Obtenir vos sur la vive émotion Route Nationale Soixante-Six

[emptysea]

Pretty sure that my title is simply poor French and not some sort of ethnic slur, but I suppose my new friend from Paris will provide any necessary correction.

Paul posted on this forum of his desire to ride a portion of the legendary Route 66 while he was visiting the Chicago area on business. Being a bit of a fan of the historic road, I offered to accompany him on a ride on August 20th. I get a kick out of planning rides (see the "Planner vs. Wanderer" thread elsewhere) and Paul was gracious enough to let me get my kicks on this route.

I was on time and Paul was, too. We agreed to meet at Wildfire Harley Davidson where he had arranged for his 24 hour rental. A few tips from Dan-the-Harley-Man on how to operate the bike and we were ready to go. Fortunately, the rental operation furnishes rain gear. Unfortunately, the rain gear is Harley-sized and Paul is Ninja-sized. The gear would come in handy later in the ride, though.

Prepped and Ready
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One circle around the huge parking lot and off we headed for the cross-town ride to pick up Route 66. Paul got comfortable with the bulk and vibration of the Harley very quickly. He certainly didn't need any riding tips from me, but I did give him some assistance on the rules of the road.

"What does flashing red light mean?"
"That's a signal for you to pull next to me to my right and we both roll through the intersection together" Hey...it's CLOSE to the rule, right?

How do you like your Harley, Paul?
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Route 66 officially ceased to exist on June 26, 1985. Officially, it existed for 59 years 7 months, but it lives on in legend, lore, and restored tourist attractions to this day and shall continue to do so for as long as copies of 'The Grapes of Wrath' are still in print. For as long as Bobby Troup's words can still be heard through Nat King Cole's voice. For as long as digital copies of "Easy Rider" and the TV series that bears its name can still be viewed. For as long as people from all over the world long to "motor west", she will be The Mother Road.

Chicago's annual Air & Water Show and Paul's relatively late rental pick up conspired against following the old route, now marked along most of it's length with brown "Historic Route 66" road signs, from its starting point at Buckingham Fountain along Lake Michigan. My plan was not to try to follow the route as it was laid out original or even as it evolved over the years, but rather to give him a flavor of what it would have been like to ride a two-lane US highway in the early to mid part of the 20th century. This meant avoiding the interstate which was plopped down directly over a large section of 66. Instead, we would detour off the historic route from time to time in order to ride on two-lane roads that sped up in the open areas and slowed down through the towns, just like 66 did.


Our first tour stop was McCook, IL. McCook is known for a few things: It was where the Outlaws motorcycle club was founded. It is home to an original Rt66 diner, The Steak N Egger, although it was originally call Snuffy's. Most important, though, is that McCook has this giant Las Vegas-styled sign, the cost of which probably more than the sum total value of the 50 or so crappy little homes that house the 150 residents of this industrial town. As an aside, the McCook Family Restaurant is located a few hundred feet from, but still in the shadow of, the sign. It is my father-in-law's favorite restaurant; huge portions of "Bohemian"/Polish food at a low price. It's pretty darn good, too.

Welcome to McCook
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Steak N Egger. I think there are a half-dozen or so of these little diners in and around Chicago.
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Just a bit south of the big sign, Joliet Rd., the street name of this section of Route 66, stops. Just stops dead.

Many years ago, two stone quarries were dug with Route 66/Joliet Rd. dividing the two. I'm sure it was quite an interesting ride along the narrow, mile long strip back before 1998 when cracks in the roadway caused the closing of the road and a huge lawsuit involving the State of Illinois and the quarry owners. It appears that this section of old 66 will remain forever off-limits to the nostalgia-crazed traveler. We took the detour, which really isn't a detour anymore, and found our way back to 66.

Route Closed
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A few miles down the road, Tony waited for us. Tony is my brother-in-law and a BMW rider. He was checking out his BMW dealer's celebration of BMW's 100th anniversary. I had emailed my usual riding crew about this event and Tony was the only one available. Conveniently, the dealership is just about 500' north of 66. Tony lives nearby and volunteered to lead us through the early stages of the ride. I knew that he knew the back-road out of the congestion and onto Route 66 in earnest.

Bluff Road - This may be Tony's "My Road", but I didn't ask him about that. Curvy, hilly, wooded, and in the middle of an a fairly populated and commercial/industrial area. Pretty cool. Oh, and this is when I got to see that Paul can really ride his bike.
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We worked our way south, but not necessarily on 66. As I said, the goal was to try to capture the essence of Route 66 and in this part of Illinois, the best way to do that was to follow a few other state routes that took us through outlying suburbs of Chicago and through the towns and cities beyond that.

