Didn’t do much. Got to Lake Tahoe and checked into Bally’s. Actually watched the Michigan game for most of the evening. Went to the casino and won $57! That’s about it for the first night. Tomorrow is the drive on America’s Lonliest Road from here to Ely, Nevada. I will post the results tomorrow night.
Well, here I go again! I leave tomorrow for another cross country drive in my Vette. The journay will start here and end in Ocean City, Maryland, most likely all the way on Highway 50. It’s called the “America’s Lonliest Road.” There are long strips of pretty much nothing as I understand. However, I believe there are a lot of old diners, motels, and other historical places along the way. Apparently there is no cell service on some of it, but my car has OnStar so I can call and receive calls with that in the event there is no cell service.
So, hopefully I will be able to post a lot of interesting stories and pictures as I did on Route 66 last year. For those of you that followed then, let’s hope this will be fun as well.
Thanks for following!
I left home August 30th and returned yesterday, September 30th. My estimate of one month was pretty accurate huh?
First of all, thanks to you that have followed my blog. It was really fun to do plus it helped me memorialize the adventure. The trip was everything and more that I expected. Route 66 was so cool. Of course I couldn’t see everything as that would probably take months. But I saw so many interesting historical sites and towns. Still, the best part of the trip was meeting the people. If you have followed, then you have seen the pictures and descriptions. Those were just some of the people I met. In some cases, I simply got caught up in conversations and forgot to take their picture and in other cases I didn’t have a chance to ask if it was ok to post their picture. Everyone on my blog gave me permission.
My feelings are a little mixed right now. It’s great to be home and sleep in my own bed and just have the comfort of the home which I love so much. Buddy was waiting for me when I got home and we both were very excited to see each other. We went for along walk and then came home to just hang out for awhile before unloading my car. Buddy sat on my lap for a long time and kept looking up at me as though he couldn’t believe I was home. (I’m sure that is what he was thinking. Here is a picture of him doing that:
Paula is coming up this afternoon for the weekend so I am very excited to see her too. Tomorrow we are getting together with my kids and grandkids to celebrate birthdays, another reason I’m excited.
So, I am coming home to the people (that includes Buddy 🙂 ) I love and actually looking forward to going back into the office to continue with the work that I enjoy so much. No gray area there. However, I have feeling I can’t quite describe. Maybe melancholy? I looked up that word and it said it’s a state of mind, not an emotion, so maybe that works. The state of mind I am in is really, really positive though. There is a great feeling of accomplishment in traveling across the country alone. While I don’t have a lot to prove to myself at age 78, I gained a new level of confidence.
Something else happened on the trip that I am really going to try to maintain. From the start, I decided to not watch the news and to not discuss politics with anyone. In fact, I did not want to know anyone’s political views. I just wanted to meet people one on one as human beings, not as Democrats, Republicans, right wing, left wing, etc. Our country is so divided now and I have to admit it has impacted me in ways that I don’t like. My guess is that many of the people I met would have very different political views than mine if I asked them. There was only one situation where politics came up and I steered the conversation in a different direction. Speaking for myself, and others I have discussed this with, I have tended to judge people when I find out they have radically different opinions than mine. I’m sure a lot of people judge me the same way. So, while I will hold onto my beliefs, I will not try to change anyone’s views to match mine. It never works anyway does it?
I’m already thinking about other trips I want to take. Most of my trips will be with Paula in the future as I wouldn’t want to travel alone all the time. But I’m pretty sure I will take some trips in my Corvette alone (unless I can convince Paula to drive it.) Paula and I have been talking about going to Greece for years now and that trip has been postponed because of the pandemic. But now I really want to see more of the country first. While I drove over 6,000 miles I still only visited 11 states. If my math is correct, that leaves 39 more to see.
My Corvette received way more compliments than I did on the trip. Virtually every time I stopped for gas, someone would comment on my car. One of the common questions after telling me how cool my car was, had to do with gas mileage. Virtually everyone thought it used a lot of gas. When I told them the mileage the car gets, I think it was met with some skepticism. So, if any of you are skeptics, here are the readings for the entire trip:
As you can see, for 6,575 miles the car averaged 26 mpg. That included highway and in town miles of course, including sitting in traffic a lot due to construction.
