Me and Creamy

Hello Everyone,

At this point, not too far past noon, I am still in the west-southwest suburbs of Chicago, heading toward Bolingbrook, where the first major realignment of Route 66 takes place.

Before the split, I did find one Non-Route-Related Geocache, Don Quijote (GC5JX6P) placed by Team Darkseid. It was near a parking lot in an industrial area. It only had 1 favorite point and it was still early enough in the day to go for it. Luckily, it was Saturday and hardly a car was around, otherwise I would have skipped it. To be fair, I did have a DNF (Did Not Find) in the same area, placed by the same geocacher.

Shortly after these geocaches, the realignment began and I had to choose where to go first, take the the west or east realignment, and so I randomly picked the east side.

Romeoville is between Bolingbrook and Joliet and that is where I found a popular Non-Route-Related geocache (16 favorite points) called, Sony (GC2F4JB), placed by TN83. Then I went and found a Route-Related geocache, White Fence Farms on Old Route 66 (GC12D2N), that was placed by Greenback.

White Fence Farms is a restaurant that was in business before Route 66 was established. I didn't stop to eat, since it wasn't quite that time yet, but according the Wikipedia:

“The original White Fence Farm location is in Romeoville, where it was established in the early 1920s on US Route 66. It was founded by Stuyvesant 'Jack' Peabody, son of Peabody Coal Company, founder Francis S. Peabody and himself CEO of Peabody Coal at the time. It was opened on a 12-acre plot that Jack Peabody owned across US Route 66/Joliet Road from his 450-acre Lemont horse farm, where thoroughbred racehorses were bred, boarded and trained. The story was that Jack Peabody often had weekend guests at his horse farm, but there was no restaurant in the area where he could entertain them – so he started one himself. The roadside restaurant, which opened in a converted farmhouse, was known then for its hamburger sandwiches and Guernsey milk products, including ice cream. 

By the time US Route 66 opened in November 1926, White Fence Farm had already served several thousand customers. It was reviewed several times during the Peabody years by the early restaurant critic Duncan Hines, who had been a fan of the restaurant since the late 1920s. After Prohibition ended, Jack Peabody promoted California wines at the restaurant and helped to revive the California wine industry, as he had earlier helped to revive thoroughbred horse racing in Illinois during the 1910s and 1920s. Peabody operated the restaurant successfully until his death in 1946. After that, the restaurant was first leased to several different renters, then eventually sold by Jack's son, Stuyvesant Peabody, Jr. 

Since 1954, the restaurant has been owned and operated by the Hastert family. Robert Hastert, Sr. was the first family owner-manager. Hastert had begun as a wholesale poultry dealer at the Aurora Poultry Market during World War II and later owned the Harmony House restaurant in Aurora, IL which he had opened four years before he bought White Fence Farm. The property had gone through several operators and/or owners after being sold by the Peabody estate. Family legend has it that Bob Hastert, Sr. settled on the purchase price for the restaurant property with the previous owner, an acquaintance who had gone bankrupt, by using the flip of a coin. 

Hastert was uncle to and his son, Bob Hastert, Jr., was the first cousin of former Speaker of the House Rep. J Dennis Hastert (R-IL). Bob Jr., who had converted an industrial-sized hospital autoclave into an outsized pressure cooker for the restaurant's unique method of cooking the chicken, took over the operation of the restaurant after his father's death in 1998. Bob Sr.'s wife, Doris, also worked at the restaurant, usually as a hostess. Laura Hastert-Gardner, daughter of Robert Jr., is the restaurant's current owner and manager. The restaurant's famous fried chicken recipe was added to the menu during the 1950s by Bob Hastert, Sr., who, by his granddaughter's admission, told the chicken recipe origin story several different ways at different times and may have just as easily borrowed the recipe from someone else as brought it with him from Harmony House. 

The restaurant building was expanded several times under the Hasterts. It now has several dining rooms, with seating for more than 1,000 customers. It also features a side room and gallery that includes an antique car collection, other antiques, and Jack Peabody's collection of original Currier & Ives prints, among other nostalgic displays. During the summer, the restaurant has an outdoor petting zoo.”

