Route 66 Festival '08
Day 1
Vandalia to Litchfield
Day 2
Joliet to Litchfield
Day 3
The Awards
Day 4
E-Group Breakfast
June 22, 2008
Another good meal, the e-group breakfast, then off for home.
June 21, 2008
A day at the festival and an evening at the Will Rogers Awards Banquet.
June 20, 2008
I was up before dawn to drive to Joliet in time to drive back. The two-lane
return trip was great. The expressway outbound shot, not so much so.
June 19, 2008
I had barely posted Prelude 3 and my intentions of reaching Litchfield on
Wednesday when I decided not to. Instead it was to old faithful Vandalia.
Illinois, on Wednesday and Litchfield, via Collinsville and Mitchell, on
Thursday.
Prelude 3 - June 15, 2008
I doubt that anyone is relying on this site for their own scheduling but
that doesn't mean that erroneous information shouldn't be corrected. A few
weeks ago it became known that the movie "Cars" would not be
shown at the Skyview Drive-In as once thought. As announced a few days
ago, the movies making up the double feature during the festival will be
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and
"Iron Man". I haven't seen an official explanation from either
the drive-in or the festival and the only unofficial reason I've seen was
"a problem in scheduling".
My own plans have become a bit more firm, too. I'll head west after work on Wednesday and hope to make it all the way to my reserved mattress at the Comfort Inn. I'll likely sleep late Thursday then meander a bit south of town. With Friday's southern tour starting with a crossing on the Chain of Rocks Bridge, it was a tough choice but I've decided to try the northern tour from Joliet. That's because I believe I've driven Sixty-Six south of Litchfield a bit more than north of it and have crossed the Chain of Rocks Bridge three times. (Although that's not enough!) So Thursday will be used to make up for that a little and will at least include a stop at the Luna Cafe in Mitchell. Friday is the tour, Saturday night the awards banquet, and Sunday the e-group breakfast.
Prelude 2 - March 14, 2008
The National Route 66 Festival is always an "add-on" to an
established festival. This year that festival is Litchfield's 5th Annual
Cruisin' Route 66 Classic Car Festival. Information on
that event, including car show registration, has been available at the
Litchfield website for quite some time but info on the national bits of
the festival was woefully lacking. That has now changed. Late Thursday, a
schedule for national activities was added to the site and a downloadable
registration form for the Saturday night awards banquet made available.
Curiously, no link to the available
Will Rogers Awards Dinner Banquet Registration is
provided. I've tested it and now have a half-dozen waking hours actually
scheduled at the festival. In anticipation of rooms becoming scarce, I
made motel reservations several months ago.
The awards banquet will, unfortunately, be competing with one of the cruise-in's regular events. Many of the classic cars that folks have been ogling will end their day in the front rows of the Skyview Drive-In for a double feature that includes Disney's "Cars". That movie's strong Route 66 connections make it a powerful draw that is made all the more powerful by a showing under the stars on Route 66. It's possible that some roadies will opt for listening to a recorded Michael Wallis while he speaks live just a short distance away.
Prelude
I don't live on or near Route 66. It doesn't pass through my state or the
next one over, either. If a crow with an accurate compass flew due west
from my front door, it would cross the famous highway in about 285 miles -
in the middle of Illinois. A few miles south of that point, Sixty-Six
passes through the town of Litchfield, host city for the 2008 National
Route 66 Festival (June 18-21). The road's distance from my home is a
little more there, but not much. Just a couple of miles. So there was
never much doubt that I would be attending. It can't get much closer than
this.