When I told people the car gets over 30 mpg on the freeway, they were either surprised or just thought I was exaggerating. So I decided to see just how much mpg I could get if I drove in the Eco mode at the speed limit. Here are the results of driving 50 miles that way:
Finally, the name contest. While all the entries were great, IONAVET is the winner. So Brad Boyer gets the $50 gift card. One of the reasons for the choice is it will fit on a personalized license plate if I ever decide to do that. However, the Rivas kids deserve a second place prize, so Ashley, send me your email and I will send them a $50 gift card to share.
So, I guess this is my last post. Thanks again for joining me on this amazing journey.
John
So, today was my last full day on my adventure. Tomorrow is pretty much a direct drive back home. I’m excited to see my dog buddy tomorrow and Paula is coming up to my house Friday!
In the meantime, I had a great day today. As I posted earlier, I was headed to the Bonneville Salt Flats, with the hope of driving my car really fast. (What is that saying: The difference between men and boys is the size of their toys)
As it turned out, there were races going on so I could not drive my car really fast on the actual track. But, I went out onto the flats and did some donuts! I have never done donuts in my life even though I started driving when I was 5 years old. (Really.)
So I drove out onto the flats and saw this couple and decided to stop to see if they would take some pictures of me out there. As has been the experiences I have experienced. ( Kind of a double something here huh?)
Monica and Eway were walking on the flats so I drove up to them and asked if they would take a picture of me with my car on the flat. They were so nice! Eway, I really think you should get a Vette. So, here are some pictures: This is Monica and Eway: (That is a pretty cool car behind them huh?)
I don’t do well with selfies but here is one:
Monica took a video of me doing donuts, but I can’t put a link here that would work.
I went out to the Bonneville raceway to see if I could drive my car really fast (Remember the size of toys?)
This is probably not a great picture of I wanted to show the pits where the people racing were:
Me with the sign:
I walked around the pits looking at all the cool cars, and these guys saw me gawking and waved me over. Jim Knapp is apparently a famous fast car guy so I got to talk to him and Bear, his partner. Their goal is to get this car up to 502 Miles per hour. These guys were so patient with my naïve questions.
Here is a picture of them:
As it turned out, it was probably good that I couldn’t drive my car on the track. Jim said I would never be able to get the salt out of my car.
So, everyone, this might be the last official post of my trip, unless I run into another cool experience tomorrow.
If it is the last one, thanks for following. This trip has been an amazing experience for me. It has been everything and more that I expected/
OK, I am leaving Evanston, Wyoming in a few minutes heading to the Bonneville Salt Flats. My hope is to drive my Corvette there. The website indicates it can be done but I’m not sure about the procedure. If I can do it, I will obviously post pictures.
This has been an amazing trip, but I do miss everyone. Here are a couple that I certainly miss:
Paula’s sister and brother in law live in Denver so I stopped and spent two night with them. They took me up to the Rocky Mountain National Park. The colors are starting to change so here are some pictures:
Here is one Aspen (Not the one in the blue shirt)
Here is Deb and Mike. Thanks you two for a nice time.
We had breakfast in Estes Park and saw several elk on the way in. But for the rest of the day I couldn’t find one standing to take a picture. So, here is the one I finally took:
On my way home to Sacramento, I had another nice encounter. I stayed in North Platte and went for a walk. About a quarter mile from the hotel, I saw this brewery:
I decided to stop and have a beer and some pub grub and ended up spending time with a nice group of people. Here is Kevin, Grace, Lee and Sandy:
The servers were also very nice. Here is Missy and Tonya:
This isn’t part of the brewery visit, but I had to show this picture. Here is one of the blades from the windmills. (That’s me standing at the bottom) I knew they were big, but wow, this was amazing.
Wow, what a cool city! I could do a blog with just the pictures of our experiences here. To repeat, Shelby and I drove over from Michigan on Tuesday and checked into the Cambria hotel right in the heart of the theater district in the Loop. It’s where I stayed at the end of my Route 66 trip.
