MICHAEL: The Last Hundred Miles (cont’d) – Girard, IL

Posted on August 28, 2026 by MileHighBug

Note: This is a very special, emotional post for us. Special thanks to the so many people who helped us through this very tricky period of our road trip. Without their time, kindness and generosity, we could not have picked up and continued this amazing journey.

Benjamin Fried
Maddie from Docs in Girard, IL
Maddie’s mom
Andrew Hagan, as well as his patient wife and children
Greg
Andrew’s dad
Craig & Myrna Bomkamp
Andrew’s mom, Helen Hagan

When we last left you, we were in Girard, IL. It was just after 3pm, we were full of delicious ice cream from Docs, and we had just taken a fun selfie at one of the iconic Route 66 signs, with the help of Girard’s ingenious little stand to hold your camera or phone. We got in the car.

That’s us in those 6’s. These signs are too much fun and they’re everywhere on Route 66!

“And we’re, movin’ on!”

Except, we weren’t. MICHAEL, our 21 year old car who’s very excited to be able to vote in the upcoming election, wouldn’t start. His oil and coolant were fine. He just wouldn’t start.

A few hours later, we were still sitting there in the little parking lot in the middle of the town square in the little town of Girard, IL. But all I could think is, “Traveling – the thing I love most in the world! It never fails to bring out and show us the best of the best that humanity has to offer.”

3:05pm We try to start MICHAEL, and he doesn’t start. “Hmmmm.” (As opposed to “Uh-oh,” because, well, let’s face it, MICHAEL’S already got a leaking head-gasket, and when it comes to him, we’re prepared for pretty much anything at any time.) Elliott and I try to diagnose what’s going on, given what we already know about his leaking head-gasket. Elliott comes up with a good-sounding hypothesis.

3:32pm We call our best friend Ben, who’s amazing at fixing pretty much everything (especially cars), to review Elliott’s theory. Ben has definitely had extensive experience fixing OUR car, MICHAEL, and starts giving us some instructions on how to test a few things, but we’re having trouble finding the parts under MICHAEL’S hood that Ben’s asking us to locate.

3:45pm Maddie, the daughter of the owner of Doc’s where we’d had that amazing ice cream, comes running outside to tell us she just noticed we’re still sitting here in the parking lot, and apologizes profusely for taking this long to figure out what that means. She’s already “texting her friend” to see if he can come help us! We later find out Maddie called her mom, who is the owner of Docs and is in Florida(!), to see if *she* could text the “friend” – the local town mechanic who is a regular at Docs.

4pm Andrew the town mechanic shows up and dives right in to diagnose what’s going on with MICHAEL. He tries starting MICHAEL, does several quick tests right in a row, and within minutes says he knows what tools he needs for further diagnosis and is going to run home to get them. Elliott is a little dumbstruck, asking, “Do you need anything from us, like a credit card?” Andrew assures him he doesn’t need a thing and we can settle up later.

Meanwhile, Greg, another local, comes by to see if we need help and stays to entertain us while Andrew continues working. When he mentions the local Whirl-A-Whip, he can’t believe the look on my face – these ice cream mixing machines faded out decades ago and after years of researching them and their whereabouts, the only one I found still in existence was in North Dakota! He asks if he can get anything for us, and when we say no, he insists on at least heading over there to confirm they’re open and get us a menu.

Greg has no idea this t-shirt is in my suitcase inside MICHAEL.

4:20pm Andrew comes back. It’s already drizzling rain, and he doesn’t say a word. When it starts raining harder, he pulls out a portable stand-up canopy to place over MICHAEL’S hood, and continues working.

The rain ain’t gonna stop Andrew from fixing Michael

He needs a part; the closest place that has it is 40 minutes away in Springfield. After a few calls to various people, Andrew tells us his DAD is going to pick the part up for us and bring it here.

Andrew works tirelessly to get the old crank shaft position sensor out of MICHAEL. Apparently it’s really jammed in there.

They really bury that crank position sensor

Eventually he gets it out and he and Elliott have time to shoot the breeze while we all wait. Andrew has four kids – 9, 7, 5, and 1 – and a wife at home, making chili for him for dinner. And he’s giving up his Saturday afternoon, to crawl into our 21-year old, 2005 Honda Accord.

5:45pm The new part arrives and Andrew goes to work for another hour and a half. After Andrew puts the new crank shaft position sensor in MICHAEL, he still doesn’t start. Andrew never shows any sign of giving up. After cleaning and then replacing the spark plugs (which he and Elliott have to go pick up at another auto parts store), Andrew finally does succeed in getting MICHAEL to start.

We’re all so psyched! Andrew has fixed the problem with the engine starting!

BUT – now there are huuuuuge clouds of white smoke coming out of the tailpipe.😔 Oh yeah, there’s now another, newer, terrible symptom of that leaking head gasket issue. We hope for the best, but the smoke doesn’t clear up. MICHAEL’s tailpipe continues emitting clouds of smoke for twenty minutes. Things are beginning to look REALLY bad, not only for our trip, but for poor MICHAEL.

We all agree there is only one thing left to try, which Andrew calls a Hail Mary.

It is too late to go anywhere anymore, and there are no hotels in town. Remember Maddie’s mom, the owner of Docs who is currently in Florida? She has already arranged with some locals to allow us to stay for free at their VRBO rental overnight! Maddie invites us back into Doc’s even though it is closing in 15 minutes and insists on feeding us dinner at no charge.

MICHAEL’S story, and the kindness of others, does not end there. That night after we ate, when we tried to leave Doc’s for the VRBO, MICHAEL would not start again. We were so sad.

Craig and Myrna, the kind VRBO owners, came and picked us and all of our stuff up, and took us to the HOUSE that they were going to let us stay in, until Thursday if needed (it was Saturday)!

On Sunday Andrew met us back in the parking lot at Docs, to clean the spark plugs again and try his Hail Mary: BlueDevil Head Gasket Sealer. It’s a chemical liquid sealant designed to permanently fix leaks in blown head gaskets, warped or cracked heads, and heater cores without clogging the engine. The problem is, it’s very hit-or-miss as to whether it will help, and even if it does help, it is just a temporary patch that might last a few months or a year, nobody seems to know.

We spent about two more hours on Sunday working on MICHAEL, got him running again, and all believed a mini miracle had occurred. He wasn’t smoking, he was starting up smoothly, several times in a row! Andrew said we’d need to drive a bit to see if our Hail Mary had worked.

