We made our own dinner from supplies we packed along.  Then we cruised Lebanon for about a half hour.  Wilmington, DE  is still preferred!

End of day!

After leaving Al West Nissan we headed to the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri School of Mines) to gather a couple of geocaches before departing for points southwest.

We spent about an hour and a half discovering the Stonehenge 1/2 scale installation which led us to another sculpture that was a male and female figure cut out of a big block of stone.  The cutouts and the cut out figures were an interesting installation.  Between the Stonehenge and the sculpture we crossed the street using an underground pedestrian tunnel on campus.

Then Joyce had another cache to find in the University Library.  This was easy and got us into a nice air conditioned space for a few minutes.  Both caches discovered!

From the library location, Joyce wanted to see if we could get a reservation in Lebanon, MO at the Munger Moss Motel which is world famous for the Route 66 traveler.  They had a room available at the cheapest price we’ve paid since the start of our journey.

Lebanon is only about 60 miles from Rolla.  So we took a more leisurely drive today.  Stopping to get caches and photograph history along the way.  We traveled through these locales:

Doolittle

Jerome (cache and photos at Stoney Dell Resort)
Hooker Cut (cache and photos of old route 66 roadway)
Devils Elbow (where we had BBQ for lunch in the Devils Elbow Bar & Grill and located a nearby cache.)
St. Robert (photos of Alpine Haus motel and Tiger Water Tank)
Waynesville (cache and photo of old stagecoach stop)

And finally arrived in Lebanon about 4:30 PM (CT) where we checked into the Munger Moss Motel and decided to rest up for a while–catching up on geocache logs and 66 blogs!

Dinner is still in the planning stage and we know there are two caches to find here at the Munger Moss Motel.  Later, of course….

This  morning we had to scurry out the door to get our Murano into Al West Nissan to have the humming noise investigated.  While it might have been a transmission issue, we lucked out.  It was only the left front wheel bearing and only about $450 to repair.  In at 8 AM done by 9:30.  So we only lost a couple if hours on the road.

Met the owner (Al West) and the service manager (Gary McKee) and the Service Advisor (David Cliburn).  Gary Mc was very chatty and offered a number of good suggestions of things to see on our trip.

Ready to continue on the road trip!

Well, we left the Times Beach visitor center after successfully finding a cache and going quickly through the museum.  Joyce got a Route 66 T-shirt as a souvenir.

One noteworthy thing is the proximity of the I-44 interstate to the old historical route 66.  Much of the time we’re cruising along at a 55 to 60 mph speed and just on the other side of fence/median are those people who want to whiz along at 70+.  As we are interstate averse, we had a much nicer drive.

But along the way we were in more remote areas and passed through the following towns/villages.

Pacific where we saw an abandoned truck stop that was not very interesting.  Just down the road we passed a nicely kept motel, The Sunset Motel, but it was no longer operating.

We passed through the following seeing nothing of interest:  St. Clair, Stanton, Sullivan and St. Cloud.  Then we unexpectedly happened upon the town of Bourbon.  There was a beautiful water tower with BOURBON painted on it.  Perhaps they keep bourbon in that tank for the citizens of the community to enjoy!

Next up was the town of Cuba.  On the way in we spotted the Wagon Wheel Motel.  It is currently operating and consists of small stone cabin/cottages set back from the highway.  Next door was the Missouri Hick BBQ restaurant–also a Route 66 historical establishment.  Both photographed quite nicely.

It was in the MO Hick parking lot we decided to phone ahead to the Nissan dealer in Rolla, MO.  The Murano is making an unusual humming noise that needs to be check out.  Then can see us tomorrow (Thursday) at 8 AM.  Hopefully, this will be a simple problem to fix.

Then it was on into town.  Cuba has a series of murals on walls in the downtown area.  There are about 12 or so and the town is right proud of them.  In fact, we were standing on the corner viewing one when a local stopped to hand us a brochure about the murals and a map to find them all.  We took their pictures even though the light was bad on half of them and got a Missouri beer at the liquor store on the corner to have later.

Made a stop in Fanning to see the Worlds Largest Rocking Chair where we also found another geocache.  The third of the day.

We arrived in Rolla about 6 PM and decided to have a light dinner of popcorn, cheese & crackers, grapes and peanut butter crackers.  Enjoyed another of those local beers too.  Then went out to scout the Nissan dealer’s location and get some ice cream at a local place.

Back to the Comfort Suites to finish up the logging of geocaches, writing the blog and downloading some photos from camera card.  So far, the photo count looks like around 700.  The mileage so far is 1,220 from Wilmington, DE!

We started our Wednesday about 9 AM after checking out of the Comfort Inn in Edwardsville, IL. In just a few miles we arrived at the first destination for the day–the Chain of Rocks Bridge across the Mississippi River. We spent over an hour walking across between IL and MO. Took a lot of photos.  Below is one of the bridge.

