Route 66 Through Illinois-- Part 2

It is exactly 103 miles from our house to Dwight, where we usually pick up Route 66 so as to avoid the Chicago hassle.

Gas was anywhere from $2.50 to a high of $2.70 (at Stark's Corner (47 and US-20) and the usual highest price BP station at Il-38 and 47. Gas at Dwight was $2.50 and we filled up in Pontiac for $2.46. Gas along I-44 in Missouri is $2.20. I can live with that.

In Dwight, that unique narrow building that opened a few years ago with the Route 66 mural on the side, Java Stop is closed and for sale. Sadly, Smaterjax is still closed as well.

Saw a huge new wind farm across from my favorite old farm ruins between Dwight and Odell. We saw a couple trucks carrying those huge propeller blades for the windmills parked across the road from Pete's Restaurant in Dwight. They are huge when they're up on the pole, but sometrhing else again when you see them at ground level. We saw several wind farms a couple weeks ago when we were cruising across Iowa on US-20 and the Lincoln Highway.

As always, we stopped at the Standard station in Odell, something we do if it's open. Signed the guest book and got one of those great Route 66 Root Beers. The woman working there has a daughter who ran Fedderson's for ten years before selling it to the people who opened Smaterjax. By far the worst thing these last owners did was to sell all those great automotive related items to a private collector. Most sad of all was the loss of the straight run of Illinois license plates from the 1920s to the 1980s. Even more remarkable was the fact that they were all the same number.

More to Come. --RoadDog