We drove about a half hour more, to Litchfield, IL, before we started having even bigger problems. MICHAEL would randomly lose some power and start to slow down, all on his own. I kept thinking Elliott was downshifting while driving him, but he wasn’t.

Luckily we made it to a hotel – barely – where we called Andrew, who said he couldn’t think of any more ideas to extend MICHAEL’s driving life that would be worth the cost at this point. Maybe find a young engine from an old, totaled Honda Accord, and replace MICHAEL’s engine. But it would take time to find someone who could do this, to find an engine, etc.

We were sad, but knew we had to act quickly to avoid spending tons of money on lodging. The next day, we called AAA and had MICHAEL towed back to Girard, where he is currently residing at Andrew’s house. There were tears for all of us.

Andrew’s mom picked us up and drove us to St. Louis, 80 miles each way for her. We booked a flight using miles and flew home to Philly that evening and got the last train into the city. When the last bus for the night decided to pass right by us, Ben (that awesome guy we called when MICHAEL first wouldn’t start the day before) came and picked us up and took us home.

The very next morning, we left super early and drove ALL THE WAY BACK to Girard, IL in one shot in our other car, STELLA. It was very late when we got there, so we took Craig and Myrna up on their offer to let us stay at their VRBO house for another two nights. The next day we went to visit MICHAEL at Andrew’s house, and transferred all of our stuff from one car to the other.

We know we’re leaving MICHAEL in good hands with Andrew

Stella, Louie, and we say goodbye to MICHAEL as we prepare to continue our journey on Route 66

We’ll see MICHAEL again on our way back East on Route 66, but we’re not sure if we will be able to drive him home again. As we continue with STELLA on this Route 66 trip, we’ve thought and talked about all the amazing adventures we’ve had with him: our first cross-country road trip back in 2012, our eclipse road trip, trips to National Parks like Acadia and Great Smoky Mountains, our Great Lakes road trip (where we only *thought* his life was ending), our 50^th state road trip right after the pandemic, at least four trips to Florida, and probably more we can’t even remember right now! It’s been an amazing 21 years and he’s been the greatest car ever.

We had first been introduced to Girard, IL on Friday. It was now Thursday, almost a week later. And it looked like we were finally… movin’ on.

MICHAEL’S little sister STELLA, getting cleaned and debugged after the 16+ hour drive from Philly to Girard, IL.

Day 12: Girard to Litchfield, IL 41 miles

Day 13:
• MICHAEL Litchfield to Girard, IL 29 miles
• Us Litchfield to STL 64 miles
• Us STL-PHL 813.5 miles

Day 14: Devon to Girard, IL 930 miles
Day 15: Girard, IL 0 miles

And We’re… Movin’ On! The Last Hundred Miles – Chatham to Girard, IL

Posted on August 24, 2026 by MileHighBug

Day 10: Springfield to Carlinville, IL 50 miles
Day 11: Carlinville to Girard, IL 55 miles

It had taken us quite a while to traverse the First and Middle Hundred Miles of Illinois. Since there was nothing left in the bigger town of Springfield, Illinois that 1) we wanted to do, 2) was open that day, or 3) we would have enough time to complete before the closing time, we decided to head out around 6pm and get some driving in. As we drove along following our Illinois passport, we were really starting to feel like we were getting into a rhythm. We started a cute little saying together, whenever we finished with a stop, a site or a town. One of us would say, “And we’re…,” and the other would fill in,”movin’ on!”

We were right back to traveling through some more rural, small towns, appreciating the scenery. Now that we had been schooled about grain elevators in Atlanta, IL, we were able to recognize more modern grain elevators (as opposed to simple silos).

A grain elevator… so that’s what this is!

I’ve mentioned the different alignments of Route 66 that we’ve been traversing. What are those about, you ask? An alignment is just the actual roads designated as Route 66. As these changed over time, there were two or even three alignments passing through the same town. U.S. Route 66 was one of the original highways approved when the U.S. Numbered Highway System was established on November 11, 1926 but rather than being built from scratch as a brand-new road, it was completed by linking existing local and regional roads into a continuous highway. Many of the roads that were connected in the beginning, were dirt. After the Depression, more people had cars and were driving, and wanted straighter, faster roads and to bypass towns in some areas. ‘66 was not fully paved end-to-end until 1938, and by then, parts of it had already been bypassed by faster alignments in parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico!

So, back to the older alignments – some of them are solid concrete or even brick! We were especially psyched to drive on some of these old cement and brick portions of Route 66 in Auburn, IL.

Left: Solid brick, baby!
Top and Bottom Right: Louie and Michael are just as psyched as we are to see concrete meet brick

And we’re… movin’ on!

We passed through two different towns that evening, each with a destination we wanted to visit. Sly Fox Bookstore in Virden already closed for the day, and Docs Just Off 66 (ice cream!) in Girard closed early after only serving ten sets of customers the entire DAY. Bummer! We were quickly learning to adjust on the fly when things didn’t go as expected. The employee at Docs gave us a stamp in our passport book even though she couldn’t serve us dinner.

And we’re… movin’ on!

We continued driving, looking for places to eat and bed down for the night. We never found a place to eat that had food for me, which meant leftovers from the cooler for dinner! But we ended up finding what we thought was a cute little hotel in Carlinville, IL.

Left Top: It’s the CarlinVilla!
Left Middle: There’s wallpaper in here and our furniture looks like it did in the 80’s
Left Bottom: We’ve got a couch and comfy chair!
Right: This type of thing makes even your shower fun!

The next morning we checked out of our adorable little hotel and started driving south toward Gillespie, IL and Coal Mine Museum listed in one of our passport books as being open Saturday, closed Sunday. We arrived there 15 minutes later, only to find a sign on the door saying they were temporarily closed on Saturday, and open Sunday instead. The irony! Remember how I was *just* talking about adjusting on the fly? This is exactly the type of thing one learns not only to live with, but anticipate on this trip.

And we’re… movin’ on!

We reevaluated, turned around and headed back north toward the two places we had missed the previous day. Luckily, we were rewarded with some fun experiences.

On our way back through Carlinville we come across an outdoor market that pops up once a month. Hooray!

Stephanie wants a pig, Elliott wants an outhouse-slash-birdhouse-bathouse

And we’re… movin’ on!

We made it back to Sly Fox Bookstore, where everything was half price. We get to talking to the owner and learned he’s 82, just found out he has cancer and is about to start chemo treatments for it. Just, wow! Another reminder of how precious every moment of life is. We purchased a few gifts, told him to stay strong and take care. And as he thanked us, and I could hear the sincerity in his voice.

