Tuesday was the day. Kicking around in a cute suburb of Chicago with family is one thing, but hitting the open road on my own with two loose cannons was quite another. The morning came early and I woke up anxious. When anxious about something I often turn to Google. Sometimes this serves me well, and sometimes this increases the anxiety into Godzilla-panic. The Google Gods smiled; reading about how to properly merge comforted me. Get up speed (as opposed to my instinct to apply the breaks, even coming to a complete stop, until the freeway is totally clear of all other vehicles), and don't cross lanes until my line becomes dotted.
We have a GPS contraption (named Samantha), but my husband broke up with her and I couldn't find her in the trunk. That's how it is with relationships. So I had GGPS (Ghetto GPS). I pulled up the instructions on my phone, wrote them out on a piece of paper, and taped them to the dashboard.
In one of the Austin Powers movies Mike Meyers tries to make a three-point turn, and it's this brilliant scene of him going forward an inch, then reversing an inch, then forward an inch, then backwards -- for an obscene amount of time -- definitely referencing classic British comedy. I am to road tripping what Mike Meyers is to three-point turning. I criss-crossed that town more than once -- pulling into driveways, u-turning, getting on and off ramps... I cannot tell you how grateful I am that my kids are still too young to realize what was going on. Though the exterior Halloween decorations were somewhat telling ("Hey, there's that zombie again!")
Finally, we were on our way. Our first Route 66 stop was Wilmington, IL to see the Gemini Giant in front of the Launching Pad restaurant. The restaurant is closed for the season (and for sale), so the parking lot was empty as we pulled in and sprang from the car with cameras flashing. We were that family. And I felt proud. Sure, he's 20 feet tall and hovering over the main road, but I found him! It was a promising start.
Next we went on to Odell, IL where we found the historic entrance to the underground tunnel that was used by kids going to school and church goers because the traffic on the Mother Road (notice that lingo?) was too heavy. Also in Odell is a little museum inside a recently restored Standard gas station. There is certainly something to be said for going off-season -- we were the only people there and chit-chatted with the volunteer working (she shared some facts about the station -- how the locals rallied to keep it -- but mostly she wanted to ask me questions about NYC. Apparently, she's been once and is trying to get her daughter to go again because she wants to see the 9/11 memorial). The kids bought Route 66 pins and promptly pinned them on, and I bought a Route 66 CD which actually sucks. With the cute volunteer standing out front waving us off, we continued on the original stretch of the road on to Pontiac, IL.
I think it was on this stretch that I might have gotten turned around and ended up in a gas station to fill up, grab some beef jerky and whatever crap the kids wanted for "lunch" and recalibrate my GGPS. While standing in line among some rough characters Judd the Red Chicken blurted out, "Since we don't know where we are, should we get a map?" I gave him the shut-up-face and then sprinkled the crowd with the kids-what-are-you-going-to-do-with-'em laugh. While walking to the car I explained that we do not need people to know that we are idiots traveling in the middle of nowhere by ourselves. My kids stood there nodding with their Route 66 pins glistening in the sun. "Just get in the car."
Pontiac has a lot to offer to Route 66 warriors, but we were in a bit of a quandary. The day was getting away from us, and we still had a lot that we wanted to do. We went into the old fire house that has been turned into a Route 66 Hall of Fame museum -- behind it is the Wishing Well and some original bricks from the road. The museum is actually pretty cool because in cases along the walls you can see the stops that still exist, and some that don't, and all the coordinating kitch. The Boy had been interested in the police station that is shaped like a handgun, and I'm glad that we saw the display first because it had a birds-eye view.
Off to find the actual abandoned police station! Again, the criss-crossing... she said three lights... did I count wrong... better turn around... crap, a one-way street... one street over... a dead-end...u-turn... now where the freak am I... Finally, I found some random guy and asked him. "It's out around nothin'," he concluded after giving me directions (turns out I just hadn't gone far enough), and then he climbed into his enormous truck. Feeling kind of creeped out in the neglected parking lot with leaves swirling around the overgrown weeds it dawned on me that the nice fellow who gave me directions now knew that a very lost female was wandering around the abandoned police station... "GET BACK IN THE CAR." "Ineedanotherpicture." "Ijustgotmyseatbeltoff." "GET IN THE FREAKIN' CAR."
We followed the historic highway for a while -- sometimes the road is the same, and other times you can see the aged road right next to you. Eventually we got back onto I-55 in order to make it into Springfield with enough time.
Springfield, IL. The historic area where the Lincoln residence is is quite cool. At one point the area was getting rather shabby, so the park service bought up the block and have tried to return it to what it would have looked like while the Lincolns lived there. It is a noble attempt to create context around the house. We went on a Ranger-led tour through the residence and I couldn't be more proud when the Ranger asked my kid what president Lincoln had been, and "Sixteen" popped out of my offspring's mouth. That comes from The Dad.
