Breakfast with Lou...sort of

Hello Everyone!

In my last blog, I shared a Facebook Live link where I started on foot at the very beginning of Route 66. Then I shared some Geocaches I found including another Facebook Live link regarding my first find on Route 66. (If you haven’t seen that blog yet, please check out my last post)

Before I headed out to find those Geocaches, I stopped the Lou Mitchell’s restaurant for some breakfast. I shot that experience with my video camera and posted a YouTube video regarding it. Lou Mitchell’s in on Jackson Street which is one street south of Adams Street in downtown Chicago. Adams is the street you want to start on and which is a one-way heading away from downtown. Jackson is a one-way which heads towards Lake Michigan. The address is 565 Jackson. If you decided to eat there prior to your adventure, use one of you apps on your phone to locate it and it will tell you when to turn.

I thought it was a fun experience and I’d think you’ll like eating there as well. They greet you at the door with a donut hole to eat and they have Milk Duds for you to snack on if you have to wait for a table. It’s not too ‘Route 66ish’ on the inside, but just enough to get you excited for you trip. My YouTube video is down below. Enjoy.

In Illinois, along the Route 66 Byway, there a lot of little stops that you can make that have informational way-stops that inform you about what once was popular back in the day, but is no longer in existence. I found a number of Geocaches at these locations. If you like the history of ‘once-was’ during Route 66’s heyday, try to make those stops even if you are not Geocaching.

A Shout-Out to the geocachers, FlipperFamily, for placing a number of them (found 2 out of 4 of their hides). Below is a list of Geocaches I found along with links to geocaching.com.

GC32JTQ, Route 66 - Cruisin the Strip, by FlipperFamily  https://coord.info/GC32JTQ

GC32JTH, Route 66 - Easting on the Run, by FlipperFamily  https://coord.info/GC32JTH

I should mention how I developed my list of Geocaches for my trip down Route 66. I found a map on the internet (historic66.com) and cross referenced with the map of geocaches on geocaching.com. I have to admit I went hog wild when I made my list. I picked just about every cache that was remotely close the Route 66’s byway. When I was done with the state of Illinois, I had a list of over 420 geocaches. I suddenly felt overwhelmed. There was no way I could possibly find that many and still have time to enjoy all the sites Route 66 has to offer and make it out the state in two weeks. 

I did some serious weeding out. I kept all the caches that mentioned ‘Route 66’, ‘Mother Road’, or ‘Main Street’ in their title or cache description. For the rest of the geocaches, I weeded out any that did not have any favorite points (On geocaching.com, premium members get to award geocaches with a favorite point if they especially like the hide for any reason). Before I eliminated any of those, I did carefully read the description to make sure it wasn’t Route 66 related. Hopefully, I didn’t miss any. So I had 2 types of geocaches on my list: Route-Related  and Not-Route-Related Geocaches (but has favorite point(s)).

My list went down to 222 geocaches in Illinois. That was still a lot of geocaches to go for. On my first couple of days traveling, I developed few rules for myself...

One, If I was having trouble finding a geocache, I didn’t allow myself too much time to find it. Unless it was Route-Related, I’d give myself a little more time. If I couldn’t find it, I’d try my best to log a Did-Not-Find on the cache page.

Another rule I started was, before noon, I’d look for all the geocaches on my list as I drove down Route 66. After 12pm, I started to cherry-pick Not-Route-Related caches and went for all the Route-Related caches. Around 5-6pm I’d start looking for a motel to stay at for the night. Once I found one, I checked in, dropped off my bags, and then I’d open up the map for that town and start looking for popular Geocaches until dark.

It sounds like all I did geocache, but I did find time to eat and see the sites, but I’ll save that for future blogs.

Until next time, feel free to leave a comment below and please subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss future updates.

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Thanks for reading. I look forward in updating with my adventure in hopes that you will want to experience Route 66 for yourself.