After the White Fence Farms, there was some geocaches I went for before hitting the city of Joliet (They are mentioned at the end of this blog). In Joliet, a couple geocaches drew me to a small park that had some walking paths, a handful of informational kiosks, and neat little place to stop and get yourself a treat called, Rich and Creamy. I did a Facebook Live after I got the first cache (Mother Nature (GC1WYP2) placed by mjholley). Take a look by clicking the link below

https://www.facebook.com/RichHavlik/videos/10207568949963588/

If you the link is not working for you, try friending me on Facebook and see if that helps.

Here is what illinoisroute66.com says about Rich & Creamy:

“Rich & Creamy is typical of ice cream stores that dotted Route 66 in its heyday, when Broadway was a leg of the highway in Joliet. City leaders restored Rich & Creamy back to the retro appearance from its heyday. Jake and Elwood, The Blues Brothers, dance atop the tower wrapped in neon lights.”

The other geocache in this park is RT 53 Quick Cache (GCNT3D) which was placed by .MikeyB. I had a great time visiting here and below are some pictures of my time there.

At this point it was getting dark and time to find my first place to stay for the night. I used an app on my phone and found a reasonable place back in Romeoville which isn’t too far from the top of the realignment. I decided, in the morning, that I’d drive back to the realignment and head down the west side. 

It was a good plan, but I ended up missing out a geocache, south of Joliet, that would have been great to find; We’re On A Mission From God (GC4NJY2) hidden by kiko101. Take a look of the picture below, which I got from the geocaching page, and you’ll see why I should have pursued it. Of course I didn’t discover this until I got home.

That’s it for now. Please share this blog on your favorite social media. 

Also, please comment down below. Let me know what you think and let me know if you have any questions. Let’s make this of community of people who love geocaching, love Route 66, and are interested in driving down the Mother Road.

If you haven’t done so yet, friend me on Facebook and/or follow me on Twitter (@richhavlik). Subscribe to this blog and to my YouTube Channel (Rich Havlik) so you don’t miss an update.

Thanks Everyone for taking the time to read this.

PS

Here are some other geocaches I got or should have gotten:

Enterprise NCC-1701 (GC2HHC1) placed by jaycop71

No Gas Here (GC23CM8) placed by mjholley

*Between a Rock and a Wet Place (GCJCEH) placed by c+c (8 favorite points)

*Passage to India (GC3AC5) placed by Eagle Son (11 favorite points)

*These were at 2 parking lots for a park, but there were a kid's birthday parties going on at each location. Decided to skip these caches, didn’t want to look like a creeper. If you go for these geocaches, let me know. They worth the favorite points?

Me and Creamy

Hello Everyone,

At this point, not too far past noon, I am still in the west-southwest suburbs of Chicago, heading toward Bolingbrook, where the first major realignment of Route 66 takes place.

Before the split, I did find one Non-Route-Related Geocache, Don Quijote (GC5JX6P) placed by Team Darkseid. It was near a parking lot in an industrial area. It only had 1 favorite point and it was still early enough in the day to go for it. Luckily, it was Saturday and hardly a car was around, otherwise I would have skipped it. To be fair, I did have a DNF (Did Not Find) in the same area, placed by the same geocacher.

Shortly after these geocaches, the realignment began and I had to choose where to go first, take the the west or east realignment, and so I randomly picked the east side.

Romeoville is between Bolingbrook and Joliet and that is where I found a popular Non-Route-Related geocache (16 favorite points) called, Sony (GC2F4JB), placed by TN83. Then I went and found a Route-Related geocache, White Fence Farms on Old Route 66 (GC12D2N), that was placed by Greenback.

White Fence Farms is a restaurant that was in business before Route 66 was established. I didn't stop to eat, since it wasn't quite that time yet, but according the Wikipedia:

“The original White Fence Farm location is in Romeoville, where it was established in the early 1920s on US Route 66. It was founded by Stuyvesant 'Jack' Peabody, son of Peabody Coal Company, founder Francis S. Peabody and himself CEO of Peabody Coal at the time. It was opened on a 12-acre plot that Jack Peabody owned across US Route 66/Joliet Road from his 450-acre Lemont horse farm, where thoroughbred racehorses were bred, boarded and trained. The story was that Jack Peabody often had weekend guests at his horse farm, but there was no restaurant in the area where he could entertain them – so he started one himself. The roadside restaurant, which opened in a converted farmhouse, was known then for its hamburger sandwiches and Guernsey milk products, including ice cream. 

