The Route 66 Chick

With the 2017 Route 66 event season in full swing, my pertussis quarantine over, and an itch to go places in the new van, June proved to be a busy month. Between St. Louis and Chicago, I gave a program, attended a program, went to the Route 66 exhibit at Missouri History Museum twice, drove across the Chain of Rocks Bridge, sold and signed books, and, with my BCC colleagues, produced the third annual Blue Carpet Corridor festival weekend. Here's a brief rundown of my June: June 1 - At Jubelt's  in Litchfield, I met up with Bill Kelly, Executive Director of Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway, and Dave Tucker, Vice-President of Blue Carpet Corridor, for hand-off of materials for Blue Carpet Corridor weekend. Lunch was terrific as always at this long-standing cafe-bakery. June 4 - I drove to Greenville to record a podcast for Creekside with Don and Jan at Owl Creek  with the lively and fun Don and Jan Stover. We talked Route 66, the upcoming Blue Carpet Corridor event, and my n...

Dreaming of road trips in the van was mostly all I was able to do in May. Hours of work for Blue Carpet Corridor , writing deadlines, and a several-week bout of pertussis (yup, whooping cough), drastically slowed my van conversion progress. One result of all that prescribed rest was a Pinterest board chock full of clever and cute van camper ideas. You can peruse those should you wish at my  Van Camper Ideas . Meanwhile, Alice waited patiently for me to get to work. With all those ideas, I started measuring, planning, ordering, and, when I was finally non-contagious and could leave the house, shopping. I soon amassed a pile of stuff on my dining room table, including some treasured things from my mom's kitchen, thrift shop finds, and goodies from Ikea and Target. We'll see how much of it actually fits in the van. The photo just shows the cute stuff (no piles of bungees, tools, first-aid kit, carbon monoxide detector, rain poncho, and other necessary but non-glamorous items). ...

Hoping that many of you can join us on Saturday, June 10, from Virden to Collinsville for the third annual Blue Carpet Corridor festival celebration! Here's our press release: Blue Carpet Corridor will hold third annual Route 66 event on Saturday, June 10 The Illinois Route 66 Blue Carpet Corridor will be celebrating its third annual festival event on Saturday, June 10. From Virden down to Collinsville on several historic alignments of Route 66, twelve communities will be offering car shows, festivals, museum and attraction open hours, children's activities, food, photo ops, and fun. Souvenir Blue Carpet Corridor 2017 passports will be available for free in all the participating communities, and visitors can get a unique stamp in each town. The complete list of passport stops is available at www.bluecarpetcorridor.org . Passport Stop open hours will be from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, and many events and attractions will also follow that schedule. Also available on t...

Here's this year's press release about our 2nd annual Blue Carpet Corridor festival weekend! It's BCC II ! Visit the Blue Carpet Corridor on Saturday-Sunday, June 11-12, and experience Midwest Americana on 100+ miles of Illinois Route 66! From Chatham to Collinsville, 13 communities will be welcoming visitors to their events, attractions, and Passport Stops. Joining in the fun for this second annual event are the following communities: Chatham, Virden, Girard, Carlinville, Gillespie, Staunton, Hamel, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Litchfield, Mt. Olive, Troy, and Collinsville. From internationally-known attractions like the World's Largest Catsup Bottle, Henry's Rabbit Ranch, and Soulsby Station, to long-running festivals like Chatham's American Legion Homecoming and Edwardsville's Route 66 Festival, Blue Carpet Corridor weekend is the perfect weekend family trip. From vintage stops like Doc's Soda Fountain and Weezy's Route 66 Bar and Grill ...

