Rt 66 and more

With a rare day off the Mother Road was calling.  Little Man loves the movie “Cars” and we thought he might get a kick out of being on the same road.  Jynx and I had made the trip a few years earlier and enjoyed the day; we even stopped off at an old gas station and bought a book on the sights on Rt. 66.  We loaded up the car and gave some friends in Bloomington a call and set up dinner plans.

We raced passed the Joliet Speedway and headed to the Lincoln National Cemetery.  We walked around a bit and looked over the memorials and tombstones.  The cemetery reminds you of the sacrifices that were made for our freedom.  We spent some time walking around but Rt. 66 was calling us to continue.

We then headed down to Wilmington, IL to see the Gemini Giant.  Little Man was afraid of the giant but when I went up to see the giant with him, he relaxed a bit.   Who could blame him, the guy is a bit creepy.  I’ve heard rumors that the giant may be in a bit of jeopardy as the owner has talked about selling him, the rumors were confirmed when I stopped into the restaurant to find a save the giant bucket.

As we continued our trip we made sure to stop at several parks along the way and let Little Man have some fun running around.  We even found a park that had a merry go round, I had not thought of how you don’t see these anymore.  I remember as a kid being spun around on the merry go round until you could not take it any longer.  Little Man sure enjoyed himself on the merry go round, his laughter is truly contagious.

As we continued our ride down RT. 66 we made several more stops at different landmarks and it was just great to see that RT 66 sign along the way.  We stopped at a couple of refurbished gas stations and it was fun to look in the windows and see the old décor and the old visible gas pumps out front.  I’m not sure if Little Man exactly knew where we were or where we were headed but he was having a great time at the old gas stations, he even started a little dance at one of the stations. 

We decided to make a stop in Pontiac Illinois because Jynx had read about a swinging bridge.  We made our way into the town and found the bridge and parked on an old brick side street.  As we made our way to the bridge Jynx was disappointed that it did not look like a swinging bridge but as soon as we stepped on the bridge we learned it was a swinging bridge.  Little Man wasn’t nervous at all and headed right across the bridge, of course it helped that there was a park on the other side of the bridge.  The bridge made for some great photos.  After taking a bunch of photos and playing at the park we headed back across the bridge and headed out again on Route 66.

We met our friends for dinner at a place I would go to when I would work in Bloomington.  We had a great time and it wasn’t long before the peanuts went flying across the table.  Little Man had fun with Mongo and Mrs. Mongo but of course, who wouldn’t have fun with Mongo.  After a great dinner we headed back up north with Little Man napping in the back seat hopefully dreaming of traveling on Route 66.

On the home front Grampy Rock still continues to slowly improve, even Little Man joins in on his therapy as he tells him to get up and to march.  I look at it as a win win situation as Little Man works on his speech and Grampy Rock can’t really tell him no.  Now that spring has sprung we have been spending more time outside improving what I refer to as Jame world. 

While heading out to a clients house, Jynx noticed a plastic playhouse someone had discarded. The house was put in the truck and headed back to our home at the end of the work day.  After a cleaning we put the house back together again.  We were missing a porch fence and a skylight but we ordered it the next day.  The house was also missing its wall phone but an old phone filled in just fine.  We also decided he needed a doorbell that we installed.   Jynx then decided it needed a path and a foundation so she put in a pad with a path to the house and then even added a flower pot outside.  I was in the process of changing our mailbox, so I took the old box and put it at the end of the path.

I was on hold for a job for the NATO summit but the job cancelled and rather than try to get another job and deal with the nightmare I took the days off.  During the couple of days NATO I built a huge sandbox for Jame World, I call it the NATO sandbox.  I think Little Man has been in it every day that he can since the NATO sandbox has been open.  I also took a look at his little sandbox and decided to move it but first I had to empty the sand.  After emptying the sand I moved it under the tower and then rigged up a lift to take the top off the sandbox.  We then filled the sandbox with blue sand; I’m not sure who liked the blue sand better Jynx or Little Man.  With all of this we then used rocks to form a border and started to mulch.

John was a friend who thought the world of Little Man and dropped off a lot of toys for Little Man including a robot.  John unfortunately had a heart attack at work and passed away.  We asked Little Man about John and he walked over and grabbed the robot.  We got a phone call from John’s sister, Amy;   she asked if there was anything from the house that we would like? We traveled out to John’s house and Little Man kept saying in the back seat “Go John’s House?”  We arrived at his house and got some rocks that we used in the border of Jame World and I stumbled across a beat up airplane swing, as I grabbed it, Jynx asked “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”  “Oh I have a plan.” I replied.  I like to go American Restoration on these things the only bad thing is I forgot to take a before photo but I restored the plane swing for Little Man and he loves swinging on the plane swing.  Also in Johns backyard was three white 55 gallon barrels that I also took this time I had to explain to Jynx that I had a plan to build a train out of the barrels that we could tow behind a lawn mower.  I have started to draw up plans for this project and hopefully soon I will find the time to build the train.  Thanks John God speed.

In the time since I wrote this and Jynx my editor got to proof read my work, I was able to finish the Barrel train.  If I can say myself, it’s awesome!  I painted two of them silver and one red to be the caboose.  I also added cow bells that I found to give the kids something to ring on their ride.  Before they were finished, I let Little Man pull two of them with his Jeep.  I had to wait for Uncle Walter to drop off another hand cart to finish off the caboose.  The other day I was able to give Little Man a ride along with Juno and a couple of teddy bears.  Now we need to get the trail ready so we can give rides at his birthday party, although I think Little Man may never get off the train.

With his love for trains, we decided to take Little Man for a ride on the train.  With my tough schedule this took a bit of effort for all the stars to align.  I had to work the morning show and then rushed home from downtown only to catch a train back to downtown.  We arrived at the Matteson train station where we are always able to park at Grandma Rose and Grandpa Jim’s house.  Jame loves going to see them but we had to go buy our tickets and headed onto the platform.  When the train arrived, Little Man took a few steps back.  As soon as the train stopped he headed right for the doors to board.  He was mesmorized out the window for the first few minutes of the train ride.  I handed Little Man our tickets to give to the conductor, I think visions of Polar Express ran through his head as he handed the tickets to the conductor and waited for the magical ticket punch.  Although it was not the same as the Polar Express he was excited when he got the tickets back.

When we arrived downtown we headed for Millennium Park and the Bean.  Little Man had a good time at the Bean and playing with his reflection at one point he even crawled as far under as he could get.  As much fun as it was at the Bean it was in the 90’s and standing near a big reflective surface was not the best way to keep cool on a hot Chicago day.  We then headed over to the fountain, not Buckingham but the faces fountain which is actually called Crown Fountain but nobody calls it that.  Little Man was a bit hesitant when we arrived at the fountain but he quickly got into running around with all the other little kids and he kept us running a few steps behind him.   He ran so much that other parents noticed and even mentioned what a runner he is.  We also noticed that he seemed to run with more of the girls than boys. 

After the fountain we then headed over to a park for him to play for awhile then decided to try and walk to Navy Pier. This failed miserably but our adventure found us another park and splash pad that we could take him to at a later date.   We finally gave up on getting out to the pier and Little Man started to fall asleep right on top of my head.  We found a restaurant with a booth that we could let him sleep.  We didn’t want to take the train home until he was awake.  After dinner we headed back to the train station for the trip home and Little Man was just as excited to be back on the train again.  He once again got excited when the conductor came around for tickets.  It was a long but fun day and we all slept well that night.