Wishing healing and good health for the owner

And we’re… movin’ on!

Back to Docs which was now open. We had some leisurely ice cream at the counter. This place was great! We looked around, ordered, took some photos, and watched a young girl make Elliott’s S’mores milkshake. We laughed at how she *didn’t* intentionally make a skull design out of the hot fudge. I slowly ate a dish of Malt 66, malt-flavored chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks that was just DIVINE.

Right: How is that NOT a skull milkshake??

We headed outside, got excited that this town’s Route 66 photo-taking sign also has a little stand to hold you camera or phone, and took a great selfie.

And we’re… movin’ on!

It was just after 3pm, and we had no idea the adventure that lay ahead of us over the next few days, but trust me… it’s coming!

Looking for Lincoln Amongst Jarring Giants: The Middle Hundred Miles (cont’d) – Atlanta to Springfield, IL

Posted on August 21, 2026 by MileHighBug

We were down to the last few towns of The Middle Hundred Miles of Illinois:

Atlanta
Lincoln
Elkhart
Springfield

Those last few towns packed a lot of punch!

We got up bright and early and began our sight-seeing, feeling excited. Atlanta, in my mind anyway, is the Home of the Giants! They seemed to be everywhere: inside the Atlanta Giants Museum, outside the Atlanta Giants Museum, inside the Giants Stop store and outside around town! The American Giants Museum was fascinating, as it celebrates the towering fiberglass “Muffler Men” of Route 66 with vintage exhibits and restored roadside giants.

After enjoying all the giants, we headed back to the grain elevator, which we’d seen from the outside the night before. As we were walking toward that part of town, we saw a sign inviting us into Atlanta’s octagonal library – how cool! We went inside and the librarian there was more than happy to show us around the little space, as well as to talk all about cross-stitch with Elliott.

The clock tower on the outside, and – can you see the octagonal roof?
You can see three of the eight sections here.
Even the table is an octagonal shape!
Elliott tells the librarian all about his cross-stitching business.

After we left the library we got to go inside the grain elevator we had seen from the outside the previous night. And we got excited to check out the historical coal mine next door – only to find out they never mined any coal there! Apparently no matter how hard and long they tried to hit the seam of cool below the ground there, they never succeeded, finding only water instead. At least the town eventually decided to put all that water to good use by using it as a municipal water source!

By this point in our trip, we’d learned that one of the big things to do in Illinois is to look for Abraham Lincoln-related sites. He’s everywhere, and people and visitor centers are constantly offering brochures, maps and magazines to help you find him! One of the places we knew we’d find him, of course, is in the town of Lincoln itself.

No joke – On this spot, Abraham Lincoln christened the town with the juice of a watermelon

We found a lot of Lincoln-related sites in Springfield. At the Lincoln Home National Historic Site we toured the house he and Mary lived in with his four boys before he became our President, and saw a few different places where he practiced law. Springfield is also home of the church the Lincoln family attended, and the cemetery containing Lincoln’s actual tomb.

Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s home from 1844-1861

We checked out a few different restaurants in Springfield – some just for stamps in our passports, some to eat. One of our favorite places to eat there was Cozy Dog Drive In. Unfortunately I couldn’t eat the hot dogs but Elliott swears they are delicious, and I enjoyed some tater tots!

Our hotel in Springfield, Route 66 Hotel, was a lot of fun too, as it was all about Route 66!

We also did a super cool tour of the Ace Sign Museum, a family-run sign manufacturing facility housed in a historic 1952 Sears warehouse. Our tour guide was Dennis, the current owner. His grandfather started the company in 1940! We got to see tons of neon and vintage roadside signs from Springfield and Route 66, as well as lots of other signs and types of signs. Dennis showed us the spaces where the signs are designed as well as created, and explained how the neon signs are made and the gases and coloring techniques that are used. We both thought it seemed like a fun place to work.

The only clear glass is the blue and red (#6 & 7)

The Ace sign company hand-bends their neon tubing

I love how Big Boy seems to be coming on our journey with us

If you look closely under 1933, you'll see a tiny 'Ace Sign Co'

This 16' Pepsi bottle cap is only a quarter inch thick

Yup! Some of them had Roman numerals (not really)

Cozy Dog and Steak n Shake lights up when your order is ready!

As we were finding in many towns, Springfield had a restored vintage gas station, which we checked out on our way out of town. Bill Shea ran this station in Springfield, IL from 1955-1982.

We went on a self-guided tour of the old capitol building, and a guided tour of the current capitol.

Left: The Old Capitol Building
Middle: Lincoln lay in state in the old capitol building
Right: This chain was carved unbroken from a single piece of wood. The hook is Lincoln dragging the South back into the union

Springfield had so much to do that we had to set aside a few things to do on our way home, whenever that will be!

Collecting Our Stamps: The Middle Hundred Miles – Chenoa to Atlanta, IL

Posted on August 18, 2026 by MileHighBug

Day 7: Dwight to Normal, IL 88 miles
Day 8: Normal to Atlanta, IL 31 miles

We were soooo excited to start “The Middle Hundred Miles,” as our Illinois 66 Passport book called them. We now had three – THREE! – passport books we could use to follow along, as well as the amazing map from Tom at The Shop in Gardner, showing the different Route 66 alignments in Illinois, and the corresponding range of years each alignment was in use. Since Elliott was doing most (ie. ALL) the driving, I was becoming one busy Navigatrix.

Each passport has sites to visit where you can get a stamp or a sticker

This Illinois Route 66 from Tom @ The Shop in Gardner was invaluable for finding all the 66 alignments

During the next few days, we would pass through the following Illinois towns:

Chenoa
Lexington
Towanda
Normal
Bloomington
Shirley
Funk’s Grove
McLean
Atlanta

Some of the towns were tiny, with fewer than three hundred people; others, like Bloomington, have over 78,000 residents! Many had just a few thousand.

In Chenoa we took just a single photo of a cool mural.

One of our favorite smaller towns was Lexington, with its historic 1-mile segment of original 1926 pavement (on Parade Road) named Memory Lane, lined with retro Burma-Shave signs and vintage advertisements. (Check out the slide show for the last photo below to see one of their ads!)

There was also a cool 11-foot-tall scrap metal elephant, created by local artist Kasey Wells. It’s core is built from a Standard Oil fuel tank and is covered in political and social commentary including historical references and critiques of corporate power and fossil fuels.

