The Tools of the Trade

February 9, 2021

Tonight I continued planning my trip from Cincinnati, through Indianapolis ( 3rd night), into Chicago ( one of my favorite cities and 4th & 5th nights), then officially onto Route 66 going South through Illinois using a combination of Roadtripper and Google Maps. Turns out Roadtripper doesn’t have the same detailed mapping that Google does and there were a few stops/attractions that I had marked while doing the rough draft of the route from www.historicroute66.com and www.roadsideamerica.com that Roadtripper wouldn’t let me add. Weird. I was still able to plan key waypoints and figure that not ALL stops need to be planned anyway, right? Still, I can’t believe it will take 5 days until I am officially “on the Mother Road”, but I don’t want to rush my trip as much as possible. I’m also using the official “EZ 66 Route Trip” guide by Jerry McClanahan to guide my planning. There are soooooo many small towns that have Route 66 history or quirks about them that I know I’ll want to stop at just about everything, haha. My next lodging booking will need to be a hotel or Airbnb in Indianapolis for one night. Then looking towards Chicago which will be way pricier. Now, I pretty much have my stops planned from Pittsburgh to Bloomington, IL. I have to figure out if I will stay overnight there or keep going to Lincoln or Springfield. After that, it’s onto St. Louis which I will definitely by staying two nights! Anyway, I’m just glad I’m making progress!