Indiana Beach

Several summers while growing up, my mom loaded my brother and I in the car and make the fairly boring drive to Flora, Indiana to visit family, while my brother slept for four hours and I stared out the car window.

I have lots of great memories of those days: visiting my great-grandparents; staying with Grandma; walking to the gas station behind her apartment for Slush Puppies and donuts; the sheep at Aunt Mary's house; a pontoon boat ride along the lake where ducks had just left their eggs to fend for themselves.

And one of the big highlights of those summer visits was trips to Indiana Beach in Monticello.

I've gone back several times over the years.

My first road trips sans parents were at age 17 and 18 to Indiana Beach with a high school friend.

I remember paying admission to the swimming area, trudging up the stairs to the bathhouse to get a wire basket to stash our stuff in while we went to sun ourselves on the beach for the day.

Another group of friends and I visited several years after that and had a great time.

And now I am lucky to have a husband who loves road trips, loves amusement parks and loves kitsch, so we try to go every year.

Opened in 1926, Indiana Beach offers roller coasters, arcade games, a swimming beach and more, tucked among cottages and motels offering lodging right nearby.

There are wooden roller coasters on site, as well as the Steel Hawg, Indiana's tallest steel coaster.

Indiana Beach is also home to one of the last few remaining Fascination parlors, a wooden table game in the same family as Skee Ball.

For me, a trip to Indiana Beach can mean a ride on the Shafer Queen paddle wheel boat; riding the antique cars; a ride from one end of the park to the other on the chair lift; feeding the huge fish; riding the Scrambler over the lake; a stop at the creepy fortune teller guy in the arcade; a visit to the beach shop and gift shop and a round of Skee Ball.

For my husband and I, our trip now also involves a trip down the log plume ride and some of the World's Best Tacos.

Yes, when we first saw the sign touting the World's Best Tacos just ahead, we snickered. Please, the WORLD'S BEST tacos are at Indiana Beach?? I don't even recall why we tried them. But we absolutely love these tacos and rave about them every time. Sometimes, we drive three hours to the park, make a pass through the grounds, eat our tacos and head back home.

We didn't get to visit the park last year. This year, they waived admission to the grounds.

At some point since our last visit, they have made some changes, perhaps for the better, perhaps not.

I was dismayed to see as we approached the park that the former wood-sided boardwalk buildings have been covered in ordinary tan vinyl siding.

We also noticed that all of the arcade games no longer accept coins, but now use swipe cards, which are also used to pay for rides.

One thing I noticed on this visit was that there are many employees over the age of 50. I did see a few teenagers manning some rides, but overall there were many mature employees. I don't have anything against teenagers as employees at the park, but it was very refreshing to see so many mature people working, and seemingly enjoying themselves.

The food choices are still plentiful, and reasonable. There are several fair food options, and tacos will only set you back $2 each.

After enjoying our tacos on this year's visit, we continued our walk to the other end of the park.

We walked across the suspension bridge, which I had learned some history about recently.

In 1966 Tom Spackman, son of Earl Spackman, the original founder, expanded the park further over the waters of Lake Shafer with the addition of the largest suspension bridge in the Midwest.

The pedestrian bridge offers a beautiful view of the park and lake, especially on as nice of a day as it was when we visited.

Indiana Beach

5224 E. Indiana Beach Road

Monticello, IN 47960

Cerno's Bar & Grill

Sometime during the later 1990s, a friend of mine introduced me to a gorgeous bar in Kewanee, Illinoid.
Now, anytime I am out in that neck of the woods, I try to stop by, as I did in early August this year.
When I started visiting the bar it was known as Lloyd's.
My dad, who grew up in the area knew it as Ann's Place. And well before his time, it is said that the bar remained open during Prohibition.
Currently it houses Cerno's Bar & Grill.

From their website:
"Imported from Belgium, this bar was built by Pabst Blue Ribbon in 1898.
John P. Brady (prominent young business
man of Kewanee, a wholesale and retail liquor dealer who was born in that city in February, 1868, son of Thomas and Rosanna [Trainer] Brady) was the original owner; his initials are still etched in the front door glass.
The Mahogany mirrored bar spans fifty feet, with hand carved figurines at each end. It is also accented with the original brass fixtures.
Detailed carved lion heads are throughout the building.
Along the wall are small buzzers topped with tiny eagles that were used to summon a waiter to the customers. While overhead is an embossed tin ceiling. Stained-glass and leaded windows enhance the 19th century atmosphere.
The brass footed pedestal tables are still here, as is the teller cage where men would cash their paychecks, and then come in for a drink. The brass spittoons are now used as tip jars behind the bar. Years ago when women were not allowed in the taverns, the men would have to take their lady friends upstairs to drink. Their drinks were then sent up to them via the dumbwaiter, which still works today."

I never tire of looking around the bar, taking in the ancient looking wallpaper murals depicting horse and buggy, the tin ceiling, the mahogany lion's heads carved into each arch of the bar and doorways, the old tile floors, the curved brass foot rail, the cozy wooden booths...this is one place where despite changing hands several times over the years, the character has largely been left intact.

Cerno's Bar & Grill
213 W 3rd St
Kewanee, IL 61443

Lou Mitchell's

We popped by Lou Mitchell's this July when we had a bit of time to kill near Union Station waiting for a flight in Chicago.
In business for more than 85 years and located near the start of Route 66, the restaurant has history on its side.
There were about three groups ahead of us waiting for tables, so we crammed inside the door to wait. A server carrying a wicker basket of donut holes gave us each one as we waited, however, no one offered me any of the Milk Duds I saw in the basket nearby, guarded by a note that said the hostess would give them out.
The bustling restaurant has a spartan diner decor, complete with old coat racks at the tables, which I could imagine festooned with hats and trench coats in the 1920s. Round globe lights grace the ceiling.
From the looks of things, we missed the boat by not ordering breakfast, but instead went with a couple of burgers and hand cut fries, which were fine. The big standout to me was the hamburger buns. They were covered in sesame seeds. There must have been hundreds of them, and I enjoyed the buns a lot.
They squeeze their own orange juice, which I would like to try next time, along with some of their breakfast options.
We also noticed several patrons enjoying small cups of ice cream, which the restaurant gives out as well.

Lou Mitchell's
565 W Jackson Blvd
Chicago, IL 60661-5701

Route 66 Garage Sale

June 12 and 13 marked the third anniversary of the Route 66 Garage Sale, and that Saturday we decided to check it out for the first time.

The towns involved included Atlanta, Lincoln, Broadwell and Elkhart, all in Illinois.

We didn't find much of interest at the garage sales themselves. Maybe all of the goodies were snatched up on Friday before we got there.

We spoke to a gentleman at Krotz & Sons in Lincoln who said that the first year these garage sales were held, people lined up their wares along Route 66. This time, the sales were found by following many hand made signs weaving back and forth into neighborhoods, which made it a bit difficult for people not familiar with the area.

We did take the opportunity to do a bit more exploring of the Route 66 area while we were out.

I found out that the Palms Grill Café in Atlanta had recently been reopened for breakfast and lunch, and seeing that they served chocolate malts, I decided this would be the perfect time to stop in and sample one.

The back of the menu read: Step back in time at the Palms Grill Café. The Grill, as folks in town called it, opened in August 1934 in "the center of Atlanta on Rt. 66", serving locals and travelers alike. The Grill provided home-cooked meals, plus Bingo games and weekly dances in the backroom. Atlanta's children took advantage of its weekday "School Children's Plate Lunch" — which included a "choice of three meats and two vegetables and drink" all for 45 cents! The Grill was the local Greyhound Bus Stop, so if you wanted to catch the bus, you just flipped the switch for the light on the bottom of the Grill's large neon sign. The original Grill closed in the late 1960s. The Atlanta Library and Museum, along with generous financial support from Atlanta citizens, the Illinois Bureau of Tourism, and the National Park Service's Rt. 66 Corridor Preservation Project, have recreated the Grill so it can once again serve Rt. 66 travelers and folks of this fair community.

Why the name "Palms Grill Café"? Atlanta local Robert Adams was inspired by the palm trees

he saw in California while on a trip there. When he returned to Atlanta to open a restaurant, he wanted to be reminded of the sunshine state, so he named the establishment The Palms Grill Café and ensured that a live palm three was included in its interior decor.

I loved the decor of the restaurant, from the marble countertop where we enjoyed our wonderful chocolaty malts to the white

tin stamped ceiling, to the tile on the bathroom floor. Almost everything looked clean and new, yet period appropriate.

There was even an old refrigerator behind the counter (you can see a glimpse of it behind our malts), which we assumed was just for display, but we got a kick out of seeing our server grab hold of the old curved metal handle to pull open the door, revealing a nice array of fresh pies inside.

Even the glasses and saucers we were served with seemed period appropriate. There were a lot of nice touches used.

Moving down the road to Lincoln, we stopped at an antique store downtown.

Stepping out of the car, we noticed a retro looking metal box hanging on a pole near the curb.

Thinking it might be a meter of some sort, I looked at the name plate on the front: Traf-O-Teria, which gave me a chuckle.

My husband walked into the antique store as I was snapping a photo, and the lady inside was laughing and asked if I had never seen a ticket payment box before.

Our next stop was Broadwell, where we got out at the Pig Hip museum and visited with the former owner and his wife. Very nice folks! I felt like we would have been at home stepping up into the kitchen and joining Ernie at the kitchen table while he ate his lunch.

The Pig Hip Restaurant operated from 1937-1991, then housed Route 66 memorabilia until fire destroyed the building in early 2007.

There are several photographs, newspaper stories and books on display at the site.

Our last stop on the route was Elkhart.

We checked out Horsefeathers wares, then headed out to Springfield for a late lunch.

I soon realized that we had forgotten to look for an attraction I had heard about in Elkhart, the 1915 John P. Gillett Memorial Bridge, so on our way back home we hunted it down.