In Towanda, we came across Dead Man’s Curve, the site of many disastrous accidents from the late 1920’s through the 1950’s. The two-way original portion of Route 66 was only 16 feet wide and curved sharply, which threw off many travelers from Chicago, who were used to faster speeds. One house just beyond the apex of the curve had to replace its front porch many times due to damage from cars and trucks crashing into it. Its final demise came when a tractor trailer knocked it right off its foundation!

The red signs in the background have another (somewhat morbid) Burma Shave ad: Around the curve – Lickety split – It was a nice car – Wasn’t it?

In Normal, we found some delicious ice cream and our second Giant! Technically, it was our second and third giants.

We had a blast in Bloomington. We stopped at the Cruisin’ with Lincoln on 66 Visitors Center, and inside the same building, found the McLean County Museum of History. There was an enjoyable hands-on exhibit on Pioneers, another exhibit on Lincoln in McLean County, and then a sad and riveting exhibit on Asbestos. It turns out the corporations knew asbestos was deadly for decades and decades, and lied about it to employees, before they were exposed. Learning about this felt so important, and was a major downer on an otherwise fun-filled trip.

We went into a local game store (this was our second, as we’d found one back in Wilmington) and Ooooh’d and Ahhhh’d at all the exciting games we don’t have. We also got a recommendation there for what turned out to be a very special thrift store – the source of our travel buddy (and latest adopted kid)! For those of you who remember, we had added a task to our trip To Do list – to find a travel buddy. And that we did!

Introducing Louie! He’s going to join us on our travels

Miller Park Zoo was a fun afternoon diversion. We were sad to find out the program we wanted to see was canceled due to an employee going home sick, but we found plenty of other fun things to see and do there!

Does this snow leopard want to eat me, or does he want to play?

You’re a long way from the Galapagos Islands, Mr. Tortoise

In Shirley, where maple syrup is made, we picked up some tiny souvenir bottles, but it turned out it’s the wrong time of year to see the syrup being harvested 😦

In McLean we found a really nice man and his cool train collection at the McLean Depot Train Shop, housed in the former rail depot for the town itself. He said he gets good business from all the train aficionados in the neighboring towns. It was clear he loves fixing up and playing with all of his trains, and no matter how friendly he was, I felt a bit like we were keeping him from his toys!

I wasn’t allowed to touch this special one as a kid

Across the street was the Dixie Family Restaurant which excited me, since it had the first vegetarian pizza I’d seen since Chicago! There were also delicious beef and noodles for Elliott. Most exciting was learning about how this truck stop turned restaurant has been serving up homemade meals to travelers, truckers and Route 66 explorers since 1928! They had information about a whole slew of celebrities who traveled Route 66 including Elvis, Al Capone and The Eagles.

That night we made it to Atlanta, IL, where there was much to see and do, but NOT a lot open after dinner. We explored the J.H. Grain Elevator Museum from the outside, where we read all about what a grain elevator even IS! For those of you who are curious, it’s a place where farmers pay to have their grain stored before it is sold, which uses an elevator to raise the grain up to a particular bin for each farmer. Being city-slickers, we had no idea the difference between a silo and a grain elevator. What a cool invention and help the grain elevator was for farmers in this country!

It’s the state’s only fully restored wooden grain elevator open to the public.

We found a place close by to bed down for the night, so that we could start exploring the rest of Atlanta first thing the next morning!

Route 66 Roadschooling: The First Hundred Miles (cont’d) – Wilmington to Pontiac, IL

Posted on August 11, 2026 by MileHighBug

Day 6: Wilmington to Dwight, IL 35 miles

Did I mention that this year, 2026, is the 100^th anniversary of Route 66?! It was another great reason to drive Route 66 this year.

Early on in our trip, we learned that Route 66 got the name “Mother Road” from John Steinbeck in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. He referred to it as the mother of all roads because it served as a vital lifeline for families fleeing the Dust Bowl to find a new life in the West.

Over the next two days traveling from Wilmington to Pontiac, we went through a lot of little Illinois towns, and saw several things that each had to offer:

Wilmington – Rick’s Relics, The Landing Pad
Braidwood – The Polka Dot Drive-In, The Braidwood Zoo
Gardner – The Shop on Route 66, The Two Cell Jail, The Historic Streetcar Diner
Dwight – Ambler Becker Texaco Station, Old Route 66 Family Restaurant
Odell – Standard Oil Gas Station
Pontiac – Route 66 Hall of Fame & Museum, Pontiac-Oakland Automobile Museum

We really started getting a feel for what Route 66 would be like, and learned a lot…

1. MICHAEL still had steam left in him.

We’d been prepared that he just wouldn’t start again, that first morning in Wilmington. But he started right up! We did notice that throughout each day, the more we stopped and started him, the rougher he started. Poor guy. But he always tries his best and is no complainer.

Michael is having a ball in Odell despite his achy head (gasket)

2. In these little Route 66 towns, the beginning of the week can be pretty dead.

We found lot of places closed early on Sunday. A lot of it places closed altogether on Monday and sometimes Tuesday! We would have to keep this in mind each week going forward. In Wilmington, which we hit on a Sunday night, we still managed to find and enjoy three stores that were open. We bought some souvenirs and postcards, and Elliott bought me the perfect Route 66 bag.

Almost all the stores are closed in Wilmington on Monday.

3. We didn’t know it, but we were in desperate need of a travel buddy.

In Wilmington, we found a place called Rick’s Relics. It turned out it offered something even more interesting than a new Black Sabbath t-shirt for Elliott – conversation with Rick the owner! As we talked more and more, we discovered he’s done lighting for some big music acts over the decades, including Pink Floyd and Bruce Springsteen. When I asked him what it’s like to be a big international traveler in such a small town, he pulled out his phone to show us his travel photos – and his favorite travel buddy – ALF! Now why hadn’t we thought about that? We added a task to our trip To Do list.

Rick and ALF of Rick’s Relics (Rock and roll lighting tech to the stars)

4. Murals are a Route 66 “thing.” Giants are an even bigger (Ha! See what I did there?) Route 66 “thing.” There are also a lot of totally random “things” along Route 66.

Wilmington

Top: Typical city name mural in Wilmington
Bottom Left: A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
Bottom Right: Knee-high to a muffler man – Our first GIANT!

Braidwood

Left: Does this count as a GIANT?
Right: These fenced-in synthetic animals made up the only Zoo in Braidwood

Dwight

Pontiac

The mother ship is
calling Stephanie home

5. People along Route 66 are generous and kind. They love talking to you about your Route 66 road trip, and the more you talk about your trip, the more stuff they like to give you!