We have had an amazing time, which is not quite over yet. Tonight we are going to a dinner theater Broadway play. As it turns out, the theater is actually here in the same building as our hotel. We just need to take the elevator down from our rooms on the 17th floor to the 14th floor. The play is called Teatro Zinzanni. I will let you know how we like it in a later post.
So, here goes. Yesterday we did a river cruise that featured the architecture of Chicago. Really, really interesting.
Sears building on river cruise
There are tons of pictures from this architecture cruise but this is one of the most famous building in Chicago. It’s not actually caused the Sears Tower any longer as that company is not quite what it used to be. (Thanks a lot Amazon!)
The cruise was the next day, but we had to get some Chicago style deep dish pizza the first night:
There are tons of deep pan pizza places in Chicago but this was recommended by Richard, the security guard at our hotel. Great recommendation. This is Gregorio. Shelby and I sat at the bar and he was wonderful.
Since I am a man of the world and am extremely knowledgeable about the different cultures of the world, I immediately tabbed Gregorio as a native of Italy. (He was born in Mexico.:) ) He actually recommended the architectural river cruise to us.
So, last night was the Cubs at Wrigley Field! If you have even a tiny bit of knowledge about major league baseball, you have heard about the legend of Wrigley Field and the Cubs. Now, Shelby and I are Detroit Tiger fans living in California but still appreciate the history of some of the other teams.
As always on this trip, we met great people. Rob was the usher that showed us not only our seats but gave us some history of the Cubs. The other man in the picture is Bruce. He is a veteran that is involved with recognition for vets at the games:
Look at this scene at Wrigley Field right before sunset:
OK, I am finishing this Chicago post in my hotel room in Des Moines, Iowa on Friday night, so this will complete the chicago post.
The show last night was amazing!!! We had front row seats in a theater in the round. No exaggeration, our table was literally 3 feet from the stage. From the moment we sat down the entertainment started. Everyone, including the servers were involved.
Here is a picture taken before the show:
Shelby at the table: They gave us masks and other costume items:
Shelby had a bad cold so she stayed in her room to rest up for the dinner theater, so I walked around Millennium Park and all around the area within a couple of miles of our hotel. Here are some pictures of the park:
Amazing park:
I like clever names for businesses. Here is the porta potty business in the park: Get it?
I walked back to the Route 66 sign again:
While walking around, I ran across this hotel. I am almost certain this is the hotel where we stayed for our senior trip in 1960. Could you classmates, if reading this, confirm this is where we stayed?
I found this bakery/coffee shop just a block from the hotel where I got Shelby some chicken noodle soup yesterday, (what a nice Dad huh?) and had breakfast there yesterday and this morning. (No biscuits and gravy though!) I met the man in this picture, Dennis, who is in a half way house in Chicago trying to get back on his feet, but they don’t offer meals there. So I bought him breakfast both days. He told Shelby her Dad was a nice man, so of course I had to include him. 🙂
So, that was Chicago. I can’t wait to go back to spend more time there as there is just so much to see. Great city.
I’m not sure what other posts you will be seeing. Today was hundreds of miles of corn fields in Iowa and my guess is you would not have a lot of interest in that. Let’s see what the rest of the trip brings.
Shelby and me at Wrigley Field:
More from Wrigley Field:
This is just a short post to show some Michigan family member.
Here are some pictures of the son and grandchildren of my late niece Jana. She never met her grandchildren but I know she would have wanted me to share them with you:
Justin and Jack
Jack is named after my late brother in law. One of the greatest guys I ever knew.
Here is Jack with Joslyn, his little sister. (I hope all you grandparents out there are indulging me with these pictures. While they aren’t my grandchildren they are special to me because of my late niece and brother in law. And of course, my sister Jennie, who is still here!)
I thought it might be interesting, and fun for me, to put together a summary of my Route 66 adventure. While I still have almost 2 weeks before I get back to Sacramento, and there will be more posts, I thought a summary of the actual Route 66 highway would be appropriate.
