Day Three: Atlanta, IL to Carlenville, IL

We started our day by driving into Lincoln, IL and having breakfast at the Blue Dog Inn - we bought a Blue Dog t-shirt and we are going to send them a BlueCat Motors shirt. Check this out - an Illinois specialty (or at least something we see on all the menus here) is something called a horseshoe. It's a piece of bread topped with your choice of meat, topped with french fries, topped with cheese sauce. Awesome! I know Nancy will appreciate that one...

Then it was on to Springfield, IL where Abe Lincoln lived with his family for 17 years. This is me in front of his house (the only one he ever technically owned in his lifetime). The house is actually part of a 4 square block National Park site that is recreated to look like 1860. We took a tour with a great ranger who really taught us a lot. It was very moving to be in the presence of such an important man - especially someone that I have read and studied so much about over the years. It kind of reminded me of how I felt touring the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. We have tons of pictures of the rooms and the area, but I will spare you the detail - we highly recommend the tour if you ever have the chance.

Another Muffler Man - I just love the kitsch of these things. And it is fun to look for them as we drive through towns. We are loving embracing our inner tourist and stopping to take pictures like these. I'm sure the locals think we are ridiculous, but we are having a blast.

This is one of the longest brick road sections of Route 66. 1.4 miles of brick in a lowered '46 Chevy is definitely interesting. We drove about 15 mph in order to avoid bottoming out. The countryside is beautiful though and there is seldom anyone around, so we can drive as slowly as we want (except for the fact that we are supposed to be driving 2200 miles in less than 21 days and we are currently averaging about 100 miles a day - we do need to pick up the pace).

This is a Ryan shot - we were struggling to read this as we drove down the road and at first thought it said "He Awaits", but loved that it actually said "Hell Awaits". It was on the side of a silo in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

We arrived in Carlenville with time enough to catch the sunset in the town square. It had this great gazebo in the center and we used the camera timer again (Ryan is getting good at it!). We then had a great Italian dinner for $12 total, but then we went out for cocktails and spent more on drinks than we did on food. We have to have priorities!

We spent the night at the Carlen Villa Motel and we walked around for awhile - this picture amuses me because the sign welcoming people to Carlenville says "Where you can choose your own religion!". That is the city slogan! But I guess if you choose to be Methodist, you better follow all the commandments. I saw another one of these that said "Have fun in the Son...you won't get burned!" - much better sign, but the picture didn't come out.

Religion is definitely a prominent part of small towns with churchs on practically every corner and lots of activites going on every day. It surprises me that the smallest little towns in the middle of cornfields will have beautiful stone churches with stained glass and giant spires. Priorities again, I guess.