Our 38th Anniversary: Getting Married on the Lincoln Highway

Thirty-eight years ago today, Liz and I were in Dekalb, Illinois, along the Lincoln Highway, and preparing, at this moment to be married at the Newman Center in campus by Father Dan Hermes.

After the ceremony, we had the reception at the Holiday Inn right on Illinois Highway 38, which is the old Lincoln Highway. Today, the hotel is the Best Western. After the ceremony, we drove west on Lincoln until some point when we headed to Galena, Illinois, where we spent our honeymoon. We stayed at the old Paradise Motel, (a classic mom and pop place) on US-20 (it has since been torn down and replaced by a Ramada Inn).

All those years attending Northern Illinois University and doing the Lincoln Crawl and all Il-38 was to us was just another road. We did not know it was the first transcontinental paved highway.

We're going to call Father Dan, who is now monsignor at St. Thomas Church in Crystal Lake and hoping to talk to him.

A Real Long-Long-Long Time Ago. --RoadDog