Route 66, Day 2, Pontiac to Springfield...

We woke up on Wednesday, April 24th, in Pontiac, Illinois. We had several things we wanted to see in this community. I had already picked the sites we would see here. But Tom, at the Shop, had given me a great map of Pontiac and pointed out where things were located. Huge help. The other great thing about Pontiac is they have footprints painted blue or red on the sidewalks. The blue footprints lead you to the other museums in Pontiac. The red ones lead you to the murals around the city. You can simply follow the footprints to find the next mural or museum.

Our first stop was the Pontiac Museum Complex. It was the old City Hall and is now used to display artifacts for several different museums. It is a maze of stairs and hallways and rooms. However, we arrived about 15 minutes before it would open. Another lesson learned about traveling Route 66. Sometimes, due to short staffing and other issues, these museums will not open until 10am. If you are planning on seeing a museum first, be sure about the time it opens. We waited the 15 minutes for them to open. 

While we waited, we looked at the items outside of the building, mostly in the back. This is where the parking lot was. Bob Waldmire began his touring of Route 66 in a VW Van. Later, he converted an old school bus to his home-away-from-home. The school bus conversion is in the parking lot behind the museums. You cannot enter it unless it is attended. It seems tourists like to take objects as they walk through so they must have someone watching all the time. People!!

When the time came, we walked around to the front of the building again to go inside. I was smitten with the little car painted in front of the building. To my joy, when we did our walking tour, we learned this is a thing in Pontiac and there are all type of little cars painted on the streets of Pontiac.

We first walked the main floor of the museum. Bob Waldmire's van is shown on this floor. 

There is a booth from Steak 'n Shake. We love to eat at Steak 'n Shake. Turns out they began in Normal, Illinois. I was happy to see the trays they would have put in the window with your food as you sat in your car to eat. I remember these well from my childhood. Pull into your spot. The carhop comes out to take your order. When they bring your food, it was on a metal tray that they could hang from the car window. Way cool.

Up a half flight of stairs was the gift shop. Down the hallway was the Titanic Exhibit. I asked the lady on the first floor how they managed to get a Titanic Exhibit in this location. She said there were people with things to donate...and...her name was Rose! They had a set of dishes the first class passengers would use that were from the movie "Titanic". 

Up a flight of stairs in the other direction, around a corner was the War Museum. Rose told me that all the men who had served in the military from Pontiac donated their uniforms and they were all displayed in the museum. It felt very freaky to me. The mannequin heads all had uniform bodies and they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in two rooms. You walked between these rows of mannequin/uniforms. Great way to honor those who served, but a little freaky to walk through.

In another part of these museums, was a replica of a 1940's home. It was amazing to walk through. I took a walking video of it, but that is too long to download here according to Blogger. So, I will only post the pictures of the laundry room which was in another place.

There was much more in these museums. They had a military canteen set up. Music playing. Lots of things to see. The one last picture I took inside the museums was this one. It explains about 'Wall Dogs' who traveled from town-to-town painting murals on walls of buildings. This is important as our next part of this adventure was to take a walking tour of Pontiac to see the murals. 

There are supposed to be 26 murals painted on building walls in Pontiac. We didn't see all of them, but we saw a lot. As you walk the streets you also see lots of the little cars. We took pictures of Claude at the County Courthouse with Abe Lincoln. There are two pictures. Claude was well-behaved for the first one. The second picture his rascally side shows. We visited a bakery and bought a donut and some cookies for each of us. Very nice walk on a beautiful day.

One more things to see in Pontiac. The Vermilion River runs through this city. Across it in three places are Swinging Bridges. I wanted to see at least one of these. We had been given a map of Pontiac by Tom at The Shop the day before. He had places noted on that map as to where to park your car. We found one spot very easity and walked down to see the Swing Bridge. These are actually foot bridges. The ducks were having a great time in the river.

Our time in Pontiac was done. We needed to go further south to Lexington, Illinois. There is a strip of Old Route 66 that you can drive on only during special events. Across the current highway is another strip of Old Route 66 like we had been seeing all along this drive from Chicago. No one is ever on it and it is closed at certain intersections so cars. could get to the other side. I was able to get pictures of both of these sides of the road. The first two pictures are the Memory Lane sign. The last two pictures are on the opposite side of the highway.

Southward we drove to a town named Towanda. This name amuses me. When we lived in the townhouse in Maryland, Andie went to the basement and found a little mouse. Claude and I had already gone to bed. She managed to cover it with a trash can. Then she ran up the two flights of stairs to our bedroom, threw open the door and pounced into our bedroom with her arms raised to show muscles and yelled, "Towanda! I caught the mouse." Of course, she wanted her dad to come and take care of the rest of the issue. But, she was very proud of herself for getting that far. Now, here we were in Towanda!

In Towanda we found Dead Man's Curve. It has a series of Burma Shave signs. We took a couple of pictures and I videoed Claude driving past the signs as I read them. Claude and I grew up with Burma Shave sign along the highway. They were always fun to read as you went down the road. Often fun sayings. 

Near Dead Man's Curve was a lovely walking path along a section of the Old Route 66. Where I entered this walking park, it was 1 mile the direction I walked and 2 1/2 miles the opposite direction. I only walked a portion of the 1 mile stretch. 

The gas station by this walking park was a good place to get water and a few snacks for the hotel room that night. I was amused by this sign on their bathroom door. I had to take the picture and be sure Todd, our son-in-law who loves Big Foot, got to see this one.