By the time US Route 66 opened in November 1926, White Fence Farm had already served several thousand customers. It was reviewed several times during the Peabody years by the early restaurant critic Duncan Hines, who had been a fan of the restaurant since the late 1920s. After Prohibition ended, Jack Peabody promoted California wines at the restaurant and helped to revive the California wine industry, as he had earlier helped to revive thoroughbred horse racing in Illinois during the 1910s and 1920s. Peabody operated the restaurant successfully until his death in 1946. After that, the restaurant was first leased to several different renters, then eventually sold by Jack's son, Stuyvesant Peabody, Jr. 

Since 1954, the restaurant has been owned and operated by the Hastert family. Robert Hastert, Sr. was the first family owner-manager. Hastert had begun as a wholesale poultry dealer at the Aurora Poultry Market during World War II and later owned the Harmony House restaurant in Aurora, IL which he had opened four years before he bought White Fence Farm. The property had gone through several operators and/or owners after being sold by the Peabody estate. Family legend has it that Bob Hastert, Sr. settled on the purchase price for the restaurant property with the previous owner, an acquaintance who had gone bankrupt, by using the flip of a coin. 

Hastert was uncle to and his son, Bob Hastert, Jr., was the first cousin of former Speaker of the House Rep. J Dennis Hastert (R-IL). Bob Jr., who had converted an industrial-sized hospital autoclave into an outsized pressure cooker for the restaurant's unique method of cooking the chicken, took over the operation of the restaurant after his father's death in 1998. Bob Sr.'s wife, Doris, also worked at the restaurant, usually as a hostess. Laura Hastert-Gardner, daughter of Robert Jr., is the restaurant's current owner and manager. The restaurant's famous fried chicken recipe was added to the menu during the 1950s by Bob Hastert, Sr., who, by his granddaughter's admission, told the chicken recipe origin story several different ways at different times and may have just as easily borrowed the recipe from someone else as brought it with him from Harmony House. 

The restaurant building was expanded several times under the Hasterts. It now has several dining rooms, with seating for more than 1,000 customers. It also features a side room and gallery that includes an antique car collection, other antiques, and Jack Peabody's collection of original Currier & Ives prints, among other nostalgic displays. During the summer, the restaurant has an outdoor petting zoo.”

After the White Fence Farms, there was some geocaches I went for before hitting the city of Joliet (They are mentioned at the end of this blog). In Joliet, a couple geocaches drew me to a small park that had some walking paths, a handful of informational kiosks, and neat little place to stop and get yourself a treat called, Rich and Creamy. I did a Facebook Live after I got the first cache (Mother Nature (GC1WYP2) placed by mjholley). Take a look by clicking the link below

https://www.facebook.com/RichHavlik/videos/10207568949963588/

If you the link is not working for you, try friending me on Facebook and see if that helps.

Here is what illinoisroute66.com says about Rich & Creamy:

“Rich & Creamy is typical of ice cream stores that dotted Route 66 in its heyday, when Broadway was a leg of the highway in Joliet. City leaders restored Rich & Creamy back to the retro appearance from its heyday. Jake and Elwood, The Blues Brothers, dance atop the tower wrapped in neon lights.”

The other geocache in this park is RT 53 Quick Cache (GCNT3D) which was placed by .MikeyB. I had a great time visiting here and below are some pictures of my time there.

At this point it was getting dark and time to find my first place to stay for the night. I used an app on my phone and found a reasonable place back in Romeoville which isn’t too far from the top of the realignment. I decided, in the morning, that I’d drive back to the realignment and head down the west side. 

It was a good plan, but I ended up missing out a geocache, south of Joliet, that would have been great to find; We’re On A Mission From God (GC4NJY2) hidden by kiko101. Take a look of the picture below, which I got from the geocaching page, and you’ll see why I should have pursued it. Of course I didn’t discover this until I got home.

That’s it for now. Please share this blog on your favorite social media. 