The second annual Blue Carpet Corridor weekend (BCC II) is coming up June 11-12, but in the meantime, it's not just spring flowers that are opening on this stretch of Illinois Route 66 from Chatham to Collinsville. Hot news is the new Tourist Information Center in Edwardsville! Through a partnership between Cindy Reinhardt, Edwardsville historian and author, and LuAnn Locke, owner of Afterwords Books, travelers can now stop and pick up brochures and information about Edwardsville's attractions, restaurants, and lodging! The new tourist stop is located inside Afterwords Books at 454 E. Vandalia (Route 66), the former Cathcart-Goddard Tourist Inn which served travelers during the Route 66 era. Here's the link to an article about the new tourist stop in the Edwardsville Intelligencer :   http://www.theintelligencer.com/local_news/article_25b4426a-f362-11e5-b7e1-7f206585a36e.html This past weekend, there were at least three events on the BCC--in Litchfield, Hamel, an...

Looking back at my blog posts from last year, I realized the most popular ones were not all of one category - event press releases, my travels, my fiction, or my own personal stories. The top ten were a mixture of all those. So in case you missed any of these, here they are in reverse order: #10  Looking back, looking forward (December 31)   http://route66chick.blogspot.com/2015/12/looking-back-looking-forward.html #9    Day #1 of another road trip - few signs (September 9)   http://route66chick.blogspot.com/2015/09/day-1-of-another-road-trip-few-signs.html #8    A fairy tale genealogical story? (August 24)  http://route66chick.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-fairy-tale-genealogical-story.html #7    Tentative schedule for Miles of Possibility:  the Edwardsville Conference (March 11) http://route66chick.blogspot.com/2015/03/tentative-schedule-for-miles-of.html #6    Three trips in 12 days, or, how does this happen.....

Well, 2015 is about to make its exit. And this transition, this marking, this passage, of one year into the next urges us to reflect on what we've accomplished, how much love we've shared with family and dear friends, what storms we've weathered, who we may have lost from our lives, and what we hope to look forward to in the coming year. Following are some of my 2015 highlights, and then some of the things that I hope will happen in 2016. Looking back on 2015: Good travels! At least six trips to SE Kansas for the Route 66 in Kansas book. One trip to ABQ to visit daughter and son-in-law, and oh darn, had to take Route 66 part of the way. Currently, on my second trip of the year to Florida to visit son and daughter-in-law, and oh darn, it's warm and sunny down here. Back in June, Steve got a nice vacation from the newspaper and his piano tuning business and we escaped to Michigan and Wisconsin for close to two weeks. We attended his family reunion and mine, visited t...

The inaugural Blue Carpet Corridor rolled out June 13-14 and we're leaving it unrolled! Part of the idea behind the BCC was not just to celebrate once a year, but to help our communities celebrate 66 and attract visitors all year long. To that end, we're asking our communities to have their passport stamps and extra passports at a designated spot all year which we'll list soon on the website. And we'll add news of events and attractions in our communities all year. You can see photos of our first event weekend on our scrapbook page at  www.bluecarpetcorridor.org A few thoughts about our first annual event - despite the rain and the threat of rain, and some kinks to work out before next year's event, the consensus of opinion is that the first-time event was a rousing success! Check out Geoff Ladd's blog on the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway site.  http://www.illinoisroute66.org/Stories-of-the-Road/Details/ArticleID/4748/Traveling-the-Very-First-Blue-Carpet-Corri...

You can find just about anything on Route 66 - including 14 authors representing a variety of genres gathered together in one local author fair at the grand re-opening of a great indie book store in a historic tourist inn in Edwardsville on Blue Carpet Corridor weekend. What?? It's the Blue Carpet Corridor Local Author Fair Sunday, June 14, at Afterwords Books, 454 East Vandalia Street - old Route 66 - in Edwardsville.  The hours are 1:00 - 4:00 pm, and, depending upon the weather, you might find authors sprinkled about not only in the main building, but on the lawn and/or in the front cabin as well. This will be the scene of a variety of activity this weekend, namely: Grand re-opening of Afterwords Books Mini walking tours of Route 66 sites along this block Edwardsville's Passport Stop - get your Blue Carpet Corridor passports stamped here Tourist Information - brochures, visitors guides, directions AND the Blue Carpet Corridor Local Author Fair featuring...