August 30, 2021:
Drove to Tom and Vall’s home in Rancho Palos Verdes to spend the night and prepare for trip. A great way to kick it off was dinner with Tom, Vall and Steve, all good friends for decades. Here we are again:
I arrived in Lake Havasu City on the evening of August 31st, in preparation of seeing the London Bridge, certainly to be the highlight of my trip. 🙂
From there, I headed to the Grand Canyon for 2 days and nights. Some pretty cool pictures there:
Sunrise at Grand Canyon:
Sunset:
Sunset
Of course, the beset part, the nice people I met there:
Slav and Viktoryia
More:
Jimmie and Julie (How Jimmie, how is OSU doing?
From the Grand Canyon, the next stop was the meteor crater:
While the crater was spectacular, meeting the Rivas family was the highlight. Such a great family:
Well, I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, And such a fine site to see. It’s a girl my lord, in a flatbed Ford, Slowin down to take a look at me.
Glen Frey and me
Next the Wigwam Motel:
Giant Rabbit and Tony, the owner: (That’s me on the rabbit, owner picture coming up:
Tony, the owner:
Remember when I made a wrong turn in Hobart and lost the Petrified Forest? At least I got a picture of the dinosaurs. (Much more interesting than a bunch of old, dead wood don’t you think?
Albuquerque was next. I ended up spending two days and two nights there as I had to find some medical help for my pain. Fortunately, I found a great urgent care facility and was prescribed some Prednisone. Much better sleep after that.
Here are Rod and Lisa, a nice couple I met at dinner in Albuquerque: (Another Ohio State fan that was disappointed the next week vs. Oregon. I feel really bad for them they lost their second game in about a decade. 🙂
Rod and Lisa
On to Santa Fe where I met Sandy:
Sandy
Amarillo was next, which was now September 9th. This was the beginning of my biscuits and gravy breakfast routine. (It looks much more appetizing in person)
Amarillo is also the location of the Cadillac Ranch:
Cheryl and Lorie, who work at the gift shop:
At the Cadillac Ranch I met Slater and Bronson. Slater was driving a 1950 Ford from Massachusetts to California. Nice guy and really cool dog. (On second look, maybe Bronson was driving)
Amarillo, mileage wise, is about half way between Santa Monica and Chicago, so in looking back, I spent a much larger percentage of my days on the first half of the miles, but there was still a lot more to come and more great people to meet. When I started this summary, I was a little surprised I had only made it half way in the time, but then remembered I spent two days at the Grand Canyon, which is off of Route 66, and then an extra day at the urgent care facility.
So, on to Shamrock and a wonderful experience. If I didn’t mention it before, this town really reminded me of “The Last Picture Show” movie. It was filmed in a Texas town that I thought could have been Shamrock. It wasn’t, but still a really fun visit.
I stopped at a local restaurant to have lunch and met these wonderful people:
Christina and Perla. Christina was the server and Perla the cook. Great tacos!
Marisol and Perla. Marisol is the owner of the Lepruchan.
They directed me down the street to the gas station where the scene from the movie Cars was filmed:
Chad and Jenna, making a trip to raise money for cancer research:
Here is Patsy and Betsy, who work at the gift shop at the gas station. Really cute ladies.
Shamrock was one of the unexpected pleasures of the trip. However, as I wrote that, I realized that a lot of my adventures were unexpected, since I didn’t know really know what to expect.
Then I stopped at the Route 66 Museum, with the world’s largest Route 66 sign: So I was now in Oklahoma.
At the museum, I met fellow Corvette owners, Ron and Nadine. They own a Corvette the same color as mine. The little “It’s a small world” item is their daughter goes to Adrian College in Michigan, where my short lived college basketball career took place.
Maxine ran the gift shop at this museum. (Have I mentioned a bought a couple of souvenirs on the way?)
