Yes, we are still in Illinois

Yes, we are still in Illinois.

We are staying at the Route 66 Motel in Springfield. It is a very cool location, like staying in a museum. Tomorrow I will put photos up of the hotel. Today, has been very very pleasant, the weather perfect, overcast and a little cooler. Illinois has so much to see historically and many of the small towns have embraced that heritage and started the process of rebuilding and restoring their towns.



This is Ruth Hieronymus. She is the Librarian at the Historic Octagonal Library in Atlanta, Illinois.







We stopped in Atlanta after being told by several people it was a MUST see. The Library is beautiful, old and loved. Ruth has lots of information about the history of the town, when she saw us walking around the town taking photos she opened the Library privately for us. We were very excited to meet her and learn more about the town. If you decide to do Route 66 stop and talk to Ruth. You will be glad you did.

Penny and I are having a great time meeting people and driving the legendary mother road. But every now and then we are attracted by small signs that takes us off the road. Today was another one of those days. We decided to take the road less traveled. Like this one, the long road with beautiful green over head and on either side, as far as we could see. At the end of the road, beautiful flowers, birds, butterflies and a nice place to take time to just sit and enjoy life.

Sometimes it is good to just take the time to slow down, get off the beaten path and enjoy what you find. Not having a schedule to adhere to has been a bit of a challenge for us to start, we keep thinking we need to hurry up. Then we see places like this or the deer that we watched yesterday and we realize, there is nowhere we have to be except home by labor day.

Hazel M. Walker