Bob Waldmire's School Bus Land Yacht

One of Route 66's most beloved characters is Bob Waldmire. Bob was from Illinois, and we are fortunate to have his VW van and also his converted school bus home in Pontiac at the Illinois Route 66 Association Hall of Fame and Museum. It's a truly unique home, and tells us much about the traveling artist of Route 66. Bob was a self proclaimed hippie, and he pared his lifestyle down to fit in his van and his school bus home. He truly lived his life on the mother road.

Here is Bob's bus as it sits behind our Old City Hall Museum Complex. Bob and friends added a second story, a sun deck, a bathroom and sauna, a working kitchen, an office, bed, guest room, and more. They converted the bus on the family farm in Illinois, then he drove it to Hackberry, Arizona, where it became his winter home.

You can tour the bus when you come to Pontiac, Illinois. I can't show you everything in one blog post, but I can give you a hint of what it's like. Then come visit and see this amazing home for yourself.  Take a peek inside:

The driver's seat

 Bob's desk

 A stove for heat on chilly desert nights.

 The seventies live on in Bob's bus.

This is just a portion of the things to see on this bus, not to mention all the things to see at the Route 66 Association of Illinois Museum! The museum and my shop, Home Again on Route 66, and the War Museum, and the Bob Waldmire Exhibit are all in the historic old city hall building with several other interesting exhibits about the 1940s and the Civil War.

Bob's VW van was the inspiration for the hippie van in the movie "Cars." In a future post I'll give you a peek at his van.

Meyer's Route 66 Farm Truck

I have taken to going to various churches as well as my own church because, to my mind, we are all part of the Christian church. I'm meeting lots of new people this way too! Take this morning, for instance. I walk out of Kulture Church at the Junior High and I see this:

Wow! I whip out my phone and start taking pictures.

It turns out this truck is owned by the Meyers family, and they have encouraged their daughter, Chris, to unleash her artistic talents on the truck. It's awesome. 

It's lovely to see a family doing so much together, and encouraging their children to use their talents. You may see this family on Route 66 in your travels! If you do see them, look for Elvis too. Yes, their little son is named Elvis. Gotta love it. 

Phyllis Chandler Grey

 Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting Phyllis Chandler Grey. She has a new children's book out: "Route 66 In Search of Ghosts and Treasures."  It follows a family's trip on the mother road in search of things that their grandmother saw, and in search of new things that make Route 66 special.

 This is me and Phyllis, playing with the photo op signs in our building. Getting our kicks, everyday, on 66!

Here is a page from her book. It has so much history included that I think adults will like it too. One thing I was soooo happy to see was that her characters are travel journaling, which is a passion of mine. Before they even start their trip, they research it using many popular books on Route 66...check it out...you will recognize some of these titles.

Her book is chock full of colorful illustrations created with markers and goes step by step down the Mother Road from Chicago to Los Angles. It's a hard cover and printed on high quality stock.   It's in the shop now and the price is just 19.99.

Welcome to the new blog!

 I am starting this blog for my shop, Home Again, in Pontiac, IL. The former blog, Old City Hall Shoppes, will now point towards this one. The shop is no longer in an antique mall, even though it's in the same building! In our building we are now surrounded by wonderful museum exhibits: the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum, the Livingston County War Museum, the Walldog Museum, the Bob Waldmire exhibit, and the Music of the Civil War exhibit. Now that's a lot of history in our historic building!

 We have many t shirts and souvenirs. Some are unique to our shop.

We also have artwork by myself and other local artists, as well as posters and cards by Bob Waldmire.

Tunics by Shannon Vincent

We are gearing up for spring, finding new merchandise, and making and ordering items for the shop. I've started out this winter by taking my first Route 66 trip outside of Illinois! I took many pictures to work from when creating new drawings. I didn't get all the way to LA, but I did get to Albuquerque, NM by way of Route 66. Eventually I hope to do the rest of the way to California, but that will have to wait a bit. I'll be sharing some of the cool places I saw that are so familiar to all the Route 66 roadies.