The woman working at The Landing Pad in Wilmington gave us our first “passport book,” Illinois 66, which would become our definitive guide throughout most of Illinois. It divides Route 66 in Illinois into the First, Middle and Last Hundred Miles, and contains all sorts of fun places to stop along Route 66 – restaurants, old/renovated service stations, museums, etc. Each time you stop at one, they stamp your passport! I’d seen the navy blue Mother Road Route 66 Passport book for purchase online back home, and a special Centennial Route 66 Passport, but hadn’t realized that due to the Centennial, there were passport books made for the states along the route.

She also gave us a sticker and pins!

Tom at “The Shop” in Gardner (read: collector of more Coke memorobilia then you ever imagine existed,) gave us a great Route 66 map with all of its alignments in Illinois, as well as a ton of brochures and recommendations on things to do in the upcoming towns. He took photos of us inside and outside of his shop. And he had both the regular navy blue and gold Centennial passport books for sale, so we picked up both of them! I was extra psyched since we hadn’t had time to order them at home and have them shipped from the Czech Republic in time for our departure date. (For some reason that’s where these Americana books are made.)

How many Coca-Cola products can you find?

At the Ambler Becker Texaco Station in Dwight, a married couple was volunteering to man the station and answer all of our silly questions that they’d probably already answered a hundred times that day. The husband happily offered to take our photo in the old fire truck they had there.

Left: At the Landing Pad (now a souvenir shop) in Wilmington
Right: 1914 Model-T fire engine at the Ambler Becker Texaco Station

6. There are way more things to do – and even small towns – along Route 66 than we could *ever* blog about. I guess you’ll just have to trust that we’ll show you the best of what we see! Here are some more highlights of these two days:

The Route 66 Polk-A-Dot Drive In in Braidwood was a real hoot. It has tons of fun statues outside.

It also still has original mini juke boxes at each table, with the following sign: “These little juke boxes are originals from all over the U.S., and we are happy to have them for you to enjoy, but we cannot guarantee they will play the song you selected.”
We put three quarters in our little table juke box and got five songs!

Bonus: There was an Elvis bathroom for the girls, and a Marilyn Monroe bathroom for the boys!

We also enjoyed Gardner’s Two Cell Jail and The Historic Streetcar Diner

Right: A tiny Elliott outside the streetcar window says, “Lemme in, I’m hungry!”

And we can’t forget the Pontiac-Oakland Automobile Museum. For those of you wondering, Pontiacs were NOT manufactured in Pontiac, IL!

Last but definitely not least, the outdoor stuff in Pontiac! It was HOT. We had a blast playing in Pontiac’s Splash Pad (they’re for adults too!), and on its three swinging bridges.

Day 7 wasn’t over yet – so more to come on that in the next post!

Cellblock Blues: The First Hundred Miles (cont’d) – Joliet to Wilmington, IL

Posted on August 9, 2026 by MileHighBug

Day 5: Joliet to Wilmington, IL 45 miles

Getting organized on a big loooong trip like this is no easy feat. The first few days, we found ourselves really struggling to leave anywhere at any kind of decent time. MICHAEL, our car, had done phenomenally well after overheating that first afternoon on the way to Pittsburgh – both on the 9+ hour drive to Chicago, and the 7+ hour drive to Joliet. But it was taking more time to take care of him each day, checking and refilling the coolant and checking the oil each morning, and stopping along the way to buy items from auto part shops that might help. We were still trying to track down some items that had been thrown somewhere in the last minute before we left PA, so there were several thorough searches of the car for things like missing toothbrush chargers and jam. In addition, we were still trying to find sites and things to do without using technology, which was getting kind of tough without any paper guides either!

We did get out of our hotel eventually. After the Great First-Night Hotel Debacle and the failure to find any kind of cool, kitschy motel, we had to drive a ways back from our La Quinta Inn in Tinley Park, IL, to Route 66 in Joliet. We spent most of the afternoon at the Old Joliet Prison, which was not only big, but easy to find;) The Old Joliet Prison served as a state prison from 1858-2002. We took a self-guided tour where we learned that the term “Big House” was coined from this very prison!

Being from Philly, we’ve seen Eastern State Penitentiary more than once and realized many years ago that for us, “Terror Behind the Walls” is how we’re feeling during our day tours of that place. We definitely don’t need to walk through the “haunted house” version that comes along every year at Halloween. We prepared ourselves for Joliet accordingly.

In addition to the typical, tiny little, scary-looking, I-hope-to-God-I’ll-never-have-to-be-in-one-of-these jail cells, and the even worse, How-does-anyone-ever-survive-being-in-here confinement cells, we saw and learned about some pretty interesting stuff here.

Some of the interesting stuff was *cool* stuff, some of it was very *un* cool.

Cool – There was a building called the Honor Dorm, where inmates with good behavior got to go and stay in cubes, rather than cells.

Cool – There was a pretty extensive library, with so many good books that prison visitors could come and check stuff out, and did so on a regular basis!

Cool – The men were allowed out to play baseball, and formed a team, which played other baseball teams in the area!

Totally Uncool – For 25 years, the female inmates, who were held in a separate building from the men, were only allowed to go outside once per YEAR! On July 4^th, the men would be confined to their cells and the women were marched through the courtyard and around the cistern, then back to their cells. Even after this restriction was lifted, the women were only allowed to go outside once per week.

Then there was the entertainment. Entertainment, at a prison, you say? For us kids of the 80’s, it was the fact that a scene from the Blues Brothers movie was filmed here in 1980.

Left: Some great artwork left behind after Blues Brothers Con in 2022
Right: How to get your clothes back

For those who are watching some more recent television shows, we also learned that Prison Break (TV Series, 2005–2017) used The Old Prison as the primary location for “Fox River State Penitentiary” in Season 1 and again in Season 2. We personally know nothing about it, but I bet a bunch of you think it’s groovy.

A few closing thoughts on the prison:

These #’s follow me everywhere – says Elliott. In reality, they are the opening and closing years for the prison.

After we finished touring the prison, we drove back to the Route 66 Park so we could check it out in the daytime – we actually read the signs with all the stuff to do in Joliet this time, and hunted down the original Dairy Queen. Unfortunately, the original Dairy Queen does NOT serve ice cream anymore. It looks like it’s being turned into a museum, but we couldn’t actually go inside

I look happy, but I’m really cranky that I can’t have ice cream here!

MICHAEL had been starting rougher and rougher all day long, and was sometimes taking a few tries to start now. It seemed to be worsening and I was getting nervous so we put some gas and fuel injector fluid into him. We also called our best buddy Ben (who might as well be a mechanic), did some research, and deduced that MICHAEL is having head gasket issues. This meant we should check the coolant and oil several times a day, and minimize how often we stopped and started him (tough task, on a road trip). We now knew every drive might be our last drive.

