Route 66 - Putting Chicago Behind Us

Lion Statue at Chicago Museum of Art, Grant's Park

Leaving Lou Mitchell's and our disappointing lunch behind, we headed to Lake Shore Drive and Grant's Park, the entrance of which became the start of Route 66 in 1933. Youngest-daughter and I were pumped, ready to officially begin our big Daddy Daughter Mother Road Trip adventure. Our faithful GPS guided us to the intersection of Jackson and Lake Shore Drive, but the closer we got, the more traffic and the more people we encountered. I think there must have been something really big happening that weekend or maybe it's always that crowded, but whatever, there were no parking places to be found. Most of the surrounding streets, except for Lake Shore, are one-way and if we slowed down trying to figure out exactly where we were & where we needed to go, surrounding cars honked and several let us know we were number one in their book by showing us their middle finger. Not very nice, but that's often the way it is in the big city.




Buckingham Fountain in Grant's Park

After driving around our intended designation several times and declining to park at least a mile away and walk back, I decided  Youngest-daughter should just lean out of the window as I drove by the intersection, take a picture, and off we would go. Driving around Grant's Park one more time, she read from the Route 66 Itinerary I had assembled over the last several months. The park was dedicated as Lake Park in 1844 and then expanded in 1871 when a lagoon was filled in with debris from the Great Chicago Fire. And on this day it was covered in people like ants on a dropped piece of hard candy.

"If you ever plan to motor west; travel my way, take the highway that's the best. Get your kicks on Route Sixty-Six!" - from the song Route 66 by Bobby Troup.

We headed west on Jackson Drive and just a couple of blocks later ran into another challenge - road construction. Jackson was closed, blocked off, and the detour took us 3 or 4 blocks south and then west for at least a mile. By the time we were able to head back to hook back up with Jackson, it had curved and we had lost it. About 2 miles from the start, we couldn't find the route and had only been on it for about 2 blocks. Not a great start. I drove us around for a few blocks in the general direction of where I thought it should be, but I couldn't reacquire it. Finally I pulled off to the side and plugged in the address to Henry's Drive-in in Cicero.

Henry's Hot Dog Drive-in - a meal in itself!

A couple of blocks before Henry's, we found an Illinois Route 66 sign - we were back on track! We pulled into Henry's parking lot to eyeball it and take pictures, but didn't eat there because we weren't hungry yet. Located at 6031 W Ogden Ave., it is a hot dog stand which has been in business since the 1950's. Many say it is the best hot dog you'll ever eat! Bring cash though, they don't take credit cards. This is one of the places where I wish I had eaten, but if I had eaten at all of those places, I'd have gained about 20 pounds on the trip!

The town of Cicero, basically a suburb of Chicago, was where Al Capone moved to get away from the Chicago police after building his criminal empire there. According to legend, the whole town is still riddled with tunnels which were used by the gangsters and bootleggers. It has also long been a place of government scandal. Recently, the town mayor was convicted of misappropriating $12 million in funds and is serving time in a federal prison. As of late May, 2012, at least the old Route 66 part of Cicero we saw, the town is very blue collar and economically disadvantaged, some might call it "gritty." With burglar bars on most windows and doors of the businesses, Youngest-daughter didn't want to stop until we got out of that area. I felt OK, but I might not advise you drive through it in a convertible after dark.


Robin Hood Mufflers - for sale

Just down from Henry's is the site of the former Robin Hood Muffler shop. In business between the early 50's and 2010, it is now for sale. Located at coordinates N 41° 49.916 W 087° 46.604, hopefully somebody will purchase it and restore it.

Passing through several small towns with nothing much of note about them, we had to get on I-55 in Burr Ridge and then on and off several more times in a couple of other places because the interstate was laid on top of Route 66. After going through Romeoville (yes, Youngest-daughter and I had fun with "Oh Romeoville, Romeoville, where fore art thou Romeoville?"), we stopped in Joliet to take pictures of  Statesville Correctional Center, known as the Joliet Prison. Sound familiar, but just can't place it?  It is featured in the motion picture The Blues Brothers as the prison from which Jake Blues is released at the beginning of the movie. It is also the location for the first season of Fox TVs Prison Break television show and the movie Lets Go to Prison. Interestingly, the outer front gate was open and no guard was in site. We pulled up, got out of BFT and walked just inside the gate, but decided to go no further. I'm allergic to prison. 


