This picture is from my trip to the 2015 Miles of Possibility Conference in Edwardsville, IL. I had made trips to other conferences but this one was different. There had been Lincoln Highway conferences and Jefferson Highway conferences but this was a Route 66 conference. It was, I believe, the first of its kind. Route 66 events I attended previously were called festivals with car shows, vendor exhibits, and maybe some pay-your-own-way group meals or parties. There were vendors and some party like goings-on in Edwardsville but it was organized around a full schedule of presentations that people actually paid to attend. It worked and, although I have only attended one other, there have been Miles of Possibility Conferences every year since with the exception of the COVID riddled 2020.

The conference was a two-day affair with the first day ending in a concert in the Wildey Theater and the second — October 31 — ending in a Halloween Party. I made it a seven-day trip by spending three days getting there and two days getting home. The day I spent crossing Indiana included stops at the state’s three concrete airmail arrows. I spent two days crossing Illinois with stops at both Route 66 and non-Route 66 attractions. Part of the first day following the conference was spent with a group of conference attendees that disbanded in Saint Louis. From there, it was US-50 all the way home.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.