If 66 was still the old road here, riding along it would look something like this.
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Reaching photo limit...end of Part I

[the Ferret]

Awesome beginning.....

[Cormanus]

^^^^What Ferret said.

[dsan1964_imp]

Very nice


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[emptysea]

To my mind, Historic Route 66 begins in earnest in Joliet. Through Chicago, it looks pretty much like any other city street and for a long section before Joliet, the original road was over-seeded with concrete and steel and Interstate 55 took root.

The Joliet Area Historical Museum is here and has a ton of information on Route 66, but we were in the mood for riding not reading and besides, it was looking more and more like rain. We made a stop at another landmark, The Rialto Square Theatre.

As you can probably tell, a ride on Route 66 is a ride from landmark to landmark. The Rialto Square Theater is one such landmark and worth a stop just for the facade, but it's truly more beautiful inside. Originally built as a vaudeville and movie theater, it has new life as mainly a live music venue, but it still shows classic or specialty films as well.

Rialto Square Theater (note the "Superman" poses on these two!)
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The remainder of our ride south would be on Illinois Highway 53 which was actually Route 66 prior to the decertification. Many of the landmarks we would see from here on out were here when my parents or even my grandparents left the city for a summer vacation.

The route would have been only two lanes here, probably with the shoulders marked by a long line those black and white wooden stubs, standing like sentinels every few yards that some of us can still picture in our minds.
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I don't know anything about this little ice cream stand. Perhaps it's new. Perhaps it's been there forever. Either way, it's a great example of what kinds of businesses opened up along the route. Food stops, trinket stores, auto camps (later becoming motels), and tourist attractions dotted the road from Chicago to Santa Monica.
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My parents and grandparents may have rolled by Stateville Prison while infamous murders Leopold and Loeb where incarcerated there. Maybe not Loeb, since he was murdered here in 1936, but Leopold remained imprisoned until 1958. Their story of premeditated murder is legendary in Chicago and their names will come up again a bit later in this report.

The stonework sign is almost inviting, like an entrance to a resort, but this is no spa.
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My folks may have even stopped at The Launching Pad Restaurant in the 50's or 60's for a quick lunch and a Instamatic snapshot in front of the Gemini Giant, one of at least four similar "Muffler Man" figures that still remain on Route 66.

For some reason, I can't find the picture I took of us at the Gemini Giant. It could have been lost when the camera got waterlogged or it was taken with Paul's camera. Tony and I visited a couple of years ago, so I substituted this picture.
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Just before we got to Wilmington and the Giant, it began to rain. Hard. I pulled over at a BP station, gassed up, laughed at Paul who had removed his rain pants at the Rialto and was now soaked through, and waited a few minutes of it to blow over. And it did so quickly

Rain break...
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It was getting to be lunchtime and as luck (and planning) would have it, we were just a few minutes from another landmark, The Polk-A-Dot Drive-in in Braidwood, IL. My road camera was tucked away due to the rain, but I pointed out the nuclear power plant we passed to Paul.
As we approached the drive-in, it began to rain again. We were fortunate enough to get our bikes and ourselves under the canopy before it started pouring again.

Polk-A-Dot Drive-In. The woman passenger of the coral Chevy in the background was celebrating her 76th birthday at the drive-in. Her husband was very proud of the car and even more proud of his wife. Pretty adorable.
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I had a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich. I explained the menu as best I could to Paul and he had a double cheeseburger. The three of us shared a huge order of cheese-fries. Tony and I did our best to apologize to our french friend for calling this topping "cheese", but Paul didn't need an apology; it was clear that he enjoyed the concoction regardless of the ingredients.

Early start tomorrow, so end of Part II

[Cormanus]

Good day so far. Looking forward to more.

[Rocky_imp]

Very cool

[the Ferret]

This is great stuff Sea..the history added is very interesting.

[emptysea]

It cleared up quite a bit for the remainder of our ride south along the old road. We would make stops in three more towns, Gardner, Dwight, and Odell, before wandering our way back north over a series of not particularly historic roads.

Gardner, IL has two significant landmarks and I know very little about either of them. The first is a two cell jailhouse which was built in 1906. I didn't know until later, that we could have gone inside. Bummer for not being more curious.

The other landmark is a super-cool diner. Originally built as a horse-drawn streetcar, it was converted to a diner in 1932. It is typical of diners which popped up along Route 66 in the 30s and 40s.

Two Cell Jail, Gardner, IL (Paul)
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"Streetcar" Diner, Gardner, IL
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We pulled out of Gardner and onto IL53/Historic Route 66 toward Dwight. The road serves as a frontage road for I-55 at this point and the northbound traffic on the interstate was whizzing past me on my right. The sky was clearing and my CB was in good song. On my right between my road and the interstate, I spotted a long stretch of cracked concrete, grass and weeds growing out of the cracks and nearly obscuring it from view. There are still a few of these overgrown lengths of concrete still visible at various points along Route 66 -- the last generations of actual Route 66 roadbed. I was tempted to stop and walk along this section, but I didn't want to slam on my brakes and cause a big commotion.

"What the?!?". I looked in my mirror and saw no one behind me. I was so engrossed in the road that I didn't see my two companions stop? turn off? crash?!? Turned the bike around, my heart rate rising just a little bit and got on the throttle but good. In just a few seconds I could see them on the side of the road, upright and in a few more seconds, I could see that they were fine. Another U-turn, a couple of thumbs-up, and off we headed to Dwight.

It was in Dwight that I learned that Paul's saddle bag had come unfastened which is why they stopped. I apologized for not noticing sooner that they were no longer behind me.

We met a very nice man who one of the caretakers of the restored filling station there. We toured the station, learned that the diner across the street has good food (for next time...I was still full from the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, thank you very much), and were told of a few other landmarks around Dwight and in the surrounding area. He was a wealth of knowledge and I really wouldn't have minded sitting down and having a root beer or a Green River with him to learn more.

Ambler's Texaco Station, Dwight, IL (Paul, Matt, Tony)
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A few miles more of frontage road/Old Route 66, and we were in Odell, IL Odell is pretty tiny, but it has a church (maybe 2) and a restored 1932 Standard Oil service station. While built in 1932, the design dated back to Standard stations in 1919. It is a beautiful building and a wonderful Route 66 visitor center. Hats, shot glasses, stickers, calendars, all with the 66 shield on them. This is where the 66 sticker on my bike came from -- picked it up last June on our way to Arkansas.

Standard Oil Service Station, Odell, IL
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After the photo shoot and souvenir shopping, we stopped in Odell at a gas station with working pumps because it was time fuel up for the return trip.

Tony and I were trying to figure out a route home while Paul and the station attendant struggled with some technical glitch which was keeping him from filling up.

"I think he's staying in St. Charles so we should plan the route to head that way."

"What about his bike?"

"Oh yeah. I don't know if he's returning it today or tomorrow, but if it's today, I can ride him back to the dealer."

Just about then, Paul joined the conversation.

"Are you going to St. Charles or Villa Park?"

"I'm not in St. Charles anymore. I was going to stay in the city tonight and return the bike in the morning."

"Where in the city?"

"I don't have a place reserved yet"

And here comes an example of what makes motorcycling a special activity and why I think my brother-in-law is a great guy....

He proceeded to invite Paul to stay at his home that night. Pretty cool.

Tony got clearance from his wife and it was agreed that we all would ride back to Tony and Jan's house from Odell and that Paul would return his bike the following day.

We planned a ride back that would put us on US6 along the Illinois River and back to Joliet, where we would reverse our steps back along Rt66 toward Tony's house. Two things messed with this plan. First, a fast moving squall line crossed our path. I stopped at a gas station to figure out our alternate route it looked like we were going to get soaked no matter our direction of travel. The good news is that, by the time we determined this, we could see the storm moving quickly to the east. We decided to just stay put for a few minutes until it passed. It did and we proceeded north. Dry.

The second screw up is that I had forgotten that US6 is undergoing major construction so we wound up being detoured around it. We eventually worked our way to Tony's. I did not have much time to hang out with Paul after the ride because my wife and I had already made evening plans. I had time for a brief conversation and a beverage with Tony, Jan, Paul and two of their friends who happened to be over for dinner.

Looking back, it was a great day.
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Post-ride refreshment (Watermelon/Mint slushy)
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The brief conversation we had at Tony's was about what a shame it would be if Paul's remaining rental hours were spent with the bike sitting in the driveway or on the ride back to Harley. It was decided that Paul needed to see where Route 66 started and, while we were at it, he probably ought to ride Lake Shore Drive. I was instructed to return to Tony's at 7:00am the following morning.

I had a lovely evening with my wife and another couple, but went to sleep thinking of the next morning's activities.

End of Part III

[the Ferret]

Great stuff Sea! Was there any communication problem or was Paul fluent in English? So cool of your brother in law to invite him home, but typical of most motorcyclists I know.