Trip 5: Day 20 (Chicago & Houston)

Flying over Joliet, Illinois

When you follow a cross-country route in its entirety, it helps immensely when that cross-country route has been researched and followed before by past travelers. Route 66 is the best example. While I think overrated and overdone, it is much more difficult to find the original path of Route 66 than it is to find Route 6, because, except for a couple of sections far west, most of the road has been swallowed up by interstates: I-55, I-44, I-40 and I-15. What's left are little stubs going into towns and going up hills that the interstates sliced through. Even in researching old maps, it becomes difficult to determine the original route. In Illinois in 1956, Route 66 already had newer bypass routes, going around several small towns.
Flying to Houston today, we followed Route 66 through most of Illinois. Most obvious was Dwight, Illinois, where you can see the railroad, and the original Route 66 that more closely followed it, the Route 66 bypass route around the center of town, and the modern Interstate 55 routing as it bypasses the bypass.
Once I got to Houston, I got my rental car and drove to the Montrose, trying to find a restaurant that was open. It was Easter, and a lot of places that I would have liked to have gone were closed. I ended up at Rudyard's, my favorite bar in the city, and drank too much while listening to the typical Rudz banter: some funny stuff, but mostly bullshit. I didn't like the food menu, so I went for Taco Cabana; always a super cheap option and a new one that they had built recently in the Montrose.
The block just south of Interstate 10 along Yale Street used to be a low-income, heavily Latino apartment complex. I would drive by it late at night, and there were always people out by the cars along the street, drinking beer and chatting with each other. That complex has been totally leveled though, and replaced with - of all things - a Wal-Mart. So low-income people had their housing removed, but more low-wage, low-benefit jobs have replaced it.

I'll be posting, but there will likely not be many pictures, and there may be no videos. It's a break time, more of a vacation within my vacation.