HELEN'S JOURNAL

The glittering night skyline of Chicago greeted us at 9:05 this evening. We left another, final, video and card at the bottom of the END ROUTE 66 sign, and I shimmied up the pole to plant a silver star on the last brown and white 66 signpost.

Oh, what an adventure! What a journey - memories, places, people to treasure. Today we picked up one of our very first trails at Funk's Maple Sirup Grove. We'd left that jar of lemon curd on the doorstep of the closed store over three weeks ago. Today Mrs. Funk greeted us and immediately knew that it was us who had left that parcel for her. She had already sampled it on some fruit, and in return immediately gave us two pots of her delicious syrup. She proved to be a delight, regaling us with stories of the road, of Funk's Grove, and was eager to find out why we had decided to make the trip. When we left her the Gardener's Question Time tape, along with a packet of Night Scented Stock, she excitedly led us into her own garden, and then on into the infamous maple grove itself. She chatted non-stop and as the three of us walked together through the sunlit trees and wild yellow poppies, I felt that she was an old friend we had just stopped by to visit.

Our final stop of the day, and of this journey, was at the old road itself. A small, cracked lost fragment that lay between the highway and a later part of Route 66 that we were travelling. It ran for a while and then just stopped and the grass and wild flowers took over. In its cracked surface, we planted our final packet of seeds, lavender. I looked down it, facing west, and thought of the early pioneers, of the covered wagons, and of the hope, the expectation, hardships and adventure. I thought about Mildred and Vera and Rich and Bob (both of them) and Mrs. Funk. And I thought, 'they are all down that road, it takes you to each one of them, and many more besides.'

Strange entering this big city tonight and thinking, 'this is where their road starts, shadowed by the towering Sears and Hancock buildings. This bright, noisy street leads to the Frontier Cafe, Funk's Grove, and the endless Arizona desert.

I can't say it all now - there is so much to say - but a fragment of Robert Frost comes to me, half remembered, and with that I'll close, 'I took the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.'