After ignoring this blog for eons - mostly due to lack of stuff to squawk about - Emily and I headed to to the St. Louis Route 66 Festival at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge today.  In its first year, the event seemed to be a success, as the perfect weather (75 degrees, not a cloud in the sky - literally) brought out good attendance that formed lines at the vendor booths and crowded the spaces between the classic cars and the precipitous drop down to the depths of the Mighty Miss.

Cars were lined up parallel to the river along the west side of the bridge, running past the turn down towards the Illinois line.  On the Missouri side of the bridge was the main stage where bands could perform, and surrounding that was the artisans tent and numerous delicious vendors earning an extra buck or two this fall. The llinois side was less busy, with the Illinois Association tent, several other vendors and not much else save free parking - which caused a majority of the people to make their way down to the Land of Lincoln in order to shun the $5 fee for parking on the Missouri side.  Madison County Transit ran frequent (literally non-stop) shuttles, making it easy to get from the parking lot to the footing of the bridge.

We didn’t have time to stay for the sock-hop and screening of American Graffiti; Emily’s ankles were acting up, and we had a family member to visit in Barnes Hospital.  But the hour we spent at the Bridge was the liveliest we’d ever seen the landmark, and implied good things are in store for the future of the Mother Road.

Photos on my Flickr Feed.

Saturday in Litchfield started early with cars lining up just after 9:00 AM for the busiest day of the festival. We arrived at the Illinois Association tent at about that time and setup a slightly revised (read: shinier and more impressive) version of the preservation poster that we had displayed at Farmersville. Winds were horrible, so we just laid it on the table (we had two, so space was abundant). The poster and my binder filled with 8.5×11 inch vivid photos of Route 66 landmarks were well received, and Jaime Anderson had several posters filled with pictures from a number of Association events that represented the fun of the Mother Road in Illinois.

As we manned the fort and crept away at times to sample the other booths (including the amazing Association, Artisans, et cetera booths inside Victory Lane Ford) more and more classic cars lined up, Young Elvis performed and Bigfoot smashed cars as a great crowd turned out on a beautiful day. We picked up a copy of Skip Curtis’s Show Me State guide at the Missouri Association booth (to complement his History of Springfield, MO book I’ve owned for a while) to aid us in the trip down the road in Missouri that we hope to take in the next several months.

At night attention turned to the banquet, with dinner catered by JoDannis of Benld. Amazing pasta, and even better chicken. After Michael Wallis gave a stirring speech reminding us just why we love Route 66 and donate so much of our time and energy, he and Jim Conkle handed out the eight awards for 2008:

New Business of the Year: Four Women on the Route
Founders: David Clark
Person of the Year: Ron Warnick
Business of the Year: The Ariston Cafe
Wallis 66: Emily Priddy
Cyrus Avery Preservation: Trailnet
Life Time Achievement: Tommy & Glenda Pike
Will Rogers Award: Swa Frantzen

The festival went off quite well, and with next year’s event scheduled for Flagstaff, Arizona in September ‘09 I really hope that we can make the trip. My prose in reporting on the events here is far from as luxurious as the Association’s Motor Tour a fortnight past, but the past few days have been tiring and I look forward to settling back into regular life.

Not that the work ever really ends. Along with stopping by a few businesses in the area before long, I have ideas for a podcast/weekly four or five minute radio show that I’ve been kicking around that need formally developed sooner than later. We’ll see.

Day one of the Official Route 66 Festival went off pretty well. Both the morning and afternoon meetings at Lincoln Land Community College were informative and accomplished a bit in rolling towards a unified national alliance of associations; I wrote up a couple brief summaries on the Yahoo! Route 66 board and Ron Warnick should have a more concise summary at his excellent Route 66 News site before long. Illinois was decently represented, but I think Missouri’s association had us beat. Lunch in between sessions at the Ariston was great (duh).

This evening we returned to the Ariston for an evening reception that was well attended and, again, delicious. The highlight of the evening came as Emily and I headed for the door: owner Nick Adam brought a British couple back into the reception room that were traveling the road and had wandered in and asked “if anyone knew anything about Route 66.” They were immediately introduced to a number of experts including Michael Wallis, whom they knew of, and we wondered if anything they encounter the rest of the way can possibly top this reception in Litchfield.

Emily and I with the Sheriff himself.

Afterwards Emily and I briefly cruised Litchfield with Geri and Marty Bilecki in their gorgeous blue ‘57 Chevy. As we headed up State Street several of the shopkeeps were painting their storefronts, part of the ongoing restoration efforts that the city’s main downtown stretch has seen over the last couple weeks. Litchfield should be in great shape for the next two days.

I wasn’t expecting much success representing the Association at Farmersville, and unfortunately my predictions were correct.

Emily and I spent a few hours Friday night and most of the daylight on Saturday hanging out in the park in Farmersville for their annual town festival. We’d both been at Irish Days as mere spectators the last two years (and Emily many times before that,) so we knew what to expect. It’s all food booths and no other vendors, so I didn’t think we’d fare well, but given its proximity to our home and the cheap cost (just a small donation to the festival) it was worth a try.

The result: one new member, which is better than none I suppose. We also talked to several people who were mildly interested and took membership application pamphlets with them as well as a couple other individuals who talked with us about the history of 66 through the area; one promised to contact us with an old postcard she had that we could scan a copy of. So there were benefits beyond just getting new members.

We had no cookbooks to sell and only moved one photo. And that was to Emily’s mother. But it still counts.

I don’t think the booth was the problem as much as the makeup of the crowd. They just didn’t care, and I can’t say I blame them: they’re not used to this type of thing at their fair. Whether we’ll try again in Litchfield July 18-19 is still up in the air, but I think we’re leaning towards appearing there. We enjoyed it when we did get to chat with folks…they were just too few and far between.

Pictures of our booth are available on my Digital Route 66 Flickr Photostream (in reverse order, because that’s what Flickr does.

The whole idea of appearing at local town festivals was borne out of the April quarterly meeting of the Association in Hamel. One of the key points of discussion was the fall off in membership and the subsequent need for us to promote the Association (and the road). We can’t just expect people to hunt us down.

Emily and I quickly volunteered to appear at Farmersville, Raymond and Litchfield’s celebrations…and seconds later we found ourselves the Montgomery County reps. Cool.

This left us with the unenviable task of showing up at group of town celebrations that have nothing to do with our Association. Unlike next weeks National Route 66 Festival in Litchfield, these events have nothing to do with the Mother Road other than the fact that the communities are on the highway. Even Edwardsville’s fiesta this weekend is at least called the Route 66 Festival even if it’s just a name.

I figured I needed a battle plan. And this is what I came up with:

1.) Wow them. Pictures, music and a big banner. Instead of a tiny table with a few brochures, give the people something to help them grasp the utter awesomeness of America’s Main Street. One of my pet peeves about the Association’s website has always been the lack of vibrant images of the road, something I believe [cheap plug] that Digital Route 66 is not lacking in (that banner at the top has about twenty-six different pictures that rotate right now, and I keep adding more). So we need lots of color and flash.

The result: a flip book of around fifty 8.5×11 full color images from my collection of Illinois Route 66 landmarks. They’re brilliant and attention grabbing and there’s information that goes along with them. In order from south to north, they help tell the story of Route 66 as you leaf through it. In addition, I’m making a large presentation board (the type used for science fair projects) into a preservation display with, at last count, fourteen more images (mostly 4×6, but a couple 8.5×11) of landmarks that have been restored or preserved along the Mother Road in Illinois. There’s also a map of Illinois featuring all of the projects worked on.

Oh, the music: I purchased a few 50’s oldies compilation CDs to go with my already pretty good collection of 60’s music and created a four-to-five hour playlist for our iPod to take along on last weekend’s Motor Tour. It’s called “Cruisin’”, and to be a little polite it, well…it kicks your ass. The songs haven’t outlived their usefulness, though: I’m taking small speakers and the iPod with me to play crusin’ music (at a reasonable volume) at the booth to get people in the Route 66 mood. Trust me, it works.

The banner: didn’t get it done in time. We’ll make do without it.

2.) Have a product. Our main goal is to hopefully get one or two (or more) new (or renewal, even) applicants to the Association. Or to at least hand out brochures. But that’s not enough.

Since I printed all those pictures out to display, why can’t we sell a few? The Waldmire prints up for sale on the Motor Tour did okay, and while my photography is not nearly as artistic a few people may still find it attractive. And since we’re in Farmersville, printing a few extra copies of the Art’s sign and the Our Lady of the Highways Shrine might result in a few sales. It costs me (well, the Association after I get repaid) about $1.50 at most to produce a print. Selling just a couple at $10/print would do a lot.

What else sells well at these festivals? Cookbooks. Since the Association already has a stack of them, putting some on the table certainly won’t hurt. I was promised a shipment of them from up north by this weekend; no luck yet, but there’s still time.

3.) Get them talking. Our biggest advantage is our love of the highway. Emily and I are well versed in its history and speak with passion. If we can get people asking about certain pictures or landmarks or just what the heck we’re doing there, then we might get move a print. Or get a new member. Or at least just get someone to want to travel the road…someday. And isn’t that what we’re all about, anyway?

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I think it’ll work. If nothing else we have the three festivals before the next Association meeting in Willowbrook in July so we can report back on our successes and failures. Hopefully more of the former.

I’ll take pictures this weekend at Irish Days and show off the final product.

Okay, so it wasn’t the Illinois Central.

And it wasn’t Monday morning; it was Monday evening.

But it was still awesome. With Emily having to work in Chicagoland this week, it was the perfect opportunity to travel the rails alongside Route 66. After arriving at a friend’s house in Plainfield to catch up on sleep after the Motor Tour, we spent Monday - our first anniversary - heading up the Mother Road out of Joliet all the way up to Michigan Avenue. We missed a few miles of road in Joliet, but we’d taken Veterans’ Parkway around Springfield on Saturday so we’d already cheated once. It’s the thought that counts.

At 6:05 that evening she dropped me off at the historic Joliet Union Station and I jumped the 305 Amtrak southbound to Carlinville. We paused only once - just south of Odell to wait for a freight to pass - and the trip along the Mother Road, coming just one day after we had traveled north, was a fun way to head back home. Of the landmarks easily visible from the train I only missed the Polk-a-Dot and pretty much all of Chenoa before darkness stole my vision from me near Sherman. For a moment I thought I’d missed the Cayuga Meramec Caverns Barn, but then it snuck up on me; with the elevation of the tracks at that point the view of the barn from the train is incredible.

An added bonus: the train car was lined with AC power plugs enabling me to plug in my laptop and do work, specifically for the festival this weekend. The result was me doing about five minutes of work while heading out of Joliet before I ditched the notebook and dug out the iPod. I was just too distracted away from my sightseeing.

• The aforementioned festival is Farmersville’s Irish Days, the village’s annual town fiesta that was once featured on the Illinois Motor Tour. This Friday night and Saturday we’ll have a booth at the event promoting the Association, handing out applications and hopefully educating some people about Route 66. Maybe we can even sell a few cookbooks. I’m assembling a binder full of 8.5×11 prints of Illinois Route 66 landmarks and information about them (and I’ll have some of those prints for sale as well) and there will be a large poster celebrating the preservation efforts of the Association over the years.

We’re looking forward to Litchfield next week, as well, though we’ll just be hanging out at the Illinois Association/Pontiac booth a little bit. I’d love to attend the breakfast at the Ariston on Sunday morning, as well, but we have to go to church sometime. And the rest of the weekend is packed.