The Route 66 Chick

The annual International Route 66 Mother Road Festival in Springfield, Illinois, has come and gone again. This huge event, produced by Family Events (out of Indianapolis) in conjunction with the City of Springfield, is always fun. It's a huge car show and cruise (no surprise, car shows are what the company is all about) with numerous bands and plenty of vendors. The festival occupies over a dozen blocks in downtown Springfield surrounding the historic old state capitol.  The addition to this event that in my humble opinion is the icing on the cake is the Travel Illinois Expo, sponsored by Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway. A whole block of Washington Street north of the old capitol is devoted to the expo. This year, the expo exhibitors included yours truly and my fellow author Joe Sonderman. Joe drove his 1957 Chevy Bel Air to the festival again this year. We stopped at Cozy Dog when we got to Springfield and had a late lunch, visited with friends we ran into there, and admired a ...

In just a week, the population of Springfield, Illinois, will temporarily increase significantly as thousands of people arrive for the 13th Annual International Route 66 Mother Road Festival. From Friday through Sunday, September 26 - 28, our capital city will be hopping with plenty of live entertainment on the Hot Rod Stage, the traditional Friday night car cruise (huge!), plenty of vendors and food, and the Travel Illinois Expo.  The Travel Illinois Expo (that's where my esteemed co-author Joe Sonderman and I come in) is presented by Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway and will be set up on Washington Street between 5th and 6th Streets on the north side of the old capitol/old courthouse. For those of you that caught up with us there last year, we'll be set up in the same spot - at the corner of Washington and 5th Streets. We were at the center of lots of action last year! For starters, Joe parked his tropical turquoise 1957 Chevy Bel-Air right beside our tent for a little eye...

Everyone loves the Cozy Dog Drive-In in Springfield, and it was a great place for a book signing last Saturday to conclude June, our book release month. Thanks to Josh Waldmire for hosting! Unfortunately, co-author Joe Sonderman could not be there due to his work schedule, but he pre-signed our book stock so no one went away with a new book without both signatures in it. There was a good lunch crowd plus several parties who had made the trip into Springfield just for the Route 66 in Illinois book and some Cozy Dogs! Three hours went by quickly, chatting with visitors plus eating! From the Cozy Dog we moved on to the great Prairie Archives book store in downtown Springfield to do some perusing before they closed at 5:00 pm. Steve Rensberry had agreed to accompany me on the Springfield trip, and a book store stop is a must for both of us. Plus, it was our birthday week (Steve's birthday is the day before mine), so we had some shopping to do for each other. A great book on Joli...

Joe and I are excited to announce our book release events for "Route 66 in Illinois" for the month of June! We're happy to share the new book with all of you and hope to see many of you at any or all of the following events! (This list is just for June! We're working on booking the rest of the summer as we speak. Confirmed so far later in the summer are the Route 66 Cruise In in Carlinville in July and the Route 66 Festival in Kingman, AZ in August!) Here's the list for June: Sunday, June 8th - Edwardsville! We will do a program with slides, and sign books afterwards, at the Madison County Historical Society Archival Library at 715 N. Main Street. This is the first day and place you can buy the book, and purchases at this event will benefit the Madison County Historical Society. Program begins at 2:00 pm. There is some parking BEHIND the library accessed from Second Street and also street parking - please get there a little early to find parking! Monday,...

After three days in Springfield, Illinois, for the International Mother Road Route 66 Festival, we intrepid researchers - Joe Sonderman and I - headed back north again the very next day to the Lincoln Library on Seventh Street to immerse ourselves (again) in the wonderful Sangamon Valley Collection. Our first research trip for "Route 66 in Illinois" was on a bone-chilling, snowy day back in January. Since then, Joe and I have traveled up and down Route 66 throughout Illinois to ferret out amazing and intriguing vintage photos. We have made numerous trips to and through Springfield. The capitol is a great historic city in which I've had the privilege of living twice. Sometimes, memories from my childhood there combine with a historic image and I really want to just walk into one of those photo scenes...for just a little while, anyway.  I'm particularly intrigued with the Springfield of the 1920s and early 1930s, the Springfield that Route 66 first traversed when it...

Sunday, the last day of the 2013 International Mother Road Route 66 Festival in Springfield, turned out to be a relaxing day. By the last day of a festival, you've usually already caught up with friends, made most of your book sales, and eaten way too much festival food. We started the day with a great breakfast at Jungle Jim's Cafe on Peoria Road. This classic diner is decorated with speedway memorabilia. Four of us enjoyed good food, service, and conversation. Jungle Jim's Cafe on Peoria Road. (Joe Sonderman photo.) From there it was back downtown to finish off the festival. The crowd was much smaller on Sunday and the event was in serious danger of imploding by the middle of the afternoon. The Illinois Travel Expo officially closed at 2:00 pm and we were soon packed and on our way. On the way home, another visit to Weezy's Route 66 Bar and Grill in Hamel was in order for a late lunch. Or was that early supper? Original Tourist Haven sign inside Weezy...

This was the third year fellow author Joe Sonderman and I attended the International Mother Road Route 66 Festival in Springfield, Illinois, as "itinerant Route 66 book mongers," to quote a Route 66 friend's clever comment.  Kudos to Bill Kelly and Stacy Conn of the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway organization for terrific planning and execution of the Illinois Travel Expo. And many thanks to them for taking Joe and me under their wing as we work on our new book, "Route 66 in Illinois," and in so doing help to promote Route 66 in the great state of Illinois - where the road began. The layout this year for the Illinois Travel Expo was great and we contributed some 'eye candy' to the intersection of Washington and Fifth Streets as Joe parked his '57 Chevy Bel Air next to our booth. The car would prove to be a magnet for a number of diverse photo vignettes during the weekend.  Our booth at the International Mother Road Route 66 Festival. (Joe Son...

Friday morning found my fellow author Joe Sonderman and I headed for Springfield, Illinois, for the International Mother Road Route 66 Festival. We planned to take our time driving up the older alignment, shunning the interstate for the day. To my delight, Joe decided to drive his '57 Chevy Bel Air and had spent a couple evenings polishing, putting on new tires, and all the other things one might do to a classic car before taking it out on the road.  With our book stock and show equipment stowed in the trunk, we took off. First stop - Weezy's (the former Tourist Haven roadhouse, established in the 1930s) in Hamel. There, members of a car club were just getting ready to leave. We parked alongside some of the other classic cars and here's the lineup. (Joe's is the tropical turquoise.) Lunch was great  with good food and good service. Owners Karen Wiesemeyer and Coleman Weissman do a great job. From Hamel we headed north on Route 66 and from the Worden Wye we took t...