LESLIE'S JOURNAL

The truth is that the two lane byways and the info-super-highway are both bloody difficult to travel, especially simultaneously, and so the days are full of real and virtual agony and ecstacy.

This morning we averaged three and a half miles per hour out of Springfield, Illinois. Some of this time was spent at Lincoln's tomb, but most of it was spent following detour signs down dead end streets, trying to leave town in a desperate number of directions, but somehow always finding ourselves being welcomed to the LAND OF LINCOLN, just when we thought we'd really escaped. Compounding the frustrations of trying to follow the old road with our inability to get on-line this morning, or download photos from the digital camera, both routes were begining to seem hopelessly full of pot holes and I was thinking to myself, whose idea was this, anyway?...

Then around 2pm, we discovered a fantastic little 66 Cafe in Litchfield, Illinois, a block off the main road, where we stopped for a grilled cheese sandwhich, french fries, coffee and coconut cream pie. While we were waiting on the food, Helen spied our waitress hand-cutting the potatoes for our fries and suddenly I was in love with the trip again. We left a tiny beefeater statuette on the red tartan table cloth, along with a pop-up map of London and our card.

A little further down the road, we met an old man who had lived all his life in the same tiny town, watching the people go by on 66. He reminded me of my Grandpa Buddy.