A Trip to DeKalb, Illinois for NIU Basketball-- Part 1: The Historic DeKalb-Sycamore Road

FEBRUARY 22, 2020, Saturday

Northern Illinois University held its annual Spring Homecoming games this past weekend.  This is where the women and men's basketball teams both play at home and during the afternoon.  Liz and I like to go out to this whenever we can.  And this weekend, we did.

We took our regular avoid Huntley way out to DeKalb.  And that means driving on Illinois Highways 120 to Woodstock, 47, 176 to Marengo and then 23 to Sycamore.  The, we took the bypass around Sycamore (Peace Road) to Il-23 again and then the famed DeKalb-Sycamore Highway.

This road is significant in Illinois road history as it was one of the first paved two lane roads between two towns and then, as World War II started for the U.S., one of the first four lane roads between cities in the state.

Needless to say, when we were students at NIU in DeKalb from 1969 to 1973, there was not a lot of businesses on the road, but not any more.  It is one store, restaurant or gas station after another.  Driving it can be exasperating with all the stoplights, many of which are quite long.  Real standard homogenized stuff.

--RoadDog