Route 66

We have other travels in which you may be interested:

We have also ridden East Coast USA (Washingto DC) to West Coast (San Diego) on an Indian Road master.
https://rickadderleyec2wc.travellerspoint.com

These have been riden on our Harley Davidson CVO trike:

Touring around Germany
https://TouringGermany.travellerspoint.com

Visiting the Isle of Man
https://IsleOfMan.travellerspoint.com

Touring around Spain
https://TouringSpain.travellerspoint.com

For those who are interested, during September 2017 we collected an Indian Roadmaster from Washington DC and rode it to San Diego CA. We had to change our intended route whilst travelling due to the hurricanes but our journey can be found on http://rickadderleyec2wc.travellerspoint.com/

We landed to blue skies and sunshine and 25 degrees which is more like what we are used to, not the cloud of Chicago.

Yesterday (Friday) was our first full day of relaxing. We took the subway to the Yankee stadium which is at 161st Street in the Bronx. There is a Hard Rock within the stadium and it has Yankee Stadium branded Hard Rock T shirts, badges etc. After lunch in Hard Rock we took the subway back to 110th St which is the top end of Central Park and had a stroll back through the park. Not all the way in one go as we stopped after 1 ¾ hours at the Boat House restaurant terrace gardens to people watch (and partake of a glass or 2). We met a really nice Australian family and chatted for a while and they took our photo (it makes a change from a selfie). We continued our walk through the park and through Manhattan arriving at our hotel at 1700. Just in time to get changed and go out for our meal.

Yesterday (Saturday), another blue skies, hot and sunny day in the upper 20’s, we started by going to Macy’s (a huge department store) which had a 2 day special. We bought a $5 charity card to get 30% off of all shopping so we ended up saving a lot of money on our shopping. We had to buy lots to make the most of our savings – I’m not sure of the logic in that though but Sand said it was true!!!

We then went to Grand Central Station for an early lunch. From past memories of the lovely individual restaurants and peaceful atmosphere were soon dashed as the majority of the food concourse was filled with fast food outlets and a central communal eating area. It was packed with people and we had difficulty in finding a table to eat a sandwich, not what we expected. As we’ve said before, it’s not always good to go back!

We wandered back to our hotel and packed our shopping away and had a relaxing afternoon before going out for a nice meal to end our holiday.
Today (Sunday) we fly home at 2040 so after packing we will leave our cases at the hotel and spend a quiet day in Central Park walking, people watching and partaking in a glass of wine/beer (or 2).

We’ve had such a great time, Route 66 was a wonderful experience. We’ve only had one afternoon of rain showers on our 1st visit to Chicago; all of the rest have been blue skies and sunshine all but a couple of cloudy days. We’ve met and seen some weird and wacky people, seen some wonderful sights and eaten some good food. Time to go home.

That’s all folks…………………………………

We have been in Chicago for one evening and 2 whole days to rest and relax after our ride staying in the Hard Rock hotel on Michigan Avenue. On Tuesday 25th we made up for our lack of ice cream in that we had a Ghirardelli’s ice cream breakfast/lunch. You can see from the photos we didn’t need to eat again until the evening. We spent the rest of the day with a little retail therapy combined with sightseeing and partaking of our “medicine.”

Yesterday (Wednesday) we took the 0825 Hiawatha (only the Yanks can have such good names for their trains) Amtrak train from Chicago to Milwaukee to visit the Harley Davidson museum. We arrived at 1000 and the museum was just a 15 minute walk from the station. We had a great time looking around the bikes and historical artefacts taking many photos. We caught the 1500 train back to Chicago where we had a relaxing afternoon and evening ready for our flight this morning.

Whilst in Chicago on this visit the weather has been cool for us only low 70’s (21 / 22 degrees). After the heat of the Mohave Desert of mid 40’s it has felt like winter!!!!

We fly to New York at 1130, to arrive at 1435 New York time.

View from our room at the Hard Rock Hotel looking down Michigan Avenue

Breakfast at Ghirardelli’s

Hiawatha Amtrak train notice board

Harley Davidson museum

One of the first production Harley Davidsons

Latest Harley Davidson Rushmore project design. See how far they have progressed from the early production bikes.

We wrote most of this sat in LAX waiting for our 1030 flight back to Chicago.

15 days ago we started our trip of a lifetime, we’ve had such a wonderful time and adventure riding a Harley Davidson Electra glide for 2750 miles from Chicago to Santa Monica pier LA. The bike never let us down, running perfectly all of the time. BUT in slow moving traffic it’s a beast, the vibrations at slow speeds and whilst stopped shook the fillings out of your teeth. We are glad that we opted for the Harley as we now know that we will never ever own one!!! The bike was very comfortable to sit on and ride at normal and high speeds and the carrying capacity was perfect. We were also grateful for the cruise control.

Through our journey we have seen so many wonderful sights, met some very interesting people and took several hundred photographs.

Some of the highlights are:

Wonderful open roads with little or no traffic.
Wall to wall sunshine.
For the entire journey we shared every evening meal due to such large portions.
Seligman was a surprise in that it was a real good stop. All genuine Route 66 buildings and people..
Petrified forest views were stunning.
The day wandering around Santa Fe old town.
Riding through the Mohave Desert experiencing temperatures in the mid 40s.
A welcome cold beer (or 2) every evening.

Some of the lowlights are:

Traffic in St Louis due to major roadworks.
Didn’t get to have an ice cream on the journey!!!

Our journey of 2750 miles cost us $216 or £141 meaning that each mile cost us only £0.05p !

Once Route 66 was replaced by the interstates, lots of the thriving small towns became derelict due to no passing trade. During our journey on the Route we saw homes and commercial properties derelict and abandoned with rusting vehicles, trailers, trucks and motor homes littered around. This, in itself, was interesting to see as it is like the Marie Celest of Route 66.

The start of our journey began in Chicago. As we were staying down town we needed to travel to Eagle Rider by taxi. On leaving our hotel a cab was hailed for us which was driven by a young Oriental/Asian woman. Yesterday on arriving into Chicago O’Hare airport, after collecting our bag we took ourselves to the taxi queue. The cab that was hailed for us was being driven by the SAME YOUNG WOMAN who recognised us and said, “Hi guys, you’re back from your journey.” What are the chances of that in a City this big !!!!!!!

Kitted up at the start of our journey

The official end of Route 66

Handing the bike back at the end of our journey in T shirts, our normal mode of travelling