D@;N<JK @J 9<JK
“HAVE a nice day, ya’ll!” chimes the waitress dressed in a pink 1950s diner uniform.
Smiling and waving, we pick up our cheese fries, homemade cherry pie and sodas, then head back to the SUV.
We then pull into a gas station, where the pumps are old-school retro, and as we fill up, a pack of leather-clad bikers with beards roars in to do the same.
Everything feels like a road movie and we’re buzzing with excitement because this time, we’re living it.
This is Route 66, the bucketlist drive for adventure travellers across America.
The 2,448-mile road starts in Chicago and ends at the wooden pier in Santa Monica, California, but the first stretch across Illinois alone can take a week to complete if, like us, you stop every two hours to explore the little towns, diner truck stops and biker bars. In their eagerness to get going, many tourists zoom through, but we chose to make this quirky Mid-west state the focus of our whole trip.
The countryside here is sprinkled with small farming towns, vineyards and villages on the edge of the Mississippi River.
And you won’t leave any food establishment without sampling their home-made pies.
They are all “awardwinning” and the “best in town” – apparently.
We were especially keen to check out Springfield, the state capital that is rich in history.
The 16th US president, Abraham Lincoln, resided here and, after touring his former home and the museum, we visited his tomb where a flag-lowering ceremony to commemorate his life attracts hundreds of locals.
This happens weekly and shows just how much he means to people here.
It’s also tradition to rub the nose of his statue for good luck. For our next all-American activity, we took in a movie at the newly-restored Route 66 Drive-in, which shows two films a night from dusk.
Action
Just grab some popcorn, tune in your car stereo and watch the action from your car for a bargain $7.
Sadly there were no T-Birds or Pink Ladies joining us.
Next on our trip we vis-