Still Struggling Along

Day 3: 495 Miles
Total: 1,300 Miles

What a long day! We left Hammond, Indiana at 5:15am to beat the traffic into and out of Chicago. It worked perfectly; at 6:00am we parked the '37 under the Route 66 sign at Michigan Avenue and Adams Street, took our obligatory pictures and then hit the road. We have spent a lot of time on Illinois 66 in the past and we had a lot of ground to cover, so we didn't make a lot of stops. Still, we managed to add a few new items to our list like lunch at the Cozy Dog in Springfield (inventor of the corn dog owned this place), seeing a section of original brick road and driving several original 1926 alignments of the highway.

All of this led to delays getting to St. Louis, and we managed to get caught up in construction traffic around rush hour; the exact thing we needed to avoid with our engine cooling problems. The car actually quit at one point but we got it restarted and let it cool off in the Ted Drewe's parking lot while Sharon and I ate our amazing frozen custards.

We then drove the final 80 or so miles to Cuba to check into the wonderful Wagon Wheel Motel as it was getting dark. Fifteen hours in the car just exhausted us, which is why this blog is being written the next morning. Here are a few pictures from yesterday.

The starting point in downtown Chicago.

Funks Grove, IL

Sharon visiting an old friend she met last year

A section of Route 66 paved in brick

Try the Big Apple Concrete!

This is a really great neon sign

The sign without the car

We are going to have to make some tough decisions as we get further and further from home. The car stays cool and loses a quart to a half gallon of coolant a day...for now. There is no guarantee that it won't get worse. The car is picking up a few additional rattles that worry me as well. We put out a call for help from some of our Route 66 roadie friends. If we don't come up with a viable solution we may turn back in the next couple of days.

Ciao

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