Also, please comment down below. Let me know what you think and let me know if you have any questions. Let’s make this of community of people who love geocaching, love Route 66, and are interested in driving down the Mother Road.

If you haven’t done so yet, friend me on Facebook and/or follow me on Twitter (@richhavlik). Subscribe to this blog and to my YouTube Channel (Rich Havlik) so you don’t miss an update.

Thanks Everyone for taking the time to read this.

PS

Here are some other geocaches I got or should have gotten:

Enterprise NCC-1701 (GC2HHC1) placed by jaycop71

No Gas Here (GC23CM8) placed by mjholley

*Between a Rock and a Wet Place (GCJCEH) placed by c+c (8 favorite points)

*Passage to India (GC3AC5) placed by Eagle Son (11 favorite points)

*These were at 2 parking lots for a park, but there were a kid's birthday parties going on at each location. Decided to skip these caches, didn’t want to look like a creeper. If you go for these geocaches, let me know. They worth the favorite points?

Chicks on 66?

Hello Everyone!

Meanwhile...as I am still in the suburbs of Chicago, I am traveling on Joliet Road going southwest. Then Joliet Road seems to end at West 55th Street and I have to take a couple of side streets which eventually gets me back on Joliet. I don’t know the story here, but it seems that this section of Route 66 is no longer drivable and this should not come of any surprise. Only 15% of the old Mother Road no longer exists.

Where Joliet picks back up, there is a geocache placed here by Panther in the Den, called End of the Road - DANG! That is one BIG Hole! (GC25MXR) It had a couple of favorite points and so I thought I’d go for it. Glad I did. I got a glimpse of maybe why the road is closed. 

There is a quarry here and my guess it either has to do with their operations or the road itself went bad and the city decided not to fix it or a combo of both. 

At first when I got close to ground zero (ground zero means that the location of the cache should be real close) I felt a bit uneasy. The neighbor looked a bit shady, some of the businesses where closed, and there was evidence that this area might be a place where the homeless like to hang out. 

I took a chance and went for it. The picture below shows what the old Route 66 road looks like now. 

The cache is located on this side of the fence, but there are 5 other geocaches on the abandoned road. I went for the 1st one, but the further away I was from my van, the more uncomfortable I felt. I didn’t find that cache and decided not to go for the other ones. Perhaps if someone I knew was there with me I would happily have searched out the other caches.

I found two other Geocaches on Joliet Road (Baby Yoda Loves Double D’s! (GC468PV) and A LOCAL Cache (GC2Q70B)) and further down the road I found another geocache by a gem of Route 66 icon...Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket!

According to their website:

"Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket got its humble beginnings sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s in an old gas station lunch counter. One day, two local farm women came in and overheard the owner (Irv Kolarik) talking about selling more food. Having a wonderful recipe for fried chicken, they approached him and offered to teach him how to cook fried chicken if he would buy his chickens from them.

Because the fried chicken was so good and the highway so busy, the Chicken Basket outgrew its lunch counter and the two car repair bays were turned into a dining room. Not long after that, with the restaurant still growing, the adjacent land was purchased and a brand new restaurant was built.

The Chicken Basket, as it is today, opened in the summer of 1946 on Illinois Route 66 and 79th Street in Hinsdale right next door to its original location. Because of the amount of traffic and distance from Chicago, the Chicken Basket was the perfect stopping place going to or coming from Chicago. These perfect locations also lead to the Chicken Basket becoming a Blue Bird bus stop. People came to the Chicken Basket to purchase bus tickets to travel as far away as Los Angeles or to send packages to loved ones anywhere in between Chicago and LA.

The restaurant’s many large windows allowed patrons to view the small private planes taking off and landing at the old Hinsdale airport across the street. There was always something going on at the Chicken Basket, whether the roof top ice skaters in the winter months or the live entertainment on the weekends.

The restaurant’s need for chicken soon outgrew the capability of the two local women, and another local farmer who was just moving into the area took over. That farmer was none other than Stanley Helma, father and grandfather of today’s owners.

In the early 1960s, Illinois Route 66 bypassed the Chicken Basket and the beloved Route 66 icon fell on hard times. People who remembered the restaurant couldn’t figure out how to get to it and it almost went out of business for lack of customers. In 1963, Dell Rhea and his wife, Grace, bought the restaurant at a bargain price. Dell, being very well known in the area, used his reputation to help bring people back to the Chicken Basket.

