Above / The Century Walk sculpture of city namesake Joe Naper is sure to welcome travelers to the Naper Homestead, located at the corner of Mill and Jefferson near downtown Naperville.
UPDATE, Oct. 4, 2016 / Just picked up October and love it! Got home Sunday- 14 states, a little over 5,000 miles and 106 hours in the car. Average miles per hour- 47. We stayed on Route 66 most of the way west and came home via the 3 states Kent missed during his years of corporate travel—North and South Dakota and Montana. Thanks for the great article! —Marilyn Krueger
Since November 2001, Positively Naperville has been blessed to have dedicated readers pack copies of the publication to take with them on their travels, near and far.
This month, Marilyn and Kent Krueger put different towns, landmarks and historic public art along Route 66 on the map when they caught one another reading Positively Naperville on their way from Illinois to Arizona.
From Naperville, travelers can pick up Route 66 along Interstate 55, the highway that replaced the old Route 66 when the nation began building better, bigger highways. Folks who have taken historic Route 66 say it symbolizes freedom as well as the heart of America.
Above / Kent Krueger whiles a way some time to read PN near Meramec Caverns in Stanton, Missouri, about 335 miles from Naperville. Meramec Caverns, located in the Ozarks, is the largest commercial cave in the state of Missouri.
Above / Perhaps Kent Krueger was thinking as he read news in Positively Naperville, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
Above / Kent Krueger stands along Route 66 west of Amarillo, Texas, at Cadillac Ranch. The public art was “invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. Known as The Ant Farm, their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh 3 who aimed to baffle the locals. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh 3’s fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt (supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza). The vehicles faced west in a line, from the 1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville, their tail fins held high for all to see on the empty Texas panhandle.”
Amarillo, Texas, is about 1,030 miles from Naperville.
Above / Marilyn Krueger meets up with the “Standing on the corner” along the roadside. Finished in 1999, the downtown corner includes a life-size statue of “a relaxed dude-with-guitar and a two-story Trompe L’oeil mural laying out all the critical lyrics in an Eagles hit with ‘a girl’ and ‘a flatbed Ford’ reflected in a storefront,” along with an eagle perched on one painted window sill.
Winslow, Arizona, is about 1,680 miles from Naperville.
Thanks, Marilyn and Kent! PN editors appreciate the education about several places we’ve never been. Safe travels!
—PN
