Since we were running late getting into Springfield on
Wednesday, we saved some of the things we were going to see in Springfield for
today. First, we visited the Lincoln
family home, a 2-block square section in the middle of Springfield restored by
the National Park Service as closely as possible to how it would have looked in
the 1850s. Lincoln and his wife Mary
bought a small house there in 1844 when they got married and Abe was a local
lawyer. It was the only house Abe ever
owned, and Mary moved back there after Lincoln was assassinated.
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| The Lincoln family home on the left |
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| Illinois State Capital building |
Next we went to the Lincoln Museum and Library. It’s a huge,
beautiful complex, and we only had time to see Museum. It was really not so
much a museum in the traditional sense but was full of multimedia exhibits
depicting the life of Lincoln. It was fascinating and moving. There was so much
more to see, but we were on a time schedule, and resolved that we would come
back some day to spend more time in Springfield.
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| The Mazouats visit the Lincolns |
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| A recreation of Abe's log cabin |
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| Lincoln Museum and Library |
By the time we left Springfield it was 1:00. We tried not to
make as many stops as we did yesterday. We did however choose to follow the oldest
RT 66 route as it ran between 1926 and 1930, as opposed to the post 1930 route.
This route took us through many small towns and farms. The early alignment of
Rt 66 usually ran alongside railroad tracks, and for large stretches you could
see the original concrete roadbed running along next to the current rural
roadway. Many stretches of the original roadbed have been converted into the
“RT 66 Bike Path”. In Many other places it was just a broken, weedy relic.
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| The original concrete RT66 wends its way through farmland |
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| A 1-mile stretch in the middle of nowhere is paved with red bricks |
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| 1920's turkey tracks preserved in Rt66 concrete |
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| This is how you can locate the famous turkey tracks |
We took many old detours off the current secondary roads
through farmlands and small towns on the original concrete roadway. It is very narrow, maybe 12 feet wide with no
shoulders, in may places very broken up, running past old farm houses and
small, 20-30 house towns. Population 98, Salute! We went through Chatham,
Auburn, Thayer, Virden, Girard, Nilwood, Carlinville, Gillespe, Benld and
Statuton before stopping at the Twistee Treat Diner and Pink Elephant Antiques
Mall in Livingston for a very late lunch and to see their large collection of
roadside attractions. By the time we left it was 3:30 and we’d completed only
59 of our 259 planned miles for the day. We knew we were going to be very late.
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| Of course, another Muffler Man |
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| World's Largest Rocking Chair (tm) |
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| Macopin County "cannonball" jail. So called because they used civil war cannonballs in the walls to prevent prisoners from digging out. In use until 1988 |
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| Twistee Treat Diner and Pink Elephant Antiques Mall |
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| Twistee Treat Diner |
We hurried our way across the mighty Mississippi and into
Missouri (sorry, no Welcome to Missouri sign) and through the crowded traffic around
St Louis. We left St Louis, fighting our way through suburban traffic and
traffic lights. We soon broke out of the
city and back into rural backroads. We went through more than 2 dozen small
towns (including Devil’s Elbow) traveling from St Louis to Lebanon where we
were staying at the Munger Moss Motel for the night. Most of the trip was on
frontage roads traveling directly alongside US RT 44 or at least parallel to it.
These are all the small towns bypassed when the interstate came through and
took the traffic off Rt66. Some towns are doing quite well, and some look like
they’ve been forgotten and run down.
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| Crossing the Mississippi on the McKinlry Bridge |
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| Skirting St Louis |
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| It seems every small town we pass through has beautiful murals, many Rt66 themed. Some towns have many |
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| keeping the townsfolk happy |
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| The Uranus Fudge Factory. Unfortunately closed by the time we got there |
By the time we got to Munger Moss, it was 9:00 and we were
exhausted. Romona, the owner and
proprietor (and Rt66 legend) was kind enough to stay late for us to check us
in. Munger Moss is a 1940’s era motel that look like it has changed very little
since it was built, but is nonetheless very well maintained.
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| Finally at the Munger Moss Motel |
We got to our room, planned a much shorter day for tomorrow,
and called it a day.
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