We’ve got a long leg of the journey today (400 some miles), so some of the meandering and sight-seeing we did yesterday won’t work today. The plan is to pick some of the major sites along the way, like Merimac Caverns and the Big Blue Whale.
We have some advantages in that we’ve done part of this leg before for my cousin Sarah’s wedding, so we’ve seen a few of the small attractions and photographed some of the “Big Things” before.
There’s also a group that’s going to deviate from the plan and see the arch, and the car stonehenge and such. We haven’t decided whether to join them or not yet… we’ve already seen the arch.
I can hear people packing the cars up outside, and Stephanie’s showering now. We’re almost ready to hop on the road. I hope we can find some breakfast and coffee….
I had some trouble getting my bluetooth connection to the internet this evening (this motel 6 in St. Louis doesn’t have wireless) so I don’t know if I’ll be able to upload any of the 212 photos I took today.
We woke up this morning and met the rest of the caravan, took tons of photos in the motel parking lot. Most of the people going have some seriously tricked-out cars; lots of cool paint jobs and graphics. Then we gassed up and headed out down Route 66.
First we stopped at the Joliet Route 66 Museum and Howie got them to open, even though they were closed on Mondays. We did a big circular drive photo op, bought Route 66 merchandise in the gift shop, and took off on the road. We had a blast traveling; we communicate with the rest of the caravan using FRS radios, so there’s lots of conversation and joking around between the cars, and a big line of beetles really catches the eye of everyone we pass.
We visited the Launching Pad restaurant and took pictures of the Gemini Giant, then stopped at a antique gas station in Odell. After that we visited another giant Paul Bunyon statue, then drove on to Springfield, Illinois and stopped off at the Cozy Dog, the birthplace of the corn dog. Tasty and very charming, but pretty greasy.
Along the way we picked up 3 more travelers, and stepped on the gas to get to St. Louis, because we meandered quit a bit along the way. Heading into town, we visited the Chain of Rocks bridge, which used to be the bridge over the Mississippi into St. Louis. It’s now closed and you can walk across it. After a big photo op there, we went to Drewes Frozen Custard for ice cream, and headed to the hotel.
I’ll attempt to upload some photos to flickr and add them to this post – we’ll see how it goes.
Update – it took over an hour to upload 20 photos, so I think I’m going to call it a night. I’ll try to upload the rest of the pics when I have a real wireless connection somewhere.
We finally pulled into the motel at 11 Chicago time, and saw a huge row of beetles lined up; very fun. Too dark to take photos.
Traffic in Chicago sucked hard, but we managed to get into town, finally. We parked in a scary-ass parking garage with the steepest ramps I’ve ever seen, and went to the Summerfest in Lincoln Park. It wasn’t terribly impressive; just a bunch of junk booths selling knock off purses and clothes, a way-too-loud lame band, and the thing we came for – about 6 Smart ForTwos, which we got to test drive.
The we walked down Clark street and ate dinner, then headed out to Joliet to meet everyone else.
At some point, my cell got confused and started sending all my twitter messages through chat, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on on my end; very strange. Hence the strange twitters.
The car, I’m blogging from it! I’ve got the ability to blog via my Motorola Razr via email in place, so I can update from the car while we’re traveling.
We’re on the road in Phoebe, with lisa and Jason behind us, headed up to Chicago. I believe the plan is to get some food and to go test drive a smart car at the Summerfest Music festival, before heading to Joliet, where we’ll meet up with 5 other beetles and stay the night before heading out.
I will be blogging as regularly as I can here, uploading photos to flickr, and sending updates via twitter.
The Route 66 caravan to Roswell will have a live Web cam along for the ride. Our friend Lisa Linn, Web geek extraordinaire and owner of Spacepod, runs live web cams on the road of the trip. The cams will run from tomorrow through July 2 (I think). Lisa will be driving from North Carolina to Indianapolis tomorrow, and we’ll depart for Chicago on Sunday and begin traveling on Route 66 on Monday.
You can follow our travels at Lisa’s site: http://www.allpodsgotoroswell.net — the cam viewer on the left opens in a new window with a larger picture, and you can see a slideshow of previous days.
Glossary: pod = New Beetle; NB = New Beetle; Phoebe = our New Beetle; Spacepod = Lisa’s New Beetle, sometimes affectionately known as SP; R2K = Roswell New Beetle car show and weekend, which was started in 2000.
I think I have something close to a final version of my music mix for the CD swap we’re doing for our Route 66 trip. I want to listen to it through a couple of times. It’s a bit on the cheesy and obvious side, but that’s okay. I’d do better if I had all my music ripped, but that’s not going to be complete any time soon, so this will have to do.
The Mothership Calls – Close Encounters of the Third Kind – 0:30
Route 66 – Nat King Cole – 2:50
Meet Me in St. Louis – Judy Garland – 2:14
Oklahoma – from Oklahoma – Alfred Drake And Chorus – 2:32
(Is This The Way To) Amarillo – Tony Christie – 3:11
Take It Easy – The Eagles – 3:30
California, Here I Come – Al Jolson – 2:26
Lost Highway – Hank Williams – 2:44
Riding In My Car – Bruce Springsteen – 1:55
King of the Road – Roger Miller – 2:27
America – Simon & Garfunkel – 3:32
Ramblin’ Man – The Allman Brothers Band – 4:48
Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen – 4:30
Born To Be Wild – Steppenwolf – 3:27
Convoy – C.W. McCall – 3:49
Driving My Life Away – Eddie Rabbit – 3:11
There’s A Barbarian In The Back Of My Car – Voice Of The Beehive – 2:49
Take Me Off to Space – Nenslo – 2:16
Hotrod Supernova – Destination: Earth! – 2:09
It’s the End of the World – Saint N & Sister Hellena Handbasket – 3:59
Behind The Wheel (7″ Remix) – Depeche Mode – 4:04
Route 66 – Depeche Mode – 4:09
And, depending on what I can work up, the cover art:
