Day 1 - Chicago to Springfield, IL

And so, Milk Duds in hand (in case you were wondering) we left a damp and grey Chicago behind us and set off down Route 66. With only a few minor detours, we managed to follow the route through Cicero and Romeoville to Joliet, where, our engineering natures getting the better of us, and we stopped to take pictures of an historic iron works site. This lead to one of the bizarrest  sights of the day - a group of construction workers in hard hats doing exercises in a circle. Alas, we have no photographic evidence.

A very grey Chicago morning; clouds surround the top of the Sears (err, Willis) Tower

Handy "Historic Route 66" signposts helped keep us in the right direction

At Wilmington we saw our first "Muffler Man" of the day, the Gemini Giant, originally holding mufflers (exhausts) this one now holds a rocket, and the one we saw later in Atlanta, IL, now holds a giant hot dog.

The "Muffler Men"

On the same theme, Route 66 hosts a number of the "world's largest..." random things, for example:

The world's largest covered wagon (driven by a giant Abraham Lincoln), with Mini for scale

Once we got well out into the countryside, most of the route seemed to be sandwiched between the railway and Interstate 55, which was built to replace the old Route 66 which slowly passed through all the small towns along the way.  Remnants of the old second carriageway of Route 66 are still visible next to the road in many places. There are plenty of relics from the road's past glories, but restored vintage service stations and barn-side bill boards gave us a taste of how things were in the old days.

The Mini at a restored Texaco station in Dwight, IL

This service station even had a vintage VW Camper Van in front when we pulled up

A restored painted barn advertising a later Route 66 attraction

This old gas pump however has certainly seen better days

Finally arriving in Springfield, after some interesting attempts at parking (Selina's, obviously) we checked into our hotel and found we had a rather nice view of the State Capitol Building. The town itself however seems deserted, and most of the restaurants and even some of the bars were closed - Monday night is obviously not party night in Springfield.

The Illinois State Capitol as seen from our hotel room

- Neil and Selina