With a lot of hard work, good food, fair prices, friendly faces and the growing popularity of Historic Route 66 around the world, the Chicken Basket has become more popular than ever. The Chicken Basket was inducted in the Route 66 Hall of Fame in June of 1992. In 1994, the restaurant was featured in a documentary of Route 66 done by Bill Curtiss. The Chicken Basket was on the cover of Route 66 Magazine, featured in a Japanese Travel Guide, on Discovery Channel Europe in “Dine About with Max and Greg” as well as other Route 66 programs. Most recently, the Chicken Basket was inducted into “The National Register of Historic Places” in May of 2006."

The geocache nearby is called, Get Your Chicks on Route 66 (GC12AGN), and was placed by I Love Chicago! (aka Panther in the Den)

Well, that’s it for now. I am still in the suburbs of Chicago, but soon I’ll be hitting the first major realignment of Route 66. There happens to be caches on both realignments which starts in Bolingbrook and comes back together in Shadow Lakes. The next couple of blogs will feature each realignment.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you haven’t subscribed yet to this blog, please do so.

Please SHARE this blog with your friends on your favorite social media.

Look for my video blogs on YouTube. Search for Rich Havlik and subscribe so you don’t miss an update.

Feel free to friend me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter...@richhavlik

And finally, please leave a comment down below. I’d love to see what you have to say. Let’s make this a community of people who love Route 66 and/or Geocaching.

I had the time of my life on Route 66 and I am sharing my adventures with you in hopes that’d you want to experience Route 66 for yourself.

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.

Also, feel free to friend me on Facebook (and I’ll friend you back). Follow me on Twitter @richhavlik. And finally, please subscribe to my YouTube channel, Rich Havlik.

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

Starting Route 66 With My Feet

Hello Everyone,

On Saturday, September 10th, 2016 I started my journey on Route 66 not by van, but by on foot.

Below is a link of my Facebook Live account of my start. I wanted to show you where, close up, Route 66 started. I parked about 11-12 blocks away from where Route 66 officially starts. I walked to the beginning and went live on Facebook. One thing that this video shows is that one major factor of the Mother Road is not just the road or the sites, but people. You'll see what I am talking about after you watch this....

https://www.facebook.com/RichHavlik/videos/10207566849471077/

Now, if the link isn't working for you, I'd suggest you friend me on Facebook and I'll friend you back. Perhaps that will help you see what I showed on Facebook when I went live.

After my walk back to my vehicle, I started to drive through the city of Chicago and into the suburbs. There isn't too many Route 66 icons or history. There was one geocache I really wanted to get to start out my geocaching adventures on Route 66 with and that was called, Castle Car Wash on Route 66 (GC1N9Z6).

According to the cache page, "Castle Car Wash was built in 1925 and is the last remaining historic gas station structure on Route 66 (Ogden Avenue) in the city limits. Chicago was the eastern terminus of Route 66. Originally Murphy's Filling Station, the building stopped functioning as a filling station in 1966 and later became a car wash. The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program of the National Park Service recognizes this building, with its unique castle design, as one-of-a-kind along the roadway and in April of 2005, the building was determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places."

There happened to be a church next door on Ogden Avenue and there was a lot of people dressed up and there was a lot of cars parked out in front of the Castle Car Wash and church including a hearse. 

Dang, a funeral was about to happen.  Had to skip this cache.

Six blocks further down was another geocache (RT66:IL - Henry's Drive In; GC12FNB) that I decided to go for. According to the cache page, "In 1953, all they served was hot dogs. They have an expanded menu now--fries served on the bun. Henry’s has been in its current location since the 40's. The original stand was at Austin and Ogden, dating back to the 30's. Henry's isn't in the Route 66 Hall of Fame, but it's an interesting historical stop along The Mother Road."

I Facebook Live'd my find here. Enjoy...

https://www.facebook.com/RichHavlik/videos/10207567372644156/

Again, if you are having a hard time hitting the link above and cannot see my Facebook Live recording, please friend me on Facebook, I'll friend you back, and see if that works

There is a number of other geocaches I got before I totally got out the Chicago suburbs, but going to save those stories for next time.

