Day 1: December 21, 2025
Another Cloudy Solstice
Comment via blog
 		Previous Day
Prev
 Next Day
Next
 		Site Home
 Trip Home
There is a small parking lot at the Cahokia Woodhenge. It was nearly full when I arrived, but there were still a couple of open spaces. They were gone by the time I walked to the henge, and both sides of the road were lined with parked cars over the next twenty minutes. As the crowd grew and waited, a flock of at least a few thousand birds rose from a field to the west, and did a spectacular flyover with plenty of complex maneuvers, but without burning a drop of jet fuel.

About fifteen minutes before sunrise, William Iseminger, officially retired but obviously still active authority on Cahokia, arrived to provide a bit of background on the mounds and the woodhenge. Iseminger was a speaker at the 2024 Route 66 Miles of Possibility conference where I'd purchased his very informative "Cahokia Mounds: America's First City" book. He had us all looking in the right direction, but a covering of clouds kept the sun but being truly visible. That last picture was taken several minutes past sunrise when many attendees had left or were leaving, and still no clear view of the sun.

When I finally left the mounds, I headed to the It's Electric Neon Sign Park in nearby Granite City. Individual signs describe the Hudson Jewelers, Washington Theater, Reese Drug Store, and every other sign in the park.
I intended to snap a picture of the sun at the actual Solstice, but it was still some time away when I left the sign park. Rather than take a chance on being at some random spot on the road when it occurred I decided to simply return to Cahokia Mounds. Once there, I grabbed a shot of the empty Woodhenge and one of the center pole at Solstice. Clouds remained, however, and hid the fact that the sun was moving closer to earth with each passing second.
Despite some heavy duty dawdling, I arrived at Ted Drewes Frozen Custard a couple of minutes before opening time. Although I knew that Christmas trees were sold here each year, this was my first time seeing the lot filled with green inventory. As soon as I saw someone at a window, I ordered up a concrete and made my first visit to the gift shop/museum. Museum exhibits tell not only the story of the custard and tree business, but also of the senior Ted Drewes' outstanding tennis career.
At the Shamrock Court, I parked near the front of the lot and grabbed a picture of the vintage telephone booth and the hand inscribed base it will soon cover before walking to the motel itself. Although there were other vehicles in the lot, I didn't actually see anyone, and did not want to just start opening doors at random. That situation was soon resolved when owner Roamin' Rich Dinkela returned from a mid project lumber shopping trip. He then graciously showed me some of the on going resurrection including the LED lighting he had installed on a room divider earlier in the day. Each room will be unique. I snapped pictures of the shower tile in a couple of room here and here. I'm not certain when it will open but I am certain it will be fantastic when it does. As I prepared to leave, Rich switched on the sign so I could get that last picture along with this one which shows off the neon even better.
Of course I had to make a stop at the original Uranus Fudge Factory, where the head of the jumbo sized Louie Keen, blown off by a tornado in April 2024, has been restored.
My second sign park of the day was even bigger than the first. The Saint Roberts Route 66 Neon Park sets between the split lanes of a section of Historic Route 66 so it can be visited by travelers headed in either direction. The plaque for the entrance sign can be see here. I remember when the Stanley Cour-Tel was stored at Henry's Rabbit Ranch as noted in its plaque.
My motel was in Saint Roberts and I had dinner in Waynesville. Since the park is in between, I stopped both coming and going.
I started running away from home for Christmas in 2006 and first featured a song in the Christmas day post in 2010. Linking or embedding a song on Christmas Day was not consistent for the next few years but has been a constant since 2015. Although I did not head out on my Christmas Escape Run until the next day, I did attend and document a Solstice event at Serpent Mound as part of the journal in 2014. In 2018, I was on the road for Solstice but was too dumb to even notice. I attended and photographed the Winter Solstice sunrise at Fort Ancient in 2019, but despite my Christmas Escape Run beginning the next day, did not include it in the trip journal. Finally, in 2021, my end-of-year outing began to include Winter Solstice. I again watched the sunrise at Fort Ancient that year, paused to photograph it in Indiana the next year, and was back at Fort Ancient for the gathering in 2023. Last year, clouds prevented me from actually seeing the Solstice sun at Wickliffe Mounds in Kentucky, but I tried.

Now, for my fifth year of including Winter Solstice in my December holiday outing, I've picked a tune for the day. I found several traditional songs from centuries gone by, but picked a quite new one that just sounds traditional. Solstice Light is by Irish singer/songwriter Orla Callan. It is from the album The Winter Gathering: Songs of Light and Home, released in October.

[Prev] [Site Home] [Trip Home] [Next]