The Start of Route 66
What an anti-climax, I had built this up in my head as some sort of magical occasion, the pot of gold, a major milestone of the trip. Instead it was some decrepit sign, covered in gum and stickers down a random street in the middle of Chicago. For something as iconic as Route 66, they could have done so much more, in all honesty you would have no idea you were on Route 66 until about 200 miles out of Chicago. Kerry once again joined me at the start of the run, the RV again struggling to support us due to the busy streets and tight turns. We agreed to meet up on the outskirts of the city, about 10 miles from where we were. It was a pleasant morning in Chicago with a morning mist sitting over the city keeping a little warmth inside it.
Map Of Chicago Neighborhoods
Navigating out of the city was not too bad at all, we knew once we got onto one street we could follow that all the way out and that we would eventually meet up with the highway we needed to take us down to Gardener, the next town on our list. We passed through the different neighbourhoods of Chicago, the smells and sites of this vibrant city hitting you as you passed along their streets. Chicago offers you something different from other large cities; it has a small urban feel to it rather than big city life. Sitting on the banks of the great lake it moulds itself neatly around it as if connected by some cosmic bond. The people of Chicago are friendly and helpful; nothing is too much trouble for them It is nicknamed the Windy City and thankfully the wind wasn’t against us during our visit.
Map of Chicago Photo Gallery
The 12 days we had done had taken their toll on my body. I was a stone down in weight. One stone in 12 days, beats most of the fad diets we see so much on TV and a perfect way to teach people some very basic rules about weight loss. Firstly, if you burn more than you consume you will lose weight. For example, I was burning on average 12,000 calories a day, but as much as I wanted to eat I couldn’t physically consume 12,000 calories worth of food, the end result is weight loss. This would be the same result no matter what the numbers were as long as the calories consumed are less than the calories burnt weight will be lost – but I do admit that this is quite an extreme fitness regime!
Map Of Chicago Area
As much as I was burning, I also had to take into account that I had to keep my engine going, as well. This is what most people cannot comprehend, starvation is not the way to lose weight, quite the opposite in fact and this seems to most people contradictory. I needed to make sure my body had something to burn, it needed good fuel to get through. An analogy I often use is that of a car or a train -the engine needs fuel to run, too little and you will breakdown, too much and you will flood and also inevitably breakdown. Take on what you need, when you need it.
Map Of Chicago Illinois
My diet and eating by this point was honed to perfection, but like many things the perfection had been achieved through trial and error, and there had been a number of errors. This type of task was not something any of us had ever done before and we had no one else to follow as there is no one else that has ever done this before either. My daily intake looked something close to this:
• Breakfast – This varied between eggs, cereal and fresh fruit salad.
• Mid-Morning – Fruit salad with yogurt and granola
• Dinner – 6 scrambled eggs and more fruit salad
• Mid Afernoon – Protein bar
• Tea – This varied between Tuna Pasta Bake, Spaghetti Bolognese, Chilli, Pizza and BBQ.
(*For people not from Yorkshire, dinner is lunch and tea is dinner)
It was nothing too fancy, it was nothing out of the ordinary. The team looked afer me; this was my fuel every day, it worked. I think some people see something like this challenge and they believe you have to have some special diet or you have to be some sort of freak. Keeping fit and eating well is like anything, it’s all about balance.
Chicago was gone, quickly left behind like so many of the cities and towns before it, but it would be forever remembered as the start of Route 66. Out of the city, we were onto quieter roads again, the interstate, though, was never far away, the rumble of the traffic a constant reminder.
Map Of Chicago Airport
Most of you will be forgiven for thinking that Route 66 is one road from Chicago to LA and that navigation should be easy. We thought that, too – how wrong we were. The Old Route 66 is a series of old roads and highways weaving their way through small towns and clusters of houses, the road itself breaking and buckling with the lack of maintenance. Alongside this is the interstate, a giant beast of a road that cuts straight through the land. The old road bobs and weaves with the undulating land, dipping and diving with the landscape, the interstate pays no attention to what is around it and bulldozes nose first straight through, unforgiving and brutal.
We followed the old road where we could, so that we could visit the smaller towns and villages that lay along the road. We saw the old gas stations, some abandoned years ago, others faintly clinging to that little piece of the American dream They have kept their old fashioned pumps and iconic signs, hoping (in vein, I believe) to draw the tourists from the much busier interstate. Abandoned businesses and houses would become a common site as we pushed across the country, some still inhabited but in dire need of restoration. It is not until you are there, stood within it, that you see how much the interstate has taken from these people. The Old Route 66 may be challenging but it is worth the hardship to help support these people.
I ran from sunrise to sunset, eventually coming to an end on a long straight road with the train track running parallel. The train-lines are different in America. I am sure in the cities they are much like the train-lines in Britain, busy and full of commuters, but head to the mid-west and what you find is not commuter trains but large haulage trains with carriages numbering in the hundreds. A train would pass and it would still be passing 10 minutes later, the banging of the carriages would be almost deafening.