After leaving the bridge on the Illinois side, we drove  around St. Louis on the Interstate (I-270) remarking that is sure looks different than in the winter when last we were in this area.

On the way around the city, Joyce explored BBQ places on her phone and located one just before we were to get off and continue on the historical Route 66.  We exited and drove to Richards BBQ place.  Ordered the special for Wednesday–a shredded BBQ sandwich and 2 sides (green beans and mac & cheese)–to go.  Then we continued on our way to Times Beach Route 66 Visitor Center (part of the MO state park system).  We enjoyed the BBQ on the only picnic table there (thankfully it was in the shade) and then toured the visitor center.  About 1:30 we decided to continue on our way.  More later!

Finally, some photos from the first two days of the Route 66 Adventure!  These are all from my phone camera, but most photos are on the “big camera” and take more time to get from camera to web!  These will have to do for now.

Illinois is a really, really long state from north to south!  Today we made about 175 miles because of the number of things to see.

After a restful night and breakfast in Pontiac, IL we “decamped” from the Best Western around 8:30 AM.  We spent about 2 hours walking around the downtown area viewing many of the murals that had been painted on the outside of many buildings.  We spent time in the Pontiac Oakland Automobile museum and the Walldogs sign painting museum.  We also explored the Artcars that the town had sponsored artists to decorate.  By 10:30 we were on historic Route 66 heading SW to take in other sites and gather some more geocaches.

Towanda was our first stop–and an unanticipated one at that!  We found a really olde route 66 section that had been converted to a bike trail.  The really neat thing that prompted us to stop was the presnece of some  Burma Shave signs that you read while driving by.

Moving on to Normal, we took in Sprague’s Super Service gas station.

Funk’s Grove was another unanticipated find on the route.  At this small attraction outside of town, maple sirup was made.  Now you may wonder at the spelling, but apparently in earlier times, sirup was made from boiling down the the juice from maple trees whereas syrup is made from adding sugar to the  fruit juice.

We next stopped in the town of Atlanta.  The primary objective here was to locate a geocache.  Since it was near time for lunch we determined to eat at the Palms Grill Cafe which is frequently referenced on Route 66 information sites.  We had pulled pork BBQ (that should be no surprise) with homemade chips and baked beans.  But we split the lunch and also had homemade peach pie.  Both were delicious!  We also saw a large Paul Bunyon statue holding a hot dog on loan from it’s owner.  The geocache was found after some more reading on geocaching.com and some additional time spent looking for it!

The town of Lincoln has the world’s largest covered wagon.  For us, not so impressive and we didn’t find the geocache that was located on the wagon!  We also discovered The Mill an original sandwich shop.  We met one of the owners while taking photos of the site who offered us an inside look.  It is a project under restoration and hopefully will result in both a Route 66 museum and a WWII museum because the addition to the original structue came from a US Army barracks that was procured to make the site a larger food service facility.

In Springfield we were discouraged by Illinois State Fair traffic.  We did get to see Bill Sheas filling station (closed) and the Dana Thomas Frank Lloyd Wright house (closed).  We took the opportunity to photography both of them.

Next was Litchfield where we found a geocache at the Ariston restaurant and took photos of the neon signs out front.  Some incoming customers asked if we’d like to have our photo taken together and so we did.  We also saw the Rout 66 Museum outside and photographed it, but it was closed by the time we got to town.

Moving on we arrived in Mt. Olive where we visited Soulsby’s Shell Station and took some photos.  The geocache that was hidden there remained undiscovered by us!

So the last planned stop for the day was Staunton to visit Henry’s  Rabbit Ranch.  Once again, we were unsuccessful finding the geocache.  Henry apparenlty is taken with VW Rabbits as there were a number buried nose down in the dirt–a la Cadillac Ranch!  Joyce knew, but was giving me a surprise–there were no breathing rabbits present!

Edwardsville for the night.  Got a Comfort Inn on Priceline for $69 (+ tax of course).

Nighty, night!

As planned we left early this morning and raced across DE, PA, OH and most of IN just trying cover as much distance as we could.  We covered about 650 miles today with 6 stops for geocaches and other stretch breaks. Took 12 hours for today’s drive.

Lunch was sandwiches in the car and dinner was a great burger at Five Guys in South Bend, IN.  We visited Joyce’s aunt Marg and uncle Dick for a few hours as we were only a fee miles from their home.

Tired.  Calling it a day!

After a 6:50 AM departure we are 20 miles from the OH state line.  It was good to travel on a Sunday as all of the many construction projects were not being worked.  Smoother sailing.

We got a cache in DE and PA.  We’ll be looking for some in OH.  Our planned stop is South Bend IN around 7 PM.

Need to gas up soon and OH looks to be less costly than PA!