One thing that I have been wanting to do for some time now is drive the whole Historic Route 66 also known as “The Mother Road”. Ever since the first “Cars” movie came out when my son, who is now almost 18, was little I have always wanted to travel this road. Last spring I finally got to hit parts of it in Texas, New Mexico, & Oklahoma. This summer I made it a mission to finally see the historic Route 66 BEGIN sign in Chicago. 
Let me just say, my husband is amazing and thankfully he loves to travel and go on new adventures just as I do. So we were planning a trip to northern Indiana and I thought, hey since we are going to be so close why don’t we just drive up to Chicago, see the city, look for my sign and drive on over to our campground in Indiana. The campground was only an hour away so it shouldn’t put us too far behind schedule and Illinois was still a state we needed to check off our map anyways.
So, that’s just what we did!! Justin wasn’t crazy about driving in the big city but he went along with it as always. We left out on a Thursday around lunchtime drove all the way to Terre Haute, Indiana. We stayed in an adorable teepee there for the night got up the next morning, had breakfast, explored the campground, and then got on our way to Chicago. 
There we are, we had hit Chicago. It was definitely what I had expected and the closer we go into the city the more excited I got. I knew I was about to finally check off something big that was on my list for the state of Illinois, it was actually first on my list for that state. 
Now that we are in the heart of the city I have everyone in the car looking for that famous sign I had longed to see, sounds silly I know, but it is what it is. GPS (google maps) had said we were there but we couldn’t see it, we missed it. We had drove right by where the landmark was supposed to be and we couldn’t find it. I had watched many YouTube videos about this Route 66 BEGIN sign to help us find it better. My husband Justin had refused to let me out of the car after a pedestrian had stuck his had all the way in my window almost hitting my face as we were driving by, so getting out and walking to it wasn’t an option at this point. 
We decide to drive around the block one more time and if we didn’t find it this time then I was just going to be out of luck. So we turn out onto the Main Street again and we are almost to our turn to the street the sign was supposed to be on and a transportation bus pulls out in front of us and low and behold there it is. There is the sign, the historic Route 66 BEGIN sign. Me and my son Jacob just start snapping pictures of this sign like it’s nobody’s business lol. 
And yes, I know it has END on the other side but I didn’t care about that. I wanted the begin part of it and I finally got it. When we eventually get to travel The Mother Road we will start in Illinois so I can get the END sign in California one day. Anyways, I was so excited that I had finally got to see it, I told Justin “okay, we can head to the campground now” and my son Jacob said “are you serious, we drove all the way up here for a picture of a sign” and I said “yep”. I wish we would have had time to eat a yummy Chicago hotdog but it literally took us an hour to get into the city and find the sign. We did however get to see Buckingham Fountain and it was beautiful overlooking Lake Michigan. 
And now our time in Chicago had ended, it lasted all of an hour and we were now on our way back to Indiana. It was nice to see the city but we were definitely glad to be out of there. It was a quick little trip there and I’m glad it’s now checked off my list.
Camp Life Adventures 