We gave MICHAEL a big hug and lots of encouragement, and decided to drive to the next town to see if we could find our kitschy motel. On our way out of Joliet we found another reminder that the Blues Brothers were here, and the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery.

Left: Look up! More Blues Brothers
Right: Note that Abraham Lincoln is NOT buried here.

Wilmington was not far away, and it did not disappoint! It was basically a one-block town.Just after some locals told that there wasn’t a hotel until the *next* town, Elliott spotted one right on our path! After calling and waiting for someone to show up, and asking them which room we’d be in so we could drive to it and park without stopping and restarting MICHAEL, we were able to check in and get settled.

Above: Our home for the night, and the Super Shine Motel.

Left: We get to open our door with an actual key!
Right: They went crazy with the interior decoarting:)

There was a cool live music festival in town, and a perfect-looking place to eat across the street from us. “Now,” we said, “We feel like we’re on Route 66!”

Just Say “Yes!!”: The First Hundred Miles – Chicago to Joliet, IL

Posted on August 5, 2026 by MileHighBug

After a couple of days of driving and visiting friends and family, we were psyched to start our Route 66 trip. We’d already done the following:

Day 1: Devon, to Pittsburgh, PA 370 miles
Day 2: Pittsburgh, PA to Oak Park, IL 558 miles
Day 3: Chicago 0 miles

We wanted to start our trip at the traditional “Begin Route 66” sign, at the corner of East Adams Street and South Michigan Avenue. (For the 2026 centennial, Chicago officially designated Navy Pier at 600 East Grand Avenue as the new symbolic starting point, which creates a pretty cool idea of driving Route 66 from “pier to pier.” Since it was never the historical starting point, however, we didn’t bother going there!)

Remember how we didn’t want to plan anything ahead of time or use modern technology? In order to do things the “old-fashioned way,” we had AAA print us TripTiks; the actual paper maps printed and bound into a little booklet. We hadn’t even looked at them – so that everything could be spontaneous and a surprise for us. Our host, who has lived in Chicago for almost 20 years, warned us that the TripTik didn’t appear to take us on *actual* Route 66, but put us on the interstate instead. We didn’t want that! So he and Elliott figured out how to follow the original Route 66 beginning with taking Ogden Avenue out of the city.

Enter the State of Illinois. As we drove away from the starting point sign and tried to follow the directions our friend had given us to and along Ogden Avenue, we realized there was sign after sign that said, “Historic Route 66,” with an arrow pointing in the direction we needed to go. It took us a while to realize that these signs were so clear and so prevalent, that we could just follow them, and we didn’t even need the TripTiks for Illinois!

It also took us a little time, as Elliott put it, to learn to say, “Yes!” We noticed that whenever we came upon something that looked interesting to one of us, and one of us asked the other one if we should stop and check it out, there was much hesitation and hemming and hawing. We’re not used to NOT being on some sort of timeline!! We decided to practice saying YES that very first day, and stopped at a couple fun places.

Our first stop was at Henry’s Hot Dogs. From the signage outside, it was obvious that this was exactly the type of thing we’d come looking for, and would be seeing a ton of along our route. Luckily I had set my expectations well for this trip based on my newer-in-life plant-based diet. Before we left I kept telling myself and others, “There are going to be all these cool and kitschy diners, and there’s going to be nothing I can eat, and I can’t wait!” Well, I guess I should have said there’d be nothing *healthy* to eat, and thank goodness I prepared myself to make a LOT of exceptions for dairy in my diet. Elliott got his hot dog and I ended up with fried mac & cheese bites. We didn’t forget the obligatory fries for two!

Our very first kitschy stop – Henry’s Hot Dogs

This meal is soooooo unhealthy – with fried mac & cheese bites

The next place to strike our fancy was Berwyn’s Toys & Trains, which was full of dolls, model cars, electric train sets, Lego, Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, and lots of other old-fashioned toys that you may remember from your childhood. It was like a slice out of time.

50’s design aesthetic – and it’s BERwyn here, not BerWYN

As we drove on, we concentrated on searching for signs so that we wouldn’t miss it when 66 took a turn. Trust me when I say this is no easy task, as Route 66 takes a LOT of turns! In addition, there are multiple branches of Route 66 called “alignments,” so you can drive the 1926-1930 route, for example, or stick to the 1940-1977 route. Sometimes there are even three alignments! The state of Illinois kept us mostly on track though, even close to Chicago. It was getting late in the day now but still light out, so we stopped for some Haunted Trails mini golf in Joliet. Who knew I’d have an amazing game that night and actually beat Elliott for once?!

We said YES! Haunted Trails mini golf in Joliet

Hole in one on the last hole means a free game for me!

Our last stop for the day was Route 66 Park, where there were cool signs about what to do in Joliet, a cool Route 66 photo spot, and ice cream (which is cool by nature)! But that’s not all – the Blues Brothers were on top of the ice cream building, and there was a man made of steel to represent the Joliet Iron and Steel Company that was once the second largest steel mill in the country. Since we hadn’t come across any hotels yet and it was now dark, we asked some locals about cool kitschy hotels coming up on Route 66, and they suggested a “group of chain motels near the interstate” – definitely NOT what we wanted!

We drove around for a while, and at some point realized we’d driven all over town and an hour and a half had sailed by! Neither of the two somewhat questionable-looking hotels we’d come upon had any vacancies, which was hard to believe, but true. So… unfortunately our first night on Route 66 did not pan out quite the way we hoped. We ended up staying at a La Quinta Inn about 20 minutes back the way we had come. Bummer! We decided it was just a one-off and set our hopes high for going forward.

Day 4: Chicago to Joliet, IL (and then to Tinley Park, IL to sleep!) 102 miles

Route 66, Here We Come…

Posted on August 3, 2026 by MileHighBug

After moving back home from Ecuador in 2017, we started to slow our incredibly intense traveling pace, and at some point, our blogging as well. As I write this, I’m looking back and realizing it’s been exactly five years since we published our last blog post!

But when 2026 began, and we took a week out of our Florida Snowbird trip to visit Merida, Mexico, I was once again hit with the travel bug. And the Route 66 trip we’d been talking about for the previous five years or so, turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. After much discussion about how to do things, some “ground rules” for this trip, and a few delays, we began our trip on Wednesday, July 22, 2026.

First, the ground rules.

