2019 WB Day 2 - California Dreaming

After a day spent together around Chicago, our two groups went their separate ways with the Westbound folk setting off for Santa Monica.

Being Sunday we expected many places to be closed so from Chicago we weaved through light traffic past the 'Begin' sign on our way out of the big smoke.

At McCook we start to see some of the signs that have made this route so famous...

White Fence Farm wasn't open till midday on Sundays, but Judy, who answered the phone was very welcoming and we dropped in to a wonderful tour of the facility by John, who started work there as a teenager many years ago. On Mothers' Day they'll feed 6,000 people!

Our first stop of the day had turned out to be a first for Down Under On Route 66, something that never seems to be a surprise.

Our second surprise and another first came at Wilmington where we'd previously discovered the Gemini Giant had had a makeover. Inside the well laid out diner, a small R66 display and a gift shop, highlighting this stop was far from spent!

Joliet Welcome Center wasn't open but the much requested photo with Jake and Elwood did happen at the Polka Dot Diner...

...and it's where most this group had their first taste of a real American diner before a quick stop at the jail in Gardner.

Barry & Penny got to wear the hat their son Steven does as a fireman back in NZ at the Texaco Gas Station in Dwight.

And while Phil & Debbie were away in LA, their neighbour John Gardiner proudly showed off their hot roads, plus his ow restored 1936 Ford pick up.

A photo op at Odell gas station was next... before we spent a hour or so wandering around the fine displays at Pontiac and admiring the murals that have painted this town into history.

Down Lexington way we meandered along their own special piece of Memory Lane, imagining what it must have once been like.

And shortly after we wandered along the mile (well the girls did... the boys brought the Mustangs around to pick them up!) checked out Deadman's Curve and the eight states we'll visit over the next few days.

For now though, Bloomington is where we'll rest our heads after a dinner at Epiphany Farm which has set a possibly unrealistic bench mark in dining for the Mother Road!