Down Da Road I Go- Part 1

Being an account of some road stuff going on recently.

Route 66:

1. Route 66 towns in Illinois from Joliet to Towanda (just north of Normal) are having their Red Carpet Corridor Celebration this weekend. Lots of entertainment and garage sales. I would have gone to this had it not been for last night's wedding.

2. WGN TV runs a special every Thursday during their 9 PM CST broadcast where Julian Crews takes to the road and visits a part of Illinois. This is in conjunction with the state's enjoyillinois website. This past Thursday, Crews cruised the Route 66 sites in Springfield. They included Bill Shea's service station museum, the Cozy Dog, the Lincoln souvenir store, and the Funereal Museum. Go to wgntv site and click on Cruising Illinois.

3. Unfortunately, the Cozy Dog did not make the final cut of Enjoyillinois' Seven Wonders of Illinois competition. During March and early April, internet users were allowed to vote daily for their favorite places in the seven regions of Illinois. Route 66 folks like me really got out the vote for our places, but we came up short.

4. I see that the city of Carthage, Missouri, got a $100,000 grant to create a Route 66 museum in that beautiful county courthouse of theirs. This is a magnificent structure and was used as the model for the courthouse in the "Back to the Future" movies.

5. Federated Department Stores, still under a massive amount of criticism for dropping the Marshall Fields moniker in Chicago, is working on a plan to bring back production of the famed Frango Mints. Well that will help, but.... Actually, I rarely ever shopped at Marshall Fields as it was a bit on the too expensive side for me. Also, Federated is planning on closing the old Fields store in Lake Forest. It was the very first place Fields expanded to from their famed State Street store. Of course, now these stores are called that New Yorky Macy's.

--RoadDog