Starting with Spontaneity. We’re blessed, have been lucky, and have traveled a lot. But we’ve always planned it to some degree – maybe not in detail, but there’s always been a destination we had to get to by a certain point. This time, we decided to plan absolutely nothing for our time driving on 66. No research ahead of time! The one exception to planning ahead was for our “pre-trip” out to Chicago, where Route 66 begins: we made plans to stay with friends and family along the way.

The second ground rule was about Technology. We decided to do things the “old school” way – paper maps only. To find things to do by seeing them on the road, talking to people and taking their recommendations, or following the Route 66 “passport books” we were given our first few days. When we’re tired each day, we start to look for hotels on the side of the road. If we can’t find them, we drive around a bit, maybe ask someone at a local establishment. If we drive more than 1.5 hours and still can’t find something, then maaaaybe we look on our phones.

The third ground rule was easy to agree on: No toll roads, and once we start Route 66, avoid Interstates whenever possible.

By the way: We’re driving MICHAEL, our 2005 Honda Accord, for our Route 66 trip. Before we left home, he had 215,000 miles and a new set of axles, as well as a (mostly) “clean” bill of health from our mechanic. Well, as clean as a bill of health can be for a 105 year (in car years) old guy. We knew he had a slow oil leak and a slow coolant leak, and he’d overheated a few months ago. But after spending a month plus at the doctor (mechanic), the workers there had driven MICHAEL over 100 miles and had been unable to reproduce the overheating issue. After we brought him home, he took us numerous times to the Jersey Shore and we’d had no issues whatsoever. So, we were good to go, right?

MICHAEL, back in 2005, when he was just a baby!

Our first day of driving took us to Pittsburgh. It’s REALLY hilly there, and MICHAEL was working overtime to try and get us there. Before we even got to our destination, we started having car trouble. MICHAEL overheated a few times and at one point he was so hot that we had to pull over on the side of a bridge, just ten minutes from our destination. We checked his coolant and it was low – we checked his oil and it was crazy low – and we felt terrible. What awful parents we are! Here we’re taking our very old car on a very long, difficult road trip, and we’re not even on top of his preventative maintenance. The next day when we checked his tire pressure we were beating ourselves up even more as we read the low, low numbers. No wonder he couldn’t keep up! When we finally got to our friends’ place, we let him rest overnight and vowed to take better care of him for the rest of the trip.

In Pittsburgh we stayed with friends we’d met in a hot tub at a hotel in Kauai, Hawaii, in 2012. We’d visited them a couple of times before but hadn’t seen them since 2019. Wow – one night was definitely not enough! We’ll definitely be bugging them again on the way home.

Nancy, Gregory, Stephanie and Elliott – Since we forgot to take a photo this time, here’s one of us from 2019!

The next day we had to drive about nine hours to Chicago. We had zero car problems! We were still worried but feeling ever so slightly better. MICHAEL would at least get to start our Route 66 trip with us.

In Chicago we stayed with family we don’t get to see very often, and it was such a joy. We stayed with Phil & Sandy, their dog Sunshine, and their three cats, Cosmos, Tinkerbell, and Gilly. We ate a delicious Thai meal made by our hosts, and promptly informed them they need to start a restaurant. (Why didn’t we take photos of the food?) The next morning we took a walk around the neighborhood of Oak Park where they live, and checked out a bunch of homes built by Frank Lloyd Wright (unfortunately we didn’t take any photos of those either). We went out for Chicago style deep-dish pizza at a place called Lou Malnati’s, had ice cream at Petersen’s, and then did an architectural tour by boat on the Chicago River!

Fun finds on our morning walks – Errol J Kirsch house in a style called Brutalism

Our hosts Sandy & Phil took us on an amazing architecture tour!

Saturday morning we got ourselves ready, filled MICHAEL’S tires, and headed to the starting point for Route 66…

100, 100, 100 Countries!

Posted on August 1, 2021 by MileHighMan

Stephanie and I are what I’d refer to as goal-oriented. Even when we’re not trying to set new goals, we both constantly seem to be pinging ideas off of one another.

“Maybe we should go to all the National Parks in the country!”

“How about visiting every animal from the Philadelphia Zoo in its natural habitat?”

So it was no surprise when I was in my mid-thirties, and we realized we had been to quite a few countries, that we came up with the idea of visiting 40 countries by the time I turned 40. Once we reached that milestone, we came up with the added goal of getting to 100 countries by the time I turned 50! All seemed to be going well until this whole COVID Pandemic grounded us. We thanked our lucky stars that our biggest problem during the pandemic would be not achieving one of our travel goals.

Well, it turns out that we achieved several goals so far in 2021 that we are really proud of – some travel-related, some not. So, we’re naming this year…

THE YEAR OF THE STONES

No, not the Rolling Stones. (What is this, 1962?)

We’re talking about milestones here! And for some cool reason they all revolve around the numbers 50 or 100. Let’s review, shall we?

MILESTONE 1 – Like a fine wine: better with age

To begin with, I’m about to blow your mind by revealing that I actually did turn 50!! I know, right!? You thought I didn’t age, ever. I can’t really believe it myself. I don’t feel it and I sure don’t act like it.

That one was a freebee, but we had to work for the rest of them.

MILESTONE 2 – Like Schrödinger’s Cat: existing in multiple states

If you read this post, you know that we visited our 50^th state this year. Just passing through didn’t qualify for our count or we would have added New Mexico to the list almost eight years earlier. For each state, we spent at least one night there and visited something unique and local to that state.

Some of the highlights include:

Digging for diamonds in Arkansas (see photo below)
Eating a squirrel in Mississippi
A haunted ghost tour in Georgia (see photo below)
Learning to hang glide in North Carolina (video)
Accidentally startling bison in North Dakota
Snorkeling in Hawaii (see photo below)
Seeing bear cubs in the wild in Wyoming
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio (see photo below), and of course…
Living in Pennsylvania!

Looking like a true prospector in Arkansas

Savannah Ghost Tour

Elliott’s magic fish card in Maui

We’re gonna spend the day rockin’ in Cleveland

MILESTONE 3 – Like an electric car: Sales are up!

For those of you who may not know, I have a cross stitch design business called The Manly Art of Cross Stitch. I love cross stitching, and designing my own charts has been fun and rewarding. This year, I reached 100 sales. (Actually, at the time of this publication, I am at 117 sales!) Most of my charts are rock and roll related, and I have some great ideas coming! If you’d like to be part of it, you can like my business on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ManlyXS or on Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/TheManlyArtOfXStitch.

