Day Two: Wilmington, IL to Atlanta, IL

This is where we woke up Monday morning at the Hwy 55 Motel. You can see the pile of junk to the right and there was an old burned out car in the parking lot as well. It felt like we were travelling in Mexico (no offense to Mexico!). On our way out the door, there was a weird dude sitting on the pool table in the front area drinking a beer at 9 in the morning - cool.

We had breakfast in Wilmington (so cheap - two giant plates of food for $7 - it's cheaper to eat out than to try grocery shopping and cooking for ourselves). After breakfast we relaxed in this park behind the restaurant. We successfully used the timer on our camera for this shot.

Along the way, we passed this old speakeasy, called the Riviera. Apparently Al Capone used to hang out here when he was on the lam. We weren't sure if is was still open for business, but it was closed while we were there. It's supposed to have fake cave stalactite decor over the bar, but we couldn't see in. Easy come, easy go.

Out behind the Riviera, you can walk back to this recreation of a streetcar diner. It's set up with tables and chairs so you can see what it would have been like in the 40s - 50s.

There are a lot of restored gas stations along Route 66 and this is one from the 20s turned into a gift shop/semi working garage. We signed the guestbook and noticed names from people all over the world that had been there in just the past couple of days.

This is a picture of the glass insulation caps from the tops of the old telephone poles along Route 66. Each telephone pole has anywhere from 5 to 25 still left on the pole, which are no longer working. These are great landmarks along the old road and can be used as a sign that you are on the right track. The glass caps shine in the sun and look super cool when you are driving down the road. At first we didn't want to take them as souvenirs because we didn't want to detract visually from the road (if everyone took them, they would quickly be gone). So we searched around fallen poles to take ones that were broken or were on the ground.

And then, literally 2 or 3 more miles down the road, we saw state workers taking down the old poles and rolling up the old wire. We don't know what they are doing with all the super cool old glass tops. We passed dozens of piles like this, some still had a few glass pieces, but most were broken or gone. We're glad we had a chance to see the road before they took all of these poles down and destroy the old view - it's a different road without them.

This is another of the giant "Muffler Men" along Route 66. Back in the 50s they were used as advertisements outside of muffler shops (holding mufflers), but they later changed them to hold other items like the hot dog here (or the space ship at the Gemini Giant from Day One).

We wandered around an old grain elevator museum in Atlanta, IL and I climbed on this old grain car. It was fun wandering around town while it was still light and visiting a couple of bars.

We topped the night off with a few games of shuffleboard on this awesome table. Ryan annoyingly kicked my ass multiple times - he even managed to score a "hanger", where one of your pucks hangs off the end of the board, for an extra point. The last game, I didn't even make it to double digits - but the road is long, and I will beat him at some point, dammit!