Joliet Prison

Interestingly, Romeoville and Joliet were originally named Romeo and Juliet in the 1830's. In 1845, Juliet chose to change its name to Joliet in honor of the explorer Louis Joliet. Romeo responded like a jilted lover and changed its name to Romeoville. Because of the numerous limestone quarries in the area, Romeoville became known for a while as "Stone City" and shipped out two trainloads of limestone each morning. Many buildings in the nearby cities and towns were built with Romeoville limestone; perhaps the most famous is the Illinois State Capitol Building in Springfield.

Along Illinois Route 66 in Joliet

Back on the now pretty well marked route, a few miles later and we came to Wilmington, home of about 5,000 people, but most famous as the home of the Gemini Giant. Located in the parking lot of the Launching Pad Drive-in diner, it was built in 1960 as a large fiberglass "muffler man." For a few years, these huge men were used to draw in customers and could be found all over America. They always held various "tools" in their hands, from mufflers to axes, to hot dogs. This particular giant, wearing green clothes, a Buck Rogers-style silver space helmet, silver shoes, and with a rather ominous looking demeanor on his face, holds a rocket ship. Most of these "giant muffler men" are no more so the few left have become symbols of a time gone by, with road warriors searching for and eagerly reporting whenever another one is occasionally found.

Still a little too early to eat, we purchased cokes, spent a couple of minutes talking to the young and obviously very bored counter girl, took a few pictures, jumped back into BFT and headed on to the old coal-mining town of Braidwood where we would grab supper at the Polk-a-Dot drive-in, a Route 66 classic.



Dick's Garage on Route 66

Roof top Blues Brothers




The Gemini Giant at the Launching
Pad Drive-in Diner

Rather ominous looking.

 

Go to the first Route 66 entry here.

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Route 66 - It Starts in Chicago

I've spent a good number of hours over the last 20 years or so enviously reading other people's accounts of their Route 66 trips, but I don't recall anyone even mentioning the very first step of the trip - getting to the beginning of Route 66 in either Chicago or L.A. Now, a lot of people live in Chicago and L.A., but I would venture to say relatively few of them have ever taken the full 2,448 mile Route 66 trip by leaving home and driving just a couple of miles to the start and and have then written books about it so well that they've been published. So why haven't I heard about the "pre road trip" road trip, the getting to the start part? I now know why and I'll let you in on it - because they drove the interstate highways to get there and it's mind-numbingly boring!

Youngest-daughter and I wanted to start our "Daddy Daughter Mother Road Trip" at the traditional beginning of Route 66 in Chicago at Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. Between us and it was 688 very long miles. Nobody takes a leisurely back road road trip to start a long back road road trip and neither did we.
 

Youngest-daughter relieved her boredom by
taking pics of trucks

Over the last two days before leaving, I had washed, cleaned, packed and gassed up BFT (Big Ford Truck) so we could leave at noon sharp on Friday, Youngest-daughter's last day of school for the summer. I would rather have driven a classic Corvette or a Mustang or a Camaro, but given that I don't own any of those, we were taking the next best thing - a vintage pickup! OK, so it was a 2011 Ford F-150 King Ranch with leather seats, GPS, sat radio and all the other  bells & whistles, but hey, it's what we have so we had to make do. I felt pretty good when we finally pulled out of the driveway at 1:30. Just 1 1/2 hours late; not bad!

Getting to Chicago we went interstate all the way - jumping on I-40 and going through Conway and Little Rock, Arkansas - set the cruise on 72 and had smooth sailing  all the way - all the way to Forrest City, Arkansas anyway, a grand total of about 125 miles. Road construction ahead. Everyone came to a screeching halt. A couple of times I turned off the truck to save gas, but every time I did, the line moved up a couple of car lengths and I had to start it back up so youngest-daughter and I sat in our idling vehicle making the oil folks richer and me poorer. At first we talked about her being out of school for the summer, where her friends were going on vacation and her concern that we would have to spend a few nights in run-down flea-bag motels while on this trip. I let her go on thinking that just because it was fun to do so. Eventually she fell asleep and I was left with nothing to do except look at my fellow drivers and exchange glances, nods of heads and shrugs of shoulders in our shared misery of being on an interstate going nowhere quickly. I watched the folks going about 80 miles per hour the other way whizzing by us and I knew they were thinking, "Whoa, sure glad I'm not going east bound. Yes!"


