county at least puts some signs up at those cross streets… even spray painting “CLOSED” on the pavement would have been SOMETHING.
There were also an incredible number of murals in the small towns Murals and Gas Stations
When I got closer to Illinois, it was threatening to rain.. and when I hit Granite City, it opened up and POURED on me for a bit. I did make it across the river (I didn’t stop for a bit after crossing the McKinley bridge.. not much scenery there – chain of rocks is closed, so you have to pick A bridge…). I got downtown, and wanted to take a photo with he Arch in the background… that did not go so well. The Fair St. Louis was going on – and parking was a disaster. I found places I could have gotten into the behind-the-scenes areas to park for a minute, but when I went to turn around, things were blocked off that didnt make sense. Gave up, and just got one from down the road a bit. It’s there.. behind the trees….
Highway 100
I managed to make it to Rolla with almost ZERO interstate, which was impressive. Most people assume there’s no good way to do that. There’s a lot of small towns, and again, many with murals (I need to get the photos off my camera still). Lots of scenic areas – and a MUCH different scenery than I had seen on the trip (I’ve been near a lot of these places before!)
Rolla was my stopping point… and I got there in time to see the sidewalks roll up by 5! It was a holiday, so I knew this would happen – and it’s a great thing to see towns and businesses send people home to family on holidays and Sundays – the way it should be. I still stopped to take some photos of my old haunts.
(note – there will be one more brief update, getting to Springfield, but then the rest of the trip to Shamrock is delayed just as couple weeks)