This photo does not do the bridge justice. The arch is very tall, and the area is heavily wooded and beautiful, with trees creating a lovely shady canopy over the bridge.

The bridge was built by Emma Gillett Oglesby in memory of her brother, John Parke Gillett, and was on the "Ten Most Endangered" historic places list in Illinois in 2005. The bridge has since been stabilized.

On our way to the bridge along County Road 10, we saw a beautiful cemetery, supposedly haunted by the ghost of Emma Gillett Oglesby. From this website I learned her ghost: still visits the (Oglesby) tomb. However, as she kneels before the vault she is interrupted by a group of spectral Indians who chase her off across the bridge leading over the road by the cemetery. A number of photographs have captured weird phenomena as mist and apparitions, not seen by the eye, appear in pictures. A swirling vortex was photographed over one grave. At the back of the cemetery there is a fence separating the grave yard from the woods. Here, people have reported seeing dark colored apparitions and hearing the sounds of voices and footsteps.

The cemetery is also very beautiful, flanked by intricate iron gates. The gates are Gillett memorial gates erected November 1939. Again, it was difficult for me to capture how beautiful these were with my point and shoot.

In the cemetery we also saw a wonderful Gothic stone chapel, the John Dean Gillett Memorial Chapel, which is the only privately owned and operated church in Illinois.

The chapel was built by the wife of John Dean Gillett.

Palms Grill Café

110 SW Arch Street

Atlanta, IL 61723

Elkhart Cemetery, John Dean Gillett Memorial Chapel and railroad bridge

County Rd. 10 (700th Street)

Elkhart, IL 62634

M & M Twistee Treat

Now that ice cream season is officially upon us, we made our first visit to M & M Twistee Treat in East Peoria, Illinois in May.
This fun ice cream cone shaped building offers both outdoor and indoor (in the attached building) seating.
The original Twistee Treats were built between 1983 and 1990.
One thing that has always impressed me about the East Peoria Twistee Treat is the number of items on the menu. I could eat there five days in a row and still have more things I wanted to try.
The massive menu includes: tenderloins; burgers; hot dogs; polish sausage; tamales; chicken; pizza burgers; catfish; Italian beef; tacos; pizza rolls; BBQ; and fried veggies, plus several frozen treats.
They offer basket specials which include fries, and daily specials.
M & M Twistee Treat is closed during the winter months.

M & M Twistee Treat
1207 E. Washington Street
East Peoria, IL 61611

Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket

On April 25 of this year, we finally visited a place we've wanted to go for years: Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket in Willowbrook, IL.
So many times we've driven past the billboards and signs on our way to and from places, but were never hungry when we were in the neighborhood.
Well known for fried chicken for more than 60 years, Dell Rhea's has had its ups and downs due to Route 66 bypassing the restaurant in the 60s, but has stood the test of time.
The Chicken Basket was inducted in the Route 66 Hall of Fame in June of 1992 and The National Register of Historic Places in May of 2006.
We stopped by the bar side first because we weren't starving yet. Our Dining Companion and I tried a local beer, the Route 66 Roadhouse Red Ale. It was not my thing and I ended up replacing it with a Pabst, but she ended up finishing it. My husband had a Pabst and our brother-in-law enjoyed a soda.
We soon cut through the back of the bar, checking out some framed newspaper articles along the way, to the dining room and took a table.
The large, angled windows across the front of the restaurant reminded me of some of the neat old buildings at Indiana Beach or York Beach in Maine, with a vacationy/nautical feel.
A large stone wall with a fireplace graced the end of the dining room, and old wooden chairs graced the tables. Some of them had a schoolhouse look to them, which added to the charm.
I had to try the corn fritters, so we placed our appetizer order for those. When they arrived, they were warm, sweet and good, but I can't say they were the best I've ever had.
For our dinners, we all chose baskets of chicken, which came with fries, slaw and biscuits.
The stars here were the chicken (juicy and good, with a cornmeal-like coating) and the biscuits (tiny and delicious). Dining Companion and I decided that since they were so small, you didn't need to feel bad about eating tons of them.
Our waitress was very cheerful and joked about giving us piggy back rides back to our car, since our bellies were so full.
The dining room kept up a steady business the whole time we were there, and closer to 6:00 people were standing along the back of the room waiting for tables.
Several large groups were having what appeared to be traditional family dinner meetups in the dining room, and Dell Rhea's is certainly a great place for that.

Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket
645 Joliet Road
I-55 & Route 83
Willowbrook, Illinois 60527

Pioneer Gothic Church

Once I found out that Dwight, Illinois is home to a rare wood framed Carpenter Gothic church, I was determined to track it down and have a look.
We visited the site on April 12, 2009.
This church was built by a Presbyterian congregation in the later 1850s in Carpenter Gothic style, a North American architectural designation for an application of Gothic Revival details applied to wooden structures built by house carpenters.
With wood being scarce, and the added threat of fire in prairie regions, this type of architecture was not common to Illinois.
The Pioneer Gothic Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Pioneer Gothic Church
201 N Franklin Street
Dwight, IL 60420