We stopped in Normal, Illinois to find Sprague Super Station. This is a unique gas station with the owners home on top. Very pretty. I found the name of the town interesting. I mentioned this as I posted these pictures to Facebook. A friend from Maryland commented that she had a friend from Normal, Illinois. She found it amusing when she posted on Facebook from her home that the post would say 'near Normal'. Go ahead, chuckle. My friend and her friend did. It is okay!

Also in Normal is the Normal Theater. This is important as it has the original neon signs. A big deal along Route 66 back in the day. 

We would travel a bit further south to Bloomington. Our stop was at Beer Nuts. This is literally the only place in the world where they make Beer Nuts. They didn't have a store front or there would have been Beer Nuts purchased. Oh, Bloomington is also where McLean Stevenson was from. He was a star on the MASH television show. He is a relative of Adelai Stevenson who is buried in Bloomington.

Now we went to a delightful stop, Funks Grove. This one piqued my curiosity while preparing for the trip. The family has owned and made sirup here since 1824. Yes, they spell it s-i-r-u-p. I took a picture of the sign inside the store that explains this spelling. We bought a cap for Claude that says Route 66. He loves it. We also bought a small pack of four maple leaf candies and a small container of real maple sirup.

Atlanta, Illinois yielded a couple of giants. The first was Alfred E. Newman who stood by another restored Texaco Station. There was a beautiful green space with a carved eagle. Across from these was another giant, Paul Bunyon Man with a giant hot dog. This picture gives you a feel for the size of the giants. The first one of Paul Bunyon is him standing alone. The second picture has Claude standing in front of him. The Palms Grill Cafe was just down the street. Alas, it was turned into a bakery and we wanted real food, not sweets. However, on the corner of the Palms Grill Cafe and across from Paul Bunyon was a little museum and gift shop. We popped in to look for a Christmas ornament. I still had not found what spoke to me in ornament form. They had no ornament but I was taken with this display of and old truck with someone working on it and Gramma and Grampa in the front seat. I finished reading The Grapes of Wrath in preparation for our trip and this could be a scene out of that book. It also harked back to Papa's story of family traveling west with all their things in a pickup truck and Uncle Marvin being the sole driver. Papa was born as they drove west in Fabens, Texas near El Paso. 

One more stop in Lincoln to see the World's Largest Covered Wagon with Abraham Lincoln sitting on top. I noted that Lincoln was made with his mole on his cheek. To get perspective on how huge this wagon is, look under the bed of the wagon and you will see Claude walking in the grass on the other side of the wagon. It was huge!

Our final destination this day was Springfield. We had several photo op stops and we wanted to spend time in the Lincoln Library and Museum. We determined we would do the photo ops when we arrived in Springfield. Then get up the next day for the Lincoln Library, Museum and Tomb.

We went to the Illinois Fairgrounds to see the Route 66 Experience. It is an educational exhibit open 365 days a year inside Gate 2 on the corner of Route 66 & Sangamon Avenue.  The Experience, a self-guided tour, highlights businesses in 92 communities along Route 66 in Illinois beginning in Chicago and ending at the Chain of Rocks Bridge in Madison, Illinois. Well, it is supposed to be open 365 days a year but this...it was closed. We went to Gate 1 and were able to get inside the fairgrounds to get their huge statue of Abraham Lincoln also showing his mole on his face. This statute is called The Rail Splitter and is 30-feet tall. 

Undaunted, we found our way to Lauterbach Tire/Auto. They have the Lauterbach Giant in front of their business. 

We tried to visit Ace Sign Company Museum. They have 85 historic signs. Again, they were closed. Ugh. That would have been an interesting stop for us.

Time for dinner. This would be at the Cozy Dog Drive In. This place is owned by Bob Waldmire's family. While his life path led him to gear up and travel Route 66 painting, his family was back in Springfield creating the first batter-dipped hot dog called The Cozy Dog. Today, we call them corndogs. Since they started here, this was a must stop for me. I started by taking pictures of the restaurant and the items outside the restaurant. 

As I approached the door, Claude was already inside, a nice man asked if I was getting all the pictures. I assured him I was for the outside and now it was time to go inside. This was Buzz Waldmire. It turns out his father, Ed Waldmire (pictured below), was the founder of The Cozy Dog. The family has owned and run it ever since. He continued to talk to me and share stories as we went inside. 

I took several pictures as Buzz and I walked and talked. This is the brief story of the Cozy Dog. The sign in the next picture was on the wall of the first Cozy Dog Drive-In. It is important as it shows the original prices. The Cozy Dog Drive-In was located in the space next door to it which not has a hotel. When the people bought the land for the hotel, the Cozy Dog Drive-In was moved to this spot on which it now stands. Before the built this new spot, they cut the original pricing out of the wall and saved it. The next picture shows how the restaurant looked before the new location. 

This young man is the grandson of Ed Walmire and the son of Buzz Walmire and the current owner of The Cozy Drive-In. The next picture is the counter where you place your order with a picture of the original owners on either side of the clock. Then there is a picture of our Cozy Dogs for dinner. The Cozy Dog logo is standing inside the restaurant as well as outside on the billboard. 

Buzz Waldmire gave me this made drawn by Bob Waldmire, his brother. It is all about Route 66. I asked Buzz if he had that talent to draw. He chuckled and assured me he did not. Bob got that talent. He inherited the Cozy Dog talent. It was great fun to meet and visit with Buzz and learn of his family's journey with Cozy Dogs. Our meal was very good.

We then found our hotel and rested for the next day.