The most exciting thing we saw along the
interstate - burning wheat fields

75 minutes later and 10 miles closer to Chicago, we finally cleared the last of the bright orange and white barrels which had blocked off one of the two lanes for 10 miles so the last 100 yards of road could be worked on. I quickly got BFT back up to 72, set the cruise and we were soon putting the miles behind us. Jumped onto I-55 just west of Memphis and that's where we stayed until reaching Marion, Illinois, where we stopped to spend the night at the first "flea-bag motel," a new Marriott Fairfield Inn at 1400 Champion Dr. 


View from our hotel window - have had worse!

Rather new, in a safe neighborhood, very clean and with a friendly front desk staff, Youngest-daughter was pleased and relieved. The shower was exceptionally nice and I spent a couple of extra minutes standing under the spray letting the hot water relax me. Those of you who have followed my missives for a while know how I feel about hotels that save a nickel by supplying cheap, 3rd-world-country, splinter-embedded toilet paper so you know I checked it out and I'm happy to report it passed - not Charmin, but nice enough. The only complaint I had at all was the air conditioner would not get the room below about 72 degrees. I strongly suspect that some places, and this was one of them, put some kind of mechanical or software constraint on the A/C unit so that even if you set it to 65, it will not cool below 72 degrees and they can save some money on electricity. I like the room to be about 68 so I can snuggle under the covers and sleep the good sleep. Too warm and I can't sleep at all. Pay $100+ for a room for the night and call me unreasonable, but I kind of expect to be able to sleep good. Sorry Fairfield Inn in Marion, IL, you get a point deducted since I had to use the fan I carry with me for just such occasions.


The famous Lou Mitchell's

The next morning, after partaking of the "free" breakfast at the hotel, we were off to Chicago, the Windy City; home to almost 3 million people  and still the U.S. home of the Lava Lite (Haggerty Enterprises in Chicago, which purchased the manufacturing rights to the Lava Lamp in the late 1970's, is still in business and selling the 1960's icons). Our 1st stop would be Lou Mitchell's Restaurant on Jackson Blvd. Open for breakfast and lunch only and most famous for their breakfast fare, it has been in business since 1923, three years before Route 66 came into existence. Since it was a Saturday, we figured there wouldn't be a lot of traffic and not much problem getting there. We were wrong. There was lots of traffic. I'm talking LOTS of traffic! From the outskirts of downtown all the way in was stop and go. Fortunately, the GPS guided us along the turns and confusing changing of freeways and although later than we had thought, we arrived at Lou's with no problem and even found a place to park in a pay parking lot around the block. $6, but what the heck, we found the place, we're excited and we're hungry so let's have us some Lou Mitchell's!


Inside Lou Mitchell's - hope that guy didn't
 decide on the cheeseburger combo!

It was crowded, it was noisy and it was pretty darn cool! We were quickly shown to a table for 2, Youngest-daughter received her complimentary little box of milk duds (given to all female patrons) and our waitress arrived quickly. Cheeseburger combo for me (medium-well, please) & chicken nugget combo for Youngest-daughter. We laughed, we looked around, we took pictures, we were all smiles - until our food came.

Maybe there's a reason Lou Mitchell's is famous for their breakfasts and not their lunches. My burger came with decently cooked edges of the meat, but still red in the middle. The fries were barely warm, limp and almost tasted raw (don't ask me how real potato's can be both limp & raw cause I don't know). The chicken nuggets were basically puff-balls of fried batter with a little piece of chicken trapped inside. I've occasionally marvelled at Youngest-daughter's ability to eat what I consider to be nasty-looking chicken nuggets. If they are even close to being chicken nuggets, she can eat them, yet she didn't finish these. She gave me a rather sad look and said, "Sorry Dad, these just don't taste very good." And then she didn't eat the fries. This was something so rare, it has only been observed maybe once before - ever. We started to send it all back, but decided we'd just head on down the road and eat again at a Diner. Maybe it was an anomaly, maybe we just don't have the same taste as Chicagoans. Whatever it was, I am left with no option other than to say go there for breakfast or go there for some of their baked goods, but do not go there for lunch! After our Route 66 adventure was over, we both agreed, this was the worst meal we had on the entire trip.


Neon sign inside Lou Mitchell's

If you've eaten at Lou Mitchell's, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought. I'd really like to think we were just there on a bad day or something.

Next up: Grant's Park & Buckingham Fountain where we begin the actual journey. Just 2,448 exciting miles to go!

Go to the first Route 66 entry here.

Or go to the first entry of each state:

Illinois   Missouri   Kansas   Oklahoma   Texas   New Mexico   Arizona   California