By roughly following Route 66 we found ourselves in Pontiac IL, and to our surprise in Pontiac, they were holding a Pontiac Car Show.
Pontiac is such a quaint little town, as you look down the main street, it is easy to imagine the days where it was horse and carriages parked outside these shops rather than the automobiles that are here today. The town is holding on tightly to the Route 66 history. They are keeping signage in the style of the 40’s and 50’s and there are a large number of murals painted on the buildings around the streets, all keeping in line with the Route 66 theme.
TOH was in his element again with all the Pontiac cars that were being displayed on the street, as well as browsing the displays in the Pontiac Car Museum.
For such a little town they have a number of museums, from the Pontiac Car Museum, Museum of Gilding Art, an Antebellum House Museum, the Route 66 Hall of Fame and photography display. The Bob Wildmire Experience (son of Ed from the Cozy Dog in Springfield). There is even a Titanic Display (I found this a little weird being so far away from the ocean) and on the top floor a War Museum.
It was here in the War Museum that we met Don Fortuna who has his collection of Model Fighter planes displayed. Don regaled us with stories of the pilots who flew the various planes from WWII as well as his own fathers war survival story. In telling us his wonderfully colourful stories he left us with a couple of wonderful quotes on death.
“You never see a U-Haul trailer behind a hearse”
There are three deaths. The first is when your body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when you name is spoken for the last time. (by David M Eagleman)
We then travelled through to Joliet for more Route 66 history. I am afraid, I really can’t say more than that about Joliet. It really didn’t like the place, not sure if it was just me feeling tired and in a bad mood, but I must admit that I was more than happy to leave Joliet and head back to Ellie-Mae tonight. And look forward to Chicago tomorrow.
