Historic Route 66 Day Two...

Day 2 of our Route 66 journey started early. 

Randy had to try to get us out of the campsite where we had spent the night.  He did a great job of maneuvering and backing into a jackknife position to get us out of there. 

We headed into Pontiac IL to continue where we had left off....

We managed to find a spot to park the truck and trailer.  Nothing was open yet in town, but we had a geocache we wanted to find.  As we were trying to pinpoint the cache an older gentleman walked over to cross the street near us.  He started chatting...found out we were tourists and gave us a ton of information on Pontiac...about the murals, museums and even the Farmer's Market two streets over.

Pontiac was a fun place to visit.  We had spotted murals painted on the outside of some of the buildings. So we followed the walking footprints on the sidewalk to find them.

The 19 murals were all painted in one weekend as part of the Walldog Summer Bash in 2009.  It was a lot of fun to wander around a few blocks and see all the wonderful art work.

We also "toured" Bob's bus and the Route 66 Visitor's Center.  Talked to several people about the highway, the town and where we were going.

We found the Farmer's Market and there were lots of fresh veggies and baked goods.  I also saw some very interesting jams and jellies...from the usual apple butter, peach butter, and cranapple to beer jam and bacon jam.  I sampled the bacon jam and it certainly was different.

Further a few miles down the road is the town of Lexington IL....just north of Lexington is a section of the old highway you can drive on or walk on.  It's called Memory Lane....we were told the gate might be closed for driving, but you could walk...it would be about a mile.  The gate was open, but we decided we didn't want to take a chance on what we might find with the trailer on.  I ended up walking the highway and Randy drove ahead and found a place to park with the trailer.  It was nothing spectacular for scenery...only a couple of billboards and a couple of recreated Burma Shave signs. But I can say I walked part of Route 66.

The town of Atlanta IL has a small park with signs depicting varies aspects of Route 66.  There is an interactive display where you can push the button and listen to a man tell about his travel in the army and his return to Atlanta. 

Atlanta is known for it's water tower with the "Smiley Face" painted on it.  Atlanta also has one of the "Giants" that Route 66 is famous for....The Bunyon Giant...the giant hot dog was added later.




We ended our day in St. Louis MO...a total of 238 miles from where we started in Pontiac IL.