I had the time of my life on Route 66. You'll enjoy too. But don't take my word for it; experience it for yourself.

Drive Safe Everyone,

Rich Havlik

Until next time, feel free to leave a comment down below. I'd love to see what you have to say or answer any questions you may have. Let this blog be a community of Route 66 enthusiasts and/or Geocaching enthusiasts. 

Feel free to follow me on Twitter: @richhavlik

I also have a YouTube channel and would love for you to subscribe. Look it up: Rich Havlik

Don't forget to friend me on Facebook: Rich Havlik

The Trip before by Route 66 Trip

Hello Everyone,

It's Friday, September 9th, 2016 and I am heading out to Chicago to stay with my aunt and uncle for the night before I take the trip I have been dreaming about for almost a year and a half.

One thing I believe I have done before leaving was (way) over prepare for this trip.

Every scenario I played in my head I wanted to be prepared for...

What if I don't have enough money for gas, food, gifts, etc...?

Well, I could sleep in my van somewhere if I want...right?

What if I could find a camping spot? Should I pack a tent?

How much should I eat out while on the road? If I eat out at all....

How safe is it doing any of the above?

Going for over 2 weeks, how much clothing to do I bring?

So what did I do? I packed not just one, but two tents along with a couple of sleeping bags, two of those chairs that you can quickly fold up and put in a bag, and pillows....just in case I can find a place to camp out.

Filled a bin with safety items; first aid kit, jumper cables, blankets, etc....

Decided not to do any laundry while on the road, so I packed a duffle bag with enough clothes so I am covered for 18 days...in turn, I have a bin, with a very tight lid (those who have experience what my feet can do will fully understand) for dirty clothes.

For food, I packed a cooler and a bin for dry foods. My plan is to stop every once in awhile to purchase food from a local grocery store and 'picnic' my meals.

To make a long story short, the back of my van is layered with bins for every situation I can think of.

In terms of my driving trip to Chicago, I did plan to stop at a couple of 'Travel Bug Hotels' to pick up some trackables to drop off on Route 66.

The first one, Giants TB Hotel (GCV04F), got pictures of. It was basically located at a park-n-drive. It was a neat cache in terms of a great disguise. Pictures below....

The Ducks I picked up are from a Geocaching.com rubber duck race that is now done, but decided to grab them and move them along aways.

My second cache I found (my favorite one of the two) was pleasantly well done. It is called, 400 Club Travel Bug Resort (GC3Y4W6). It was made to look like a weather station, but turned out to be a 'gadget' cache. A gadget cache is set up so you have to figure out a puzzle of some sort to get it open. In this case, it turned out that I had to figure out a combination of a lock. I won't give away the answer, but it turned out to be an easy one for me to figure out. To tell you the truth, I am not very good with these kinds of caches and for me to solve it, almost feels like a miracle. It started to rain, so I didn't take the camera with me, but took a picture of the trackables I gathered on my dash. Enjoy...

I choose the dragonfly travel bug in honor of my girlfriend. She loves them.

That's my trip before my trip. Watch for more blogs come in different forums; photos, video blogs, and Facebook Live links.

If you like what you see, please subscribe to get notifications of new blogs. Feel free to friend me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and subscribe to my YouTube channel. They are all under my name, Rich Havlik

Please leave a comment down below. Let's turn this blog into a community of lovers of Route 66, Geocaching, Life in General, and yes; even fantasy football.

Thanks for reading

Rich

Almost time and a few fun pictures

As I write this, I am just a few days away of finally going on my trip of Driving and Geocaching Route 66.

To tell you the truth, I am a bit nervous, excited, and over prepared. I have no idea what the day to day will look like for those couple of weeks.

One thing I do know is that this trip is about the journey and not about the destination. I  know I will not reach the end of Route 66 in this trip. But, when I stop and head home; I will start at that place the next year.

One thing I am planning is to record a lot of my journey on here, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. I  am encouraging you to follow me on all those social media locations (search Rich Havlik) and please share what you see.

In meantime, enjoy the pictures below and have a great September!!!