Day One: (Plymouth to) Chicago, IL to Wilmington, IL

Finally on our way!! California or bust! We left Plymouth heading west - said goodbye to all of the Scott's and headed out.


We stopped in Milwaukee at Kopp's for burger. They had these great black and white cow statues in the parking lot (we miss our black and white kitty!).

Here we are crossing the line into Illinois - my goal was to get the car by all of the state entry signs, but it was too hard to stop here. Traffic was really bad on the way into Chicago, so this was the best we could do.

And here we are at the beginning of Route 66 in downtown Chicago. It was a little hectic driving the car downtown, but Ryan had fun bombing the car through the crowded streets. We really had no major problems finding our way to the beginning, I just wish we had a picture of both of us under the sign.

Our first pit stop! Henry's "A Meal In Itself" Hot Dogs. The beginning of Route 66 heads out through some relatively sketchy parts of Chicago (Cicero, Berwyn), but we still found some cool 66 remnants.

This was another neat spot - the Castle Car Wash. It isn't in service, but it's a great building.

We stopped to eat dinner at Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket, which was really off the main road, but still packed (always a good sign). They had a ton of 66 memorabilia up and these great pink neon lights illuminating the ceiling.

After chicken, we could head to the Tap Room for some beer (although we didn't at this point). It was getting dark and we needed to look for a hotel room (and also still hung over from the night before).

66 was hard to find and follow in some places - we got turned around at one point and had to double back, but we did a pretty decent job.

We drove by some cool neon at night - like this state police station. Once we started getting tired, it turned out there were no hotel rooms in sight. We tried a place in Wilmington, IL by the dam ("Best Hotel By a Dam Site"), but they were booked up. A helpful, drunken woman directed us out of town to a hotel by Hwy 55 (as close as we could get to 66!) where we ended up staying for the night. Other than the roach I killed as soon as we got there, it wasn't that bad (although it was dark and we didn't see exactly how it looked outside until the next morning...)