Hello Everyone,
On my first day, Saturday, Sept 10, I ended my day exploring most of the East side of the 1st major realignment. I got about halfway down that side and headed back North to Romeoville to stay at a hotel for the night. My plan, for Sunday, was to travel down the West alignment and when I get to the spot where both sides meet again, I’d drive north on the East side of the realignment and visit a town that is in almost in all the Route 66 books, blogs, and articles that mention Route 66’s first major icon. Which I’ll talk about later.
I stayed in a run of the mill hotel my first night on the Mother Road, but in the future I do stay at some iconic motels that I can hardly wait to share with you. But first, the West side of the alignment....
I found a number of geocaches, but didn’t find much in terms of Route 66 attractions. The most notable geocache I got was one called, Truckin’ (GC2N9Z9, placed by Death squared, 8 favorite points). It was in an area back of a factory and it was Sunday, when I found it and not one muggle around to get in the way. If you go for this one, make sure it’s a weekend.
Truckin’ was somewhere between Bolingbrook and Plainfield. I drove thru Plainfield, Shorewood, and Channahon (about two thirds of the West realignment) before I finally found a couple of geocaches worth mentioning. The first one is Frontage Road to Nowhere (GC563T9, placed by kiko101, 5 favorite points). Not to totally give it away, but I looked in the wrong place for a long time. I was about to give up on it until I walked away and looked back. Boom! There it was, easy to spot after all.
This place happens to be just North of the Kankakee River.
At this point, the West side of the realignment was, well, kind of lame. If I missed anything Route 66’ish, I apologize. If it wasn’t for the above mentioned geocaches, I’d almost suggest to skip this part. Most of the time Route 66 was on Highway 55 and most of the geocaches I did find was near exits or on frontage roads.
Once I crossed the Kankakee River, the trip started to get more interesting. Route 66 takes you off Highway 55 and onto Washington Street. I found a Non-Route-Related geocache called, Time to test the soap (GC4G8GQ, placed my kiko101, 2 favorite points).
Washington Street runs North-South. South of Time to test the soap is Stripmine Road. Going East on this road takes you to Wilmington. But first, you will find a cute, but goofy, piece of art and patriotism.
This is an old picture. Share a recent picture, and I’ll give you a ‘Shout Out’ in one of my video blogs.
And that’s where I am going to pause the blog for now.
Why?
I will have to admit, everything I dreamt about Route 66; the iconic places to visit, restaurants to try, motels with neon signs, ghost towns, people with fun character, and a mighty big slice of Americana’s history; I truly believe...begins in Wilmington, Illinois. And Wilmington is a great place to start with my next blog.
Also, Wilmington has an iconic piece of history that, for some reason or another, I kind of geek out about.
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