ANNIVERSARY ADVENTURES: ERIE CANAL AND ROUTE 66

Mary Moore with an Erie Canal Boatman

Mary Moore on Route 66

When I was growing up in Virginia I dreamed of three great adventures: to visit London and other parts of the UK because my ancestors came from there, to cruise down New York State’s Erie Canal because we sang about it in our high school glee club, and to drive down America’s ‘Mother Road’ because we were constantly reminded on both radio and TV that we could “get our kicks on Route 66!”

Soon after graduating from university I achieved my first dream – not only touring the UK and other parts of Europe but much later settling in London, establishing a dual-national family and co-launching Essentially America, a travel  magazine all about the allure of my native country.

Later my second dream came true when I drove in fits and starts all 2,400 plus miles of Route 66, beginning in Chicago – and eight states and many adventures later  –  in 2023 arriving at its terminus in Santa Monica, California.

Mary Moore’s Route 66 certificate

End of Route 66 Trail Santa Monica

This year – on the eve of its 2026 centennial birthday – I revisited the particularly lively llinois portion of the  Mother Road as well as taking a bicentennial cruise down the Erie Canal, lesser-known internationally than Route 66 but to some degree even more ssignificant. For after eight years of hard labour, primarily by unskilled Irish immigrant workers,it  provided for the first time an easy and relatively speedy way to transport both people and produce between the then fledgling Atlantic seaport of New York City and the Great Lakes region of the American Midwest. In fact, some historians have referred to it as “America’s First Super Highway”.

Erie Canal beside the Buffalo Waterfront

Each trip had its own high points for me. For the upper New York State trip it was visiting the Canal-side portion of waterfront Buffalo, founded in 1789, for decades America’s largest grain port, then the entrance or terminus for the Erie Canal and now also New York State’s second largest city as well as home to such varied attractions as those succulent chicken bits known as ‘Buffalo wings’ and the outstanding AKG Art Museum.

For it was here at Canal-side that a museum told the history and significance of the city and that I checked out The Seneca Chief, a re-creation of the vessel which in the autumn of 1805 officially opened the new 363-mile-long waterway from Buffalo to Albany (now the state capital) where it joined the Hudson River flowing southwards into New York City and its Atlantic Ocean harbour. On board was New York State Governor DeWitt Clinton who carried with him a container of Lake Erie water which he then symbolically poured into the Atlantic Ocean.

A re-creation of The Seneca Chief passing through Lockport

Niagara Falls tour boat

Tour group at the top of Niagara Falls

Later I checked out the various entertainment attractions of the city’s RiverWorks area, took a sunset harbour cruise  on the majestic Spirit of Buffalo topsail schooner and a tour boat past the majestic cascades of Niagara Falls, only 20 miles to the north.

Then came Lockport, site of the Erie Canal’s incredible Flight of Five Locks which raise and lower the water level 50 feet and where 12 life-sized bronze statues pay tribute to the lock tenders without whom this engineering wonder could not function,. It definitely called for a round of drinks at the Lock Tender Tap Room followed by dinner in the Big Ditch Brewing Company (the Canal was known as Governor Clinton’s’ Big Ditch’).

Barman at the Lock Tender Tap Room

Mary Moore behind the bar in the taproom in Lockport

Mary Moore taking a load off with the Lock Tenders bronze statues

Lockport Locks

An Erie Canal Boat Musician

Next came Pittsford,  where I boarded the Sam Patch, a replica 1800s canal boat which glided through a lock, under bridges and past tranquil scenes of waterside villages and towpath hikers and bikers as we passengers enjoyed a delicious buffet enhanced by wine from the nearby Finger Lakes region and a  guitarist sang the 1905 folk song I so vividly remembered about travelling “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal” accompanied by a “mule named Sal”. (Inspired, we were told, by the average distance a mule would tow a barge before resting.)

Now it was time to visit canalside Rochester, third largest city in the state and home to the unique Strong Museum of Play, encompassing, we were told, the world’s largest collection of historical games and toys. Among them are the world’s first Monopoly game, a  talking doll created by inventor Thomas Edison, the German doll which was the prototype for the American Barbie, and large, colouful figures of such enduring super heroes as Spider-Man, Batman and Wonder Woman.

Batman exhibit from the Stone Museum of Play

Talking doll created by inventor Thomas Edison

Next came the George Eastman Museum, sited in the 50-room, 1905 mansion of the inventor of the world’s first simple, hand-held roll film camera and founder of the resulting Eastman Kodak Company. Not only were the photographic exhibits interesting and the domestic rooms appealing, particularly the conservatory, where Eastman hosted musical events (he also founded the impressive Eastman School of Music), but the gardens were stunning. 

George Eastman House - Photo credit NYSDED-NYS Dept. of Economic Dev Darren McGee

And then it was time to pay a final tribute to this adventure by visiting Syracuse’s Erie Canal Museum, which vividly brings to life the creation, history and impact of this two-century old waterway.

For more information visit I Love New York.

Moving on to Route 66, which soon morphs into Interstate 55,  I began my adventure with a massive breakfast at Chicago’ s Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant, a roadside landmark since 1923,  before heading south-west to Joliet where I couldn’t resist having a selfie made with the Blues Brothers (in real life, actors John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd), in the Old Joliet Prison where they were incarcerated in the 1980 Blues Brothers film, and which will  serve as a hub for next year’s Route 66 centennial celebrations.

Mary Moore hanging out with the Blues Brothers

Amblers Texaco Gas Station and Diner, Dwight

The Gemini Giant

Then, southward at Wilmington  there was  an opportunity to meet one of the route’s most famous giant fibreglass statues, the 30ft tall Gemini Giant, originally one of the roadside “Muffler Men” designed to lure motorists into auto service stations but now a park-sited astronaut holding a silver rocket.

Route 66 is also renowned for its folksy roadside cafes such as Braidwood’s  Polk-A-Dot Diner, surrounded by figues of such show biz icons as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and, of course, the Blues Brothers. Pop inside, sit at a booth and you can choose one of your all-time musical favourites on your own private jukebox.

At Dwight,  I popped in for a chat at Amblers Texaco Gas Station, reputedly the route’s longest-serving petrol-pumping station – 66 years until it closed in 1999 – and now a welcome centre and at Pontiac into the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame & Museum, fronted by what it claims is the “World’s Largest Route 66 Mural”.

Route 66 mural in Pontiac, Illinois

The next day there was another opportunity for a selfi, at the foot of Atlanta’s 19ft tall, hotdog clutching Paul Bunyan statue, before learning more about these roadside phenomenon at the  American Giants Museum. Then time to meet a real giant, America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, in the Illinois state capital Springfield, site of the only home he ever owned, his law office, the family tomb and the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which provides enlightening and entertaining insights to this great man’s life and legacy.

Measuring up to World's Tallest Man in Alton

Paul Bunyon Giant statue in Atlanta

Meet the Lincolns in Springfield

Then time for pizza, beer and rip-roaring live music at the city’s Motorhads Bar, Grill & Museum, sited in the Motordome, which on November 11 next year will be home to a major Route 66 centennial celebration. Among other sites of local note are the Ace Sign Company Museum, a  treasure house of retro signs, and the Cozy Dog Drive In, birthplace of the batter-encased hot dog on a stick known as a corn dog.

Cozy Dog Drive In

Cozy Dog Drive Museum

Cartoon corn dogs

I couldn’t resist revisiting Livingston’s Pink Elephant Antiques Mall, still fronted by a giant rose-coloured pachyderme but also by something I don’t recall seeing before,  a space ship guarded by two aliens. And inside, my travel companions and I couldn’t resist some of the only - on -Route 66 assembly of treasures including a wide range of flamboyant sun glasses, ideal for providing unique views of the rest of our unusual  adventure.

Livington’s Pink Elephant

UFO, Aliens and Mary Moore in Livingston

Alas, there was no time to swing just off route to the Cahokia Mounds, remnants of one of the oldest pre-Columbian civilization north of Mexico City,  or the landmark, now pedestrianised Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River as we were behind schedule to take a chair lift up to and dine at Grafton’s mountain top Winery at the Vineyards, but there was just time to have my final Illinois selfie made beside Alton’s statue of the World’s Tallest Man, Robert Wadlow,  8 ft 11 before we crossed over the mighty Mississippi to overnight in St Louis, Missouri and end this part of my Route 66 adventure.

For more information, visit Enjoy Illinois

To read more about my Erie Canal and Route 66 adventures be sure to check out the current issue of Essentially America magazine.

The late autumn/winter issue of Essentially America is now off press.
For more information visit www.essentiallyamerica.co.uk, selecting Magazines and you can not only browse though back issues but also subscribe to the magazine.

And check out my book of travel and lifestyle anecdotes, Goodbye Hoop Skirts – Hello World! The Travels, Triumphs and Tumbles of a Runaway Southern Belle.