Here is the next museum I stopped at, and had another amazing interaction with a nice person. This is the Heart of Route 66 Museum in Oklahoma:
Here is where I met Loretta. As a review, or new information if you haven’t followed the blog, here is what happened. When I pulled up to the museum, I hit a cement barrier and thought I had really scratched the front of my car. You can imagine how that made me feel. Frustrated with my self primarily. But I went into the museum anyway, and am so happy I did. I told Loretta what had happened, and here is what she did:
She told me about this auto polish she had and that she wanted to try to rub out the scratches. It turned out great as the scratches were surface and she fixed it!! Amazing thing for a stranger to do for someone else. Here is a nicer picture of Loretta:
In addition to being so helpful, Loretta also was very interesting. She was born in France and French is her first language. No offense meant to the state, but I wasn’t expecting someone like her in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma has some weird tollroads as you have to pay to get off to visit some of the towns. But I got to meet Karen, Regina and Alex at the toll booths:
Alex
Karen:
Regina:
By the way, several of you have asked about that polish Loretta used: Great Stuff obviously.
As written earlier, I missed a lot of historic things on Route 66 in Oklahoma as had lost some time due to wrong turns and decided to go on to Springfield Missouri, which was another incredible experience.
Here is Becky. She runs the breakfast room at the Comfort Inn and this was the best breakfast on the entire trip. Her biscuits and gravy were simply the best. Keep in mind, by this point I had become sort of a connoisseur of B & G by now. 🙂
Becky and the staff here were so helpful and friendly! She made everyone feel good as soon as they walked into the breakfast room in the morning.
Now, in addition to having the pleasure of meeting Becky, her husband and son, Jerry and Kenneth, came to pick her up and gave me some really important information. As it turned out, Springfield, MO is the birthplace of Route 66 and Jerry directed me there.
Birthplace sign:
An interesting little fact I learned was this is also a stop for Monarch butterflies on their way South. Paula and I have seen them in Pacific Grove, CA.
OK, now approaching my last two nights on Route 66. I left Springfield and headed for Cuba, MO to the Wagon Wheel Motel. It’s the oldest, still open motel on Route 66. If you ever travel Route 66, you must stay there.
Wagon Wheel at 7 A.M.
Wagon Wheel Sign:
Here is Connie and her partner Charlie. Connie bought the motel as it was being ready to be demolished and they have completely remodeled it:
On my way to Cuba, I called my friend Dick and asked him if he could look up where our friend Jerry lived in Missouri. Jerry and I have been friends since 8th grade and lived on the same block for years in Flint, MI. As it turned out, Jerry lives 39 miles from the Wagon Wheel Motel!! So I called Jerry and we met for breakfast the next morning in Sullivan, MO. That turned out to be another great experience. Here is Jerry:
Another unexpected treat was Jessica. We asked if someone could take pictures of us and she went outside and took a bunch and was so friendly and nice. Here is Jessica and Jerry and Jessica and me:
Jessica and Jerry
Jessica and me:
Almost forgot. Another really nice couple I met at the Wagon Wheel Motel was Bill and Janet. They were traveling the opposite direction of me on Route 66 from South Carolina. After I talked to Connie after checking in, I walked over to my cabin and they were sitting out in the garden area eating dinner they had brought with them. Janet offered to make me a pimento cheese sandwich so I took her up on it. It was wonderful! We sat and talked for a long time afterwards. It was a nice treat. I actually ran into them the next morning at the World’s Largest Rocking Chair store.
Speaking of which:
After talking to Bill and Janet and a couple of other travelers going West, I decided there just wasn’t that much that I wanted to see until Chicago, so I set off on my last day actually traveling on Route 66, headed to that sign in Chicago.
I got to the Cambria hotel about 7 P.M. or so Saturday evening and checked in. Of course, met some more nice people.
Here is a young couple from Valencia CA, Amber and Robert, and Louise, the lady that checked me into the hotel:
And here is Rhonda, the security guard at the hotel. Rhonda, you get the honor of the last picture I took of a person on Route 66.
Shelby and I will be checking into the Cambria on September 21st for 3 nights so we will see Rhonda again.
Well, here it is! The Route 66 sign in Chicago, the end of the actual Route 66 journey for me. Not the entire trip of course, but the bookend to the sign on the Santa Monica Pier where I started on August 31st.
Thanks for following me! Some of you might only be interested in the actual Route 66 part of the trip, so this summary would be for you. For those interested in the entire trip, I plan to keep posting until I get back to Sacramento.