(EDIT – 7/22: I now have my own website at http://manlyxs.com. Stop on by!)

Here are some of my best sellers…

A is for Aerosmith

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

Metallica – Nothing Else Matters

Duran Duran – Rio

I’m comin’ for ya, Buffy!

MILESTONE 4 – Like Carmen Sandiego: Where in the world are we now?

The whole reason we started this blog was to share our love of travel with you. Thanks to Stephanie’s “little” hobby of earning us airline miles and hotel points without actually traveling, we have been lucky enough to visit many places in the world. And even with the long hiatus from leaving the USA during this pesky pandemic, this year, we somehow *did* manage to visit our 100^th country!

But you have to say it like this: VIDEO – Brewster’s Millions

We celebrated on our last night in Slovenia – our 100^th country. We found a charming restaurant with outdoor dining, fittingly named Sokol after our guide in Albania. After all, he was with us when we started our last trip in order to get to 100! The quality of the food, drink and the ambiance were all up to par on this very special occasion.

Traveling the world has been an adventure the likes of which we never could have predicted. We have been to all seven continents, eaten some unusual food and taken some risks. We have friends all over the globe now and have learned a lot about ourselves, the world and the people in it.

We like to get a souvenir magnet from every place we stay overnight. It’s always fun to be reminded of places we’ve visited. Here’s what our fridge currently looks like.

I think there's room for more — I think there’s room for more

P.S. There is one more milestone we’re hoping to celebrate in 2021. We’ll be sure to share it with you if and when we do!

We Ljove Ljoo Tjoo!

Posted on July 28, 2021 by MileHighMan

We really were going to come straight home from Split – one of the reasons we chose to visit Split was because it was really hard to get flights home from Serbia and Bosnia, and easy from Croatia – but someone pointed out to us that Slovenia was Right. Next. Door. (Okay, so technically it’s right *above* Croatia.) How could we not extend our Balkan adventure one more time? We were back to doing everything on our own, so we booked an overnight bus to Ljubljana.

The name of Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana (LYOO-blee-YAH-na), means beloved (hence the title of this entry), and the old town can be summed up in one word:charming. As we walked to our Airbnb in the pedestrian-only Old Town, there was plenty to see in the sleepy, early morning.

The first stop – Prešeren Square is named after 19^th century poet France Prešeren. This is the focal point of historic old town, and has some famous landmarks including a church (Surprise!), and the Triple Bridge. The Baroque-style Franciscan Church of the Annunciation was originally built in the 17^th century. The triple bridge, which actually contains three divided walkways over the river, was built in 1929 to allow more foot traffic over the older bridge that had served as a critical crossing point over the Ljubljanica River. (Now that you’ve been following all of our Balkan adventures, you already know that it’s pronounced LYOO-blyah-NEE-tsa, right?)

Panorama of Prešeren Square (that building really is curved)

The Ljubljanica river — Poet France Prešeren

Upon crossing the bridge, we saw Ljubljana Castle looking down on the city from high on its hill. We’d be visiting it later, but for now there was more, including Mestni Trg (Town Square), the Central Market – a weekend flower and produce market, and Butcher’s Bridge, covered with locks placed there by couples who want their love to last.

Ljubljana Castle

Mestni Trg (Town Square) and Robba Fountain

Central Market

Love locks on Butcher’s Bridge

We also saw the famous Dragon Bridge. Each corner of it is guarded by a fierce (yet kinda cute) copper dragon.

We took it easy on our first day as Stephanie still wasn’t feeling so great, but I did get out to check out the Odprta Kuhna (Open Kitchen). This weekly street food market has local cuisine as well as food from around the world.

Sounds like good advice

Pizza

Paella

Give it to me baby!

I opted not to try any food. It wouldn’t do to sample some delicious schlrgzmrgrnbrzn (or something) if Stephanie couldn’t have it too, so we just rested up for our visit to…

THE CASTLE!!

It wouldn’t be a Balkan city without a castle to explore, and this one started off with a funicular ride up the hill to the castle at the top. Our ticket also included an escape room-type game where we had to search the castle for clues in order to rescue Ljubljana’s famous dragon. After successfully completing our mission, we had time to explore the castle itself. From up on the turrets to down in the dungeons, from the Chapel of St. George, to the castle grounds, we saw it all while learning about Ljubljana’s history.

VIDEO – Funicular to Ljubljana Castle

Castle panorama from the turrets

Tower from the original 12th century castle

The princess in her castle

Medieval plate armor and longsword

Chapel of St.George

Not sure what this is about, but I like it

On our final full day, we had to take time time out of our busy sightseeing schedule to get a pesky PCR test in order to be allowed back into the States. Apparently, our U.S. vaccination cards along with proof that we had had COVID-19 a few months prior was not enough to grant us access. The testing site was a lovely 45 minute walk from where we were staying, so walk it we did. We even took a few photos of the sites along the way.

This region is famous for lavender

Hansel & Gretl-y looking church

Elliott holds up the gumdrop tree

Later that afternoon we went inside St. Nicholas’s Church, also known as Ljubljana Cathedral with its ornate, Baroque interior. We had to wait a bit for it to open after a mass let out, so we sat soaking up the ambiance in Prešeren Square, listening to a local musician play accordion, and watching a trio of little girls perform an impromptu gymnastics show. We were also hoping to get inside the Church of the Annunciation (behind the Triple Bridge shown in first set of photos), but it wasn’t opening until much later, and Stephanie was super low on energy.

Ljubljana Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

The organ

The ceiling

It had been a full month in the Balkans, and while we thoroughly enjoyed it, we were ready to come home. As we say goodbye, our counts for the region rest at 8 countries, 15 castles, and 57 religious sites. Whoa! That was a tour alright. 🙂

MileHighDuo Meets the World

Making the world smaller one country at a time

MICHAEL: The Last Hundred Miles (cont’d) – Girard, IL

And We’re… Movin’ On! The Last Hundred Miles – Chatham to Girard, IL

Looking for Lincoln Amongst Jarring Giants: The Middle Hundred Miles (cont’d) – Atlanta to Springfield, IL

Collecting Our Stamps: The Middle Hundred Miles – Chenoa to Atlanta, IL

Route 66 Roadschooling: The First Hundred Miles (cont’d) – Wilmington to Pontiac, IL

Cellblock Blues: The First Hundred Miles (cont’d) – Joliet to Wilmington, IL

Just Say “Yes!!”: The First Hundred Miles – Chicago to Joliet, IL

Route 66, Here We Come…

100, 100, 100 Countries!

We Ljove Ljoo Tjoo!