Now we are three

Had to have an extra day in St Louis when Wally’s flight into St Louis was delayed due to a plane being broken down on the runway in New Plymouth.  

Dragon that will breath fire for $1 -
he knows how to play the tourists

We spent the day productively catching up on admin and doing laundry (Hey, I said it was productive not fun).  So instead of him arriving at 5am he got in after 10pm.


Female pioneers rarely get
a mention so it was good to
see a statue acknowledging
the women and children -
there are 12 of these
statues along one of the
pioneer trails (babe in one
hand, rifle in the other)

Of course when we got back we had to have a couple of celebratory shots of moonshine – one for Wally’s safe arrival and the other for our sister Danny’s birthday.  Hope you had a lovely day Dan.

Our first day with Wally turned out to be a huge driving day.  Sorry Wal, but I do remember looking in the rear view mirror and seeing you snoozing a couple

The three of us

of times, catching up on your sleep.  We had a stop in a town called

Abe joined us for lunch - he
didn't eat much, just sat
there staring

Vandalia where we saw a fire breathing dragon and a statue honouring the pioneer women.  Abraham Lincoln lived in Vandalia prior to becoming President so there are a lot of statues and plaques commemorating his life as well as a lovely little park that served as our lunch spot. 

Took a slight detour to check out a goat tower.  It’s on private property but we were able to view it from the road.  What a neat idea, so for all those out there with goats, here’s the new benchmark:

Then it was on to Mattoon and an early dinner at Burger King.  Not the franchise as you know it, but the original Burger King established back in the 1950’s.  There was a court battle with the more familiar franchise with

Looks like the original sign
from the 1950's too

the final result being the new Burger King can’t operate a store within 20 miles of Mattoon.  A win for the little people, so deserving of a visit we felt, plus their butterscotch milkshakes were delicious.  Mmm.  Then it was on to our next stop where we introduced Wally to the joys of camping at Walmart.

Will B Rolling

Passed through the town of Port Byron where every year in August there is a tug of war across the Mississippi between the two states, Iowa and Illinois.  Sadly we missed the tug of war by 2 weeks and had to settle for seeing Will B Rolling on his penny farthing.  He was pretty cool but we would rather have seen the tug of war.

So it was on to Mt Carroll where we were to visit a haunted house – that had been made into a haunted house.  The owner, Jim, tells you his own ghost stories from the house then it’s through the house itself – a maze of narrow rooms, narrow stairways and even a couple of slides.  All the time with Jim jumping out at different places to make you jump.  Such a neat place.  You just have to suspend adulthood for a couple of hours and go along with the fun.

Raven's Grin Inn - complete with rooftop space ship



Can you see yourself at the wheel of this flash automobile?

We also had the pleasure of meeting Karen & Jeff while in Mt Carroll.  They had visited New Zealand back in the 80’s and spent some time in Napier so we had a good old chinwag.  We’ll be looking forward to your next visit down under one day.

With our new friends Jeff & Karen

City Hall & Opera House - although there's
never been an opera performed here.  It is
a theatre but was called an Opera House as,
back in the day, a theatre suggested
more lewd goings on.

Time to head east and make our way to Chicago.  Of course we can never travel in a straight line so we meandered along, first visiting the Opera House in Sandwich.  Sandy gave us a very interesting tour which concluded in the ladies toilets – they were the old jail

Ladies room jail cell toilets

cells.  The toilets are in the cells and the barred doors are still there albeit bolted to the wall so you can’t give anyone a nasty surprise when they’ve done their business.  I know, who would think of such a thing.  The barred windows have also been left in place.

Our other detour was to the Village Hall at Inverness.  In times past this barn with its 4 silos was reportedly used by Al Capone during Prohibition to store illicit liquor and as a hideout from the law.  You can tour the barn but they don’t take you up the silos.

Inverness Village Hall - formerly Al Capone's hideout

Spent the next day in Chicago.  Visited a couple of usual tourist attractions and a couple of unusual attractions.  Our first port of call was Skydeck which is in the Willis Tower (formerly The Sears Tower and was the tallest building in the world for a number of years). 

Those 4 bumps near the top and in the
small photo - they form The Ledge

Our visit coincided with hundreds of other tourists so long wait times, initially to get up to the 103^rd floor and again to stand on The Ledge (a glass box that pokes out the side of the building).  Well worth the wait.  The view straight down is amazing.  Overhead a couple of young guys watching traffic on a huge interchange – “The least they could do is have a huge crash while we’re watching”.  

Our turn on The Ledge (and we all looked down)

The images of the people
"spitting" change every
5 minutes or so

After lunch we wandered the streets and found ourselves in Millennium Park where they have both the Crown Fountain and Cloud Gate aka The Bean among other artistic works.  Loved the effect at the fountain where it looks like people are spitting water over the crowds playing in the water.  The Bean is just surreal.  Looks like a big stainless steel coffee bean until you walk under it.  Interesting effect. 

Got to enjoy this with hundred of other tourists

Under the bean

Tribune Building

We also walked down to the Tribune Building.  The architecture on the building itself was a delight after seeing a lot of glass and steel rectangles but what we came to see was small masonry items from famous

Front Entrance

buildings around the globe concreted around 3 sides of the building e.g. Colosseum, Westminster Abbey, Edinburgh Castle, Notre Dame and Sydney Opera House to name a few. 

A little piece of Sydney in Chicago

This was followed up by a stop where it all begins (and ends) … Route 66 that is.  While we aren’t following the length of the mother road we’ll be touching on it at each state it passes through, even the dozen or so miles it goes through Kansas.

Start of many a road trip

One final stop was at the Money Museum.  We arrived there just before closing but the lovely people at security let us go in for the last 15 minutes of the day.  We were there to check out the cube of 1 million 1 dollar bills

Jean & Wally with $1 million in ones

and also found 1 million dollars in twenties

Sue with $1 million in twenties

and 1 million dollars in hundreds. 

Sue with $1 million in hundreds

As tempted as we were to grab the briefcase of hundreds and run, I don’t think we would have got very far.  Plus the security guys here have guns.  So we went to the pub instead.  That actually turned out to be an excellent way to pass rush hour.  Our one beer turned into dinner so by the time we hit the road out of Chicago, traffic was at a bearable level.

This is how we dealt with rush hour traffic in Chicago