Got ourselves all packed up again, checked out and loaded the Dodge to start our Route 66 Road Trip. Headed for the start sign but ran into a few problems with traffic and one way streets, but Greg negotiated our way out of the city and along the pretty well marked route! Because Route 66 has been replaced in many sections by new highways and freeways it is nearly impossible to follow it exactly and we quickly found out that on the original sections that are now mainly minor roads and have a very low speed limit - often 70 kph! So progress was very slow and after following the route for a couple of hours and seeing a few roadside highlights we returned to the Interstate and made for the little town of Pontiac. A very pretty place, on the banks of the Vermillion River, it is home to a great Route 66 museum, an impressive war museum and a car museum dedicated to its namesake, the GM Pontiac.
We had some lunch then toured all three museums and found them very interesting - especially the war one which had so much stuff in it, a lot of it being from the Gulf and Afghanistan Wars.
Back on the road and we followed the route some more, reaching the town of Litchfield for our night stop!
There wasn't really much to report from today, the drive was through great farmland again and we passed many, many large industrial plants - who knows what they all produce! One was the Mitsubishi Motors Factory and another was a huge nuclear power plant at Braidwood!
Not much of the Route 66 stuff to see, but funnily we caught up with a Japanese chap who we met in Chicago when we were taking photos of the start sign on Tuesday! He said he was driving a 1963 Volvo on Route 66 and was doing a photographic study. He was the first person we bumped into at the Musuem!!!! His car was an immaculate restoration job and was all kitted out with a GoPro and iPad navigation!
It is quite amazing the number of people doing just as we are - the registry books at the museums showed lots of Aussies and New Zealanders as well as many Europeans.