CHICAGO – ST LOUIS, MISSOURI
Well today is the day we have been waiting and planning for and Ken has worked so hard on for the past two years. Here we are just leaving Chicago on our trip along Route 66. We left the hotel about 9am and made our way to Interstate 55 heading towards St. Louis, Missouri, our 1st overnight stop. A perfect day bright and sunny, blue sky not a cloud to been seen for miles and as it got hotter we stayed cool in our air-conditioned people carrier, all packed up with our bags for our adventure.
When we got out of the van at our first sightseeing stop of the trip the heat hit us, it must have been about 90ºf and that was at 10.30am. We had arrived at Funks Grove the home where the original maple sirup was first made and is still being made to this day. We met Mrs Funk who served us our sirup and souvenirs. She gave us some history of Route 66 and sirup making and advised of a couple of good maps to buy, so with sirup, souvenirs and a few more stories of the ‘Mother Road’ off we went.
We continued along the road, staying on the original route as much as possible. We stopped at Dixie Truckers Home diner in MacLean for lunch and a look at the first of many Route 66 museums, not much to look at and we had to wait ages for our lunch.
After 320 miles on and off of the Mother Road, as it is not always visible anymore and some of the maps do not even show it, we came to the Best Western Hotel in Pontoon Beach near the border of Illinois and Missouri (our next state of the journey). We went for a quick swim in the hotel pool, not to bad but a bit small just enough room for 4 of us, we were glad as we had it to ourselves. We then drove into the centre of St. Louis to find the great arch called ‘Gateway Arch’ where we were to meet Bob and Kitty Harmon, another couple who are well travelled on Route 66 that Ken had again met on the internet and arranged a meeting.
The Arch, a rather large, silver coloured thick arch shaped building was erected in the late 30’s for a State exhibition. It had a viewing gallery at the very top and this was our destination for the start of this evening. I can tell you I was a little scared as we rode up inside the arch in a little egg shaped pod just big enough for 5 people and were carried up about 630ft to the centre of the top of the arch.
Well today is the day we have been waiting and planning for and Ken has worked so hard on for the past two years. Here we are just leaving Chicago on our trip along Route 66. We left the hotel about 9am and made our way to Interstate 55 heading towards St. Louis, Missouri, our 1st overnight stop. A perfect day bright and sunny, blue sky not a cloud to been seen for miles and as it got hotter we stayed cool in our air-conditioned people carrier, all packed up with our bags for our adventure.
When we got out of the van at our first sightseeing stop of the trip the heat hit us, it must have been about 90ºf and that was at 10.30am. We had arrived at Funks Grove the home where the original maple sirup was first made and is still being made to this day. We met Mrs Funk who served us our sirup and souvenirs. She gave us some history of Route 66 and sirup making and advised of a couple of good maps to buy, so with sirup, souvenirs and a few more stories of the ‘Mother Road’ off we went.
We continued along the road, staying on the original route as much as possible. We stopped at Dixie Truckers Home diner in MacLean for lunch and a look at the first of many Route 66 museums, not much to look at and we had to wait ages for our lunch.
After 320 miles on and off of the Mother Road, as it is not always visible anymore and some of the maps do not even show it, we came to the Best Western Hotel in Pontoon Beach near the border of Illinois and Missouri (our next state of the journey). We went for a quick swim in the hotel pool, not to bad but a bit small just enough room for 4 of us, we were glad as we had it to ourselves. We then drove into the centre of St. Louis to find the great arch called ‘Gateway Arch’ where we were to meet Bob and Kitty Harmon, another couple who are well travelled on Route 66 that Ken had again met on the internet and arranged a meeting.
The Arch, a rather large, silver coloured thick arch shaped building was erected in the late 30’s for a State exhibition. It had a viewing gallery at the very top and this was our destination for the start of this evening. I can tell you I was a little scared as we rode up inside the arch in a little egg shaped pod just big enough for 5 people and were carried up about 630ft to the centre of the top of the arch.
The view from the top was awesome: we could see the whole of St. Louis all lit up, nothing to be scared about at all. 
We went to dinner with Bob & Kitty in the ‘Old Spaghetti House’ an old converted dockside warehouse. The meal was excellent very Italian as the name suggests and fantastic value, the company was excellent too, Bob and Kitty are a lovely couple and had travelled about 70 miles to join us that evening. Bob gave us some gifts of maps and Route 66 information and Ken gave him one of his small Union Jack pins that he had bought specially for such occasions.
We then said our good byes and made our way back to the van, we went through part of the national park and as it was very humid we had to avoid the small midges that were all over the park. We returned to the hotel to ready ourselves for our next day on the road.
TRAVELLED TODAY 320 MILES
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