We saw the actual room where Lincoln was told he had been nominated for the Republican party, as well as his desk where he worked. This kind of thing is motivating. In the gift shop I bought myself a reproduction Lincoln election button. The kids chose not to become Junior Rangers there because the payoff was a plastic badge rather than a patch (they are organically aware of the relationship between energy output and payback). However, I required that they look through the booklet in the car anyway in order to solidify some of the things that we learned. On one of the pages they were to draw a picture of Lincoln, and The Girl drew our 16th president with "hairy pits" which led to a discussion on hair that they would soon be growing on their bodies. "I don't care about any of the other places, I just want a moustache," said Judd the Red Chicken.
Mother Jones is buried in Mt. Olive. It's a tiny town and I followed the main road (off of the very long exit) to the cemetery. Fortunately, there were some signs or who knows what the Wrong Direction Genie that possesses me would have made me do. I drove the one side of the cemetery, turned and followed the front, and then turned down the other side. I wasn't sure what I was looking for. Just as I was about to turn around a red truck pulled up alongside me. We rolled down our windows:
"Looking for Mother Jones?" Red Truck
"Yes. We match the profile, huh?" Me
"Yep. It's the big monument in the back -- you can actually drive your car under those arches and park down by it." RT
"Really? Great. Thank you." Me
"What do you know about her?" RT
"That she helped get some child labor laws established." Me
"She came here because of all the union coal miners in the area. In fact, there was a skirmish between some striking miners and some hired goons and four miners were killed and buried here. She said that when she died she wanted to be buried with 'the boys.' This is the only completely union cemetery in the U.S." RT
We were there for a few minutes -- the sun was starting to get low and was casting long shadows behind the tombstones. In the field next to us of dried corn stalks a large machine was making wide circles and scattering dust. One guy (and his blond kid next to him who would look over once in a while) stopped to share with a stranger, and I felt connected to all of humanity.
"Thank you so much for taking the time." Me
"No problem. I live a couple of houses up; I've been doing this since I was a kid -- I would ride up on my bike: 'Hey do you want to know about Mother Jones?' My sixth grade teacher interviewed the guy who exhumed her body -- she had been buried closer to the road, but was moved when this monument was completed -- and the guy talked about how she looked peaceful, but her hair and nails had continued to grow and it was quite a sight." RT
We said our goodbyes after he told the kids to climb up on the monument in order to see how tall the statues really are. I pulled around and drove down towards Mother Jones and her long nails.
"That's what you guys are going to remember isn't it? The bit about the hair and nails..."
"Yep."
Here's what I hope that they remember: unions might have outlived their purpose, might have swung too far... or they might not have... I sure don't know. What I do know is that when things are unfair, a group of people standing together can make a difference. And sometimes one person -- an unlikely person even, like a cranky old woman at a time when women were usually dismissed -- can motivate that group.
Mt. Olive was my favorite Route 66 stop.
The kids' was the giant bottle of ketchup. It's kind of in a derelict little area -- at least it felt that way in the gloaming -- so unlike our happy proud prancing about at the Gemini Giant, our last king-size kitch stop was more along the lines of "Get back in the car."
Driving into St. Louis our first view of the arch was back lit by the very last orange glow of the sun. How I hope that image imprinted.
There was a lot of construction, and I might have inadvertently taken a funky exit that took me where I did not want to be. After a fervent prayer I circled around the largest Hustler Club this side of the Mississippi and found a beautiful, glorious entrance back onto the freeway going in the right direction.
We checked into our cool Moonrise Hotel and wandered down to Fitz's where they bottle their own root beer. We were the only ones in the restaurant. We had a lot of fun discussing our day, and bought some bottles of the special election root beer -- two of each candidate (we still like to pretend that our kids don't know who we vote for and can choose for themselves).
We went back to our room and caught the presidential candidates town hall-style debate. After it was over The Boy said that Obama had been like Lincoln and Romney had been like Douglas. I'm pretty sure that he had no freakin' clue what he was talking about. The Girl said that she didn't like "Romney's smirk." I'm not sure who she got that from.
From his hotel bed my son looked over at me -- apparently Romney's closing remarks had turned on a light bulb:
"Is Romney Mormon?"
"Yes."
Conflict. Suddenly Romney might not be the Douglas to Obama's Lincoln. We know a couple of those Mormons and some are okay. I said nothing and wondered what the next question might be.
"If you could have a super power what would it be?"
"To read minds. I think it would make me nicer if I knew where people were coming from."
"Mine would be to understand and talk to chickens."
