stormdog: (Tawas dog)
MeghanIsMe ([personal profile] stormdog) wrote2012-07-26 12:37 pm

Road Trip Time!

This evening, I'm leaving for my girlfriend [livejournal.com profile] danaeris' place in Evanston. Friday morning, I leave at 5:00 for a just-me-and-my-lonesome, old-theatre-and-roadside-kitsch roadtrip through Illinois! On the first day, I'm seeing:

Statues of the explorers Marquette and Joliet, a giant Frankenstein, and the world's biggest cigar store Indian in the south Chicago burbs. The Rialto Square Theatre, the first ever Dairy Queen, and a statue commemorating the dead in an ammo plant explosion in Joliet. A space-age themed drive-in restaurant with a giant astronaut in Wilmington. A memorial to a mine disaster in Diamond. A telephone museum in Gridley, and the "Friendship Shoe Fence" nearby. Then the Normal Theatre in Normal, several theatres in Champaign, and the Hippie Memorial in Arcola. There are a few other things in there too if time permits.

After that, I move further south through Effingham, St. Elmo, Vandalia, and points south, eventually reaching Metropolis, the official home of Superman and the grave of the Birdman of Alcatraz. I'll end the second day in Paducah, Kentucky at the home of a gracious couple who are letting me surf their couch.

Depending on how I feel and how the first half of the trip went, I'll either return the way I came, or take a trip west to Chester and Kaskaskia, then north through Springfield, seeing the home of the creator of Popeye, the Liberty Bell of the West, and the grave of Mother Jones, as well as a bunch more theatres.

Wish me and my car well?

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