the-owens-family: Route 66

As you read this (hopefully on Wednesday morning, if I schedule this thing correctly!) I will be miles and miles away from 'home' and my kiddos with about 110 teenagers from our church on a retreat. While I'm excited about what God is going to do in their lives, I'm also going to be missing my three musketeers terribly. So I guess it's appropriate that I write about the "Great American Family Roadtrip" on this post!

On our last night in Chicago, we mentioned we were looking forward to driving home at a leisurely pace and stopping to see some sights. Rob's aunt mentioned how much fun her kids and grandkids had at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield. We looked it up and thought it looked like fun too, so the next morning off we went! As we traveled we began to see the iconic "Route 66" signs. Now, I don't know about you, but as the parent of a boy born into the Cars (as in Cars the movie) era, driving the "Mother Road" has been on our bucket list.

There were so many cool things to see along the way - like this gas station, preserved by a local historical society. There was the nicest volunteer lady there. And there were wonderful stories about the men who had owned the station. And what it was like to work at the station when everyone was driving Route 66.

I loved this map showing where people had visited from - this is only those who visited in 2012! Lots of Europeans, which I thought was interesting.

For lunch, we stopped at one of Big Daddy's Midwestern favorites - Culvers. Butter burgers and frozen custard....... mmmmmm.......

What road trip would be complete without the 50 state license plate game?

We got up to 32, which I thought was pretty good!

It was hot in Springfield!

Inside the museum, they had these great activity sheets for the kids. My two were super focused on answering all the questions.

The museum was a great combination of storytelling and archives and artifacts.

I loved this apron worn by a child during the Lincoln campaign. I would totally let ML wear that!

They had this neat room where they showed what the political commercials and news commentary might have been like during the Lincoln Douglas campaigns and election.

After the museum, we briefly visited the Lincoln home just down the street. It was the only home ever owned by Abraham Lincoln. It's also the only National Park in Illinois (in case you are looking for random trivia - ha!)