Murphysboro to Decatur, Illinois

 Thursday , May 26

67 degrees this morning.  We feast on blueberry pancakes and sausage this morning. Yum!  Back to the shower area, spotting a raccoon while waiting for a road crew to finish their trimming job. 

We leave Murphysboro and travel some miles to Collinsville, where we swing by to see the world’s largest catsup bottle.  It is a water tower built in 1949 to supply water to the company that makes catsup. Woo-hoo!

Lots of farmland, very flat.  Some is just plowed and a few fields planted.

A little further north, we stop at Henry’s Rabbit Ranch which used to be on the old Route 66.  It is a very old service station whose owner collects Volkswagon Rabbits, rabbit memorabilia, and on some days some real hopping rabbits. (He says he didn’t bring them today because it looks like rain.)  Back before the VW model, they just had gas and bunny rabbits.  Several “tombstones” outside where past resident rabbits are buried. I'm sure this is one of a zillion places that use Route 66 as a draw.

Not a lot of masks in evidence so far this trip.

Next stop is Carlinville, Illinois to take a look at a neighborhood of homes built from Sears Catalog kits in the early 1900’s.  This was a coal mining town and Standard Oil bought a million dollars worth of kit homes to create inexpensive housing for their workers here and in other areas.  When the mine closed a few years later, the homes were mostly abandoned, then sold off in the 1930’s for very low cost.  Most have been or are being remodeled and renovated, some with additions or garages added.  We couldn’t find anything except a small sign indicating the neighborhood, so we stopped and asked a wonderful red-headed mail delivery lady (yes, they still walk door to door), and she gave us quite a bit of information and told us which blocks to check out.  These homes were originally their own little town, but are now part of a larger neighborhood. There were two bedroom and three bedroom models. 

From here we decided to head to Decatur, to the Chevrolet Hall of Fame, a small museum full of classic Chevrolets,  assorted Chevrolet memorabilia (including the counter and inventory  

from an old Chevrolet parts store), models, etc.  Some pretty cool cars, including many Corvettes, Cameroes and others that served as raceway Pace Cars.  A few old models as well.  Most of this collection is owned by one man, although he invites others to display their models, etc.

Not much in the way of camping around, so we stayed at the Decatur Walmart along with a few others.