It felt GREAT to get back to going on road trips in mid-July!

I’ve missed the experience.

I recently returned from a two-day road trip (from my home in Sterling) that took me on a boomerang-like journey toward U.S. Route 66 in Illinois, and then to the Waterloo, Iowa area. If you have Facebook or X, you can check out my “mini-updates” using the hashtag #CodysRoadTrips on both platforms (particularly the posts from July 14 and July 15).

These trips took me to the Crazy 80s Car Museum in Dwight, the Pontiac-Oakland Auto Museum in Pontiac, the Dan Gable National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Waterloo, the John Deere Museum in Waterloo, and a couple of other places in eastern Iowa. These will be places that I will have full, dedicated posts about in the near future.

The two areas I journeyed to had been on my “to-travel” list for quite some time. I recently completed a vigorous stretch of work for my professional job where I really didn’t have any time for going anywhere on a true, dedicated road trip for about a month-and-a-half. June is a very busy month for my workload. However, I did find one bubble of air among it all: It was a visit to The River Room in East Moline, which is my most recent post on here as of this writing. I like sunset views and thought I’d like to see what that view was like, vanishing out along the Mississippi River. I had carved out four days of “vacation time” and decided to take on two areas I had long been wanting to go to (or come back to).

At first glance, you’d think that the timing of content on a road trip website would be unique as the weather becomes nicer. That simply hasn’t been the case here. I know my June workload was going to throw a wrench at the expectations, and I hoped that a Cody’s Road Trips Magazine Article series would help fill the voids – where I don’t get to go out and drive, but recalling some of the work “trips” that I went on in the recent past. Still couldn’t find time to get many of those posted, but there are three (as of this writing) that are on this website’s home page.

As I had planned from the very beginning, new content to this website was – and still is – going to be posted on an intermittent basis. There have been hopes to have more routine posts, but this hasn’t been the case. Upon realizing that, I discovered that this website platform has a newsletter tool. Do you want to know when new content is posted? Rather than constantly checking back to this website and coming up empty-handed, you can subscribe to this website’s newsletter, and be reminded about new posts (you may be reading from it right now if you are on your e-mail). This is an easy process: Just provide your email HERE! While I also immediately put new posts on Facebook and X, the newsletter process allows for those who don’t follow me, or don’t have those social media platforms, to be updated.

Sometimes even trying to repost old stories on social media have slipped through the cracks of my routine. However, there are a couple of stories that I’d like to update: One of which is a recent addition to a history-based road trip I went on last year, and another is an update on the subject’s importance given a recent news item. Instead of rewriting the posts – which also would necessitate sending them on the newsletter – I plan to instead post the updates on Facebook and X when I get around to them.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I don’t have a set structure for postings or procedures with this website – unlike how web things go with my professional job. The best part about having this website is that I can operate it however I want to; there’s no pressure from anyone “above” to get work done – unless you consider that person to be YOU. Just let me know 🙂

Among the photo albums on this website, which are hosted by Flickr, is one called Road Trip Random. These are “stray” photos taken during my trips that do not have a dedicated story to be had about them. I plan to have some updates to that album soon.

There is one place that I visited during my two days that breathed new life to a long-withheld post I had planned. My first visit to this chain of places resulted in a draft that was publish-ready, but I wound up holding it after I noticed something was amiss about the scenery of the place not meeting my expectations. I visited another location, and that location best represents the message that I want to share about such places. Yes, I realize that was a bunch of word salad, but I like it when my destinations come as a surprise first – it just seems to make the posts more interesting.

During my two days traveling, I received two destination suggestions from readers of this website and followers on social media. I like that. Tells me something is working here!

The first was from my friend Kevin H. who invited me to his hometown of Atlanta, Ill. to see the American Giants Museum. Atlanta is one of U.S. Route 66’s