Route 66 in the News
Shea's a Jaw-Dropping Attraction
2004-09-29 14:01:30
October's issue of ARTHUR FROMMER's Budget Travel magazine touts BILL SHEA's Route 66 Gas Station Museum [Springfield, Ill.] as a "jaw-dropping roadside attraction."
On a road trip, "it's not the driving that makes for great memories, it's the stops," writer DAVID LAHUTA declares, describing his favorite 59 side-trip stops nationwide.
He designates at least one in each state. In addition to Shea's landmark on Peoria Road, the 10-page pullout section lists the World's Largest Catsup Bottle (actually the 170-foot-tall water tower at Brooks Original Tangy Catsup plant) in Collinsville as a don't-miss attraction in Illinois.
Noting that Shea started pumping gas on the same block of Business Route 66 in 1946, the magazine tells readers:
"Stop in for an earful of stories (from the man himself) and a look at Shea's gas station memorabilia from nearly 60 years on the Mother Road."
Dearborn's famous Henry Ford Museum - where the Kennedy presidential limousine, Lincoln's blood-stained chair and oddities such as THOMAS EDISON's last gasp (Ford had the dying Edison breathe into a test tube, which was corked to become a museum exhibit) is the magazine's pick as Michigan's jaw-dropper attraction.
Jaw-droppers on the lighter side:
The Museum of Bad Art (one painting on exhibit is titled "Sunday On the Pot With George" - an overweight man seated on a commode) in Needham, Mass.; the Jell-O Museum in LeRoy, N.Y.; the Striptease Hall of Fame at Helendale, Calif.; and the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wis.
Lighter yet:
Penn's Store at Gravel Switch, Ky., home of the "Great Outhouse Blowout," an October festival that features privy races; and the "Strictly Moose" store in Gorham, N.H., where moose-related products include "moose nuggets" - genuine moose dung rolled into balls and implanted with biennial flower seeds.
European encore?
English auto club members who shipped 13 of their snazzy Morgan sports cars to the United States to show and cruise in Springfield's third annual International Route 66 Mother Road Festival gave the event two thumbs up and indicated other British car clubs are likely to come for future fests.
To the hundreds who camped at curbside to watch the cruises Friday and Saturday nights, the Morgan machines stood out in the crowd.
MR. ROUTE 66 - TV series star MARTIN MILNER - a familiar face at a number of major car festivals for years - has cut back to only one: this one.
~excerpted from an article by Toby McDaniel in the Springfield State Journal-Register
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