Route 66 - Day 3
Our hosts last night were fantastic. This am, we woke up to fresh coffee from a French press. Come to find out, there is a local coffee bean roaster (Mr. Pete) and it was fantastic. We did not leave early.
We spent a lot of time talking to Linda our host and drinking coffee. We did have some eggs as well. After we packed up, we left about 11am. I know...late but we only had 160 miles to go. And of course, it is raining.
Once we left, the first thing we had to do was go find Kirk's childhood home. It was only a few miles away. After a small GPS hiccup, we did find it, took a picture, and he sent it to his family. Then we needed gas. We were shocked at how hard to find gas was in that area. We did finally find a station (it took us a few miles).
So house checked off the list and full tanks. Lets get to Route 66. We ended up picking up the 66 highway about 15 east of Wilmington Illinois. It was so cool to ride the road and see the Route 66 Historic road signs. We arrived in Wilmington and stopped at the Gemini Giant.
After a great photo op, we continued down the road to the Polka Dot Diner. We had a great lunch. The burgers were killer and great fries as well.
After stuffing our faces, back on the road and after a short time, we passed the Wicked Cricket. This looked like a great dive bar so we stopped.
Sure enough....they had PBR at $2.25 and the bartender was also a biker. We stayed a bit too long but had a great time chatting with a local and the other bartender. We needed to get on the road so off we went. Did I mention that it is still raining?
One really cool thing so far in Illinois is that there are Route 66 signs EVERYWHERE. They are pointing out old routes, new routes, cool historic items, etc.
We have our maps but it is really nice to have visual confirmation. Oh yea, Kirk's gps does nto have the maps. Not sure how that happened but we are using my Tom Tom and the maps are spot on.
After the Cricket, we headed for Dwight and stopped at the restored Texaco station. This was really cool. They did a great job in the restoration. Back on the bikes ... in the rain.
Next stop was Odell and the old restored Standard Oil station. Again, really cool and great job on the restoration. We found a sign showing us that we were only 87 miles from Chicago and only 2361 miles from LA. Great! Only 2300 miles to go.
One really cool feature of Route 66 is that it does mimic the interstate. It may be 50 yards away many times. On the other side is usually a train track. Also, at least in Illinois, the actual TRUE Route 66 road is right next to us but not maintained. You can see it was a road but it is overgrown with grass and cracks.
So what did we do? We have off road bikes....so we jumped on it and road the no longer used original road. Very cool and most likely very illegal.
We finally arrived at Dead Man's Curve and yes, we drove it....but it bit slower.
Further down the road we entered Normal, Illinois. Come to find out this town is where Illinois State University is. Who knew? Well, not me.
As we saw all kinds of memorabilia, we did not stop for photos as it is everywhere and in many cases, not very convenient to pull over BUT it is so cool to see. We see TONS of old rusted out cars, trailers, sculptures, etc. This road is a trip and we are driving slow to not miss things.
We arrived in Atlanta, IL and found the Paul Bunyan holding the giant hot dog.
There are a lot of these giant statues all down Route 66. Once we finished our photo op, its off to our host for the night.
Now the nightmare begins. First, the GPS was not accurate. We are literally in between corn fields and there is no house. We doubled back and found a house. We called and sure enough, this was the one. And did I mention it is raining? And has been for hours?
We pull in and he directs us to this large cluttered garage. He is only wearing socks directing us into the garage. There is a couch and bikes blocking the entrance to the point that I am helping direct Kirk in the garage so his panniers to not hit anything. Now its my turn. But as I drive in, there is a tire in the way and our host, wearing only socks does not see any issue. He finally moved the tire and then sits on the couch.
As we get off the bikes, he offers us a beer but something seems a bit off. He just kind of sat there. It is kind of late at night (7ish) and we are tired and wet. I asked if there was any breakfast place nearby and he said that he like gyros. Then he proceeds to tell us that his wife is not comfortable with strangers at their house. Oh yea, we are getting a bad vibe. After about 15 minutes of strange conversation, he leaves saying he is off to play board games with his wife. Did I mention he is also having marital issues? When he left, we looked at each other and with NO conversation, we said, "lets leave". So we pushed out bikes out of the garage, got all geared up, and started our bikes. Kirk called the host (we really did not want to go in or near the house) and politely said that we felt we were inconveniencing him and decided to leave. And we did ... very quickly.
Oh, before we decided to leave, we checked if there were any hotels available nearby and there was. Yes, we left .. very quickly. So we were off to the Comfort Suites hotel. Or so we thought. In our hasty retreat, someone entered the incorrect hotel. Instead of Comfort Suites we ended up at Sunset Suites...and no, they had no rooms. We had just called! WTF!
Oops, our mistake. We entered the correct address and it was 25 miles away. Did I mention it is STILL raining. We finally arrived at the hotel. Yes, they have rooms. We booked one, unloaded ALL our gear in our room. We have things hanging everywhere to get dry. But at least we are in a nice, safe, dry room and are eagerly awaiting what tomorrow will bring.
Total miles today? 212