Time to get your kicks!

Today: Chicago, IL to Springfield, IL via Route 66

After packing up, we checked out of the hotel and headed to downtown Chicago to find the beginning of Route 66. The "Taste of Chicago" was beginning and our destination just happened to be on the street that they had closed off for the festival. Because the streets were closed off, and because it's Chicago, the traffic was bad. We got within a block or two of the streets and moved on.

Some of the bridges we drove over had big metal grates that made up entire sections of the whole bridge. We took these pictures for one particular person. Would you like to drive on a grate?



After lots of stop lights and twists and turns, we finally made it out of Chicago proper and back to sanity. Joliet, IL has a museum display dedicated to Route 66 with lots of signs pointing to it, so we stopped. Check out the artwork on the Bench Seat Couch.




This blog picture and fun fact sponsored by Melissa:
Did you know that the backlot used for River City (in "The Music Man") is also used as Hazzard County in The Dukes of Hazzard and as Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls, which frequently references the film.


The Gemini Giant is one of 3 "Giant Alerts" along our way in Illinois. Takes you back to the days when you made your sign bigger, brighter, or weirder to get attention from passing motorists...


Moving on, we were hungry since it was after 2, so we stopped for lunch at the Polk-a-dot Drive In in Braidwood, IL. They have great vintage stuff on display and great food. Everyone had a shake/malt with burger/hot dog and fries.



Atlanta, IL was the next stop. This is another town that has put quite a bit of effort into restoring some of the charm of Route 66. Here, we saw some nicely restored wall mural ads, a Giant Paul Bunyon with a hot dog, and a restored and working old Seth Thomas clock that has to be wound by hand every 8 days. There is also an old grain elevator but it was closed for tours by the time we got there. Driving out of town, you can't help but feel happier looking back at their water tower.






We made it as far as Springfield, IL and stopped for the night at the Hampton Inn & Suites. The kids had fun riding their scooters and we had a nice quiet evening.

We only have 2 days left, so we'll see you all soon.

More Chicago Than You Can Handle

Today: Chicago, IL

The plan for today was to use Chicago's mass transit system to get from our hotel down to the Magnificent Mile, which is Chicago's cultural/shopping/tourism area and to whatever else we wanted to see. If you read the previous post, you know that the traffic here is bad - really bad. So, mass transit seemed to be the ticket. They have a day pass that was reasonable (compared to having to drive), and we had plotted out our route with bus numbers and trains to catch. Everything was lined out except when we went to meet the bus, we couldn't find a sign designating where the bus stop was. A local told us to wait across the street, but when the bus came, it just drove right by us. There must have been a sign somewhere, but I never saw it.

We took the back roads to get to the park-n-ride center where we were able to get our day passes and get on the train. After a nice (but slow) train ride, we switched trains and ended up a block or two from Michigan Ave (which is the Magnificent Mile).

The first thing that caught our attention was Millenium Park. Melissa wanted to see it and take some pictures, so we walked over. There we encountered two large glass brick structures that were a huge waterfall exhibit. The brick walls were back-lighted and would show a picture of a face every so often. The area around the structure was like a small wading area where the water was maybe 1 inch thick. Lots of kids were running around in the water and having lots of fun, so we let the kids do the same.

After getting all wet, we continuted to walk through the park a little. This is a large "coffee bean" shaped structure. It's kind of cool but the underlying meaning is lost on me. Who needs more to art than to imitate a coffee bean?




We walked down Michigan Ave. for a bit and stopped for lunch at a little "trendy Italian" chain place. It was pretty good and it was so late for lunch that we missed the crowd. After we ate, we kept on going toward the Field Museum, which was at the top of our list. We came across some more public art. It was kind of cool, but this grassy area seemed to be a popular homeless hangout.

As we were walking on their nice, new, pedestrian bridge over the train tracks, we saw Soldier Field in the distance.

...some more walking...

...and finally - the Field Museum! It was too hot (and humid) to be walking, but we made it.

We went through the Nature Unleashed exhibit and saw lots of interesting things about Volcanos, Hurricanes, Tornados, Earthquakes, and Tsunamis. The kids thought it was cool and I did too. They even had a little movie from a tornado researcher who had made a cone-shaped device with a bunch of cameras in it that video-recorded a tornado as it passed over it. There were items that had been damaged in the Katrina flooding and in some tornados.

We went and saw Sue's head (their T-rex). There were so many other things to see that we didn't get to see even half of them because the museum was closing. We went down to the Egyptian exhibit and the boys and I ran through it really quickly. They had a mummy on display and sarcophagi and many other relics and artifacts.

After the museum, we took the convenient water taxi over to the Navy Pier. The Chicago Childrens Museum is in the Navy Pier building, so we stopped by. They were having free admission, so we had to go in! The kids had a good time running around and seeing the different things in the museum. The real winner was an activity that had the kids try to build something that would float down gently when raised up a conveyor belt and dropped from very high. I think they could have stayed for hours doing this, but after a while we had to head out. We walked a little further down navy pier, got a couple of souviners and some chili cheese fries, and then had to go. We didn't get to see everything we wanted to see by any means, but we did what we could.

We got on the bus to get back to the train and it soon filled completely with people trying to get home from work. After a loooong bus ride, we got to the train and got on to get back to the truck. The train was slow too and at one point we had to wait for the south-bound train to go before we could continue because construction had the train down to one set of tracks. What a mess!

We got back to the truck and went by Gino's East pizzeria to get some real, deep-dish, Chicago-style pizza. It took 45 minutes to make, so we went by the grocery store and got some gas. The 7-11 had the gas pumps right next to the store. that was the first time we had ever seen that before.

Back at the hotel, we ate our pizza. Jaden said that the thin-crust cheese was the best he had ever had. I liked the meat-lover's deep dish that we got, but Melissa didn't. We got in bed late and will probably get a late start tomorrow to miss the traffic. We have to pick up Route 66 in downtown Chicago. Wish us luck!

Below: Chicago skyline/building pictures

Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win!

Today: Niagara Falls, ON, Canada to Chicago, IL

We got up rather early (for us) and hit the road to Chicago. Today is another long driving day, but we're driving through Canada on the northern side of Lake Erie. The Canadian part was nice and relaxing as drives go, but the price of gas was outrageous. We paid nearly $5/gal for gas there.

We made it back into the US with no problems and landed in Detroit. I don't think I'll go back to Detroit.


We were making good time to be able to drop our stuff off at the hotel in Chicago and then go to the Cubs game. Then we hit Chicago traffic. Lots of toll roads and stop-and-go. This city seems to rival LA with traffic problems. In retrospect, we should have just driven straight to Wrigley Field and then checked into the hotel later. We didn't and we missed the first couple of innings of the game, but when we made it to the game, it was awesome!



It was a good game (the Cubs won!), nice weather, and everyone seemed to have fun. We got back to the room around midnight and fell out. Tomorrow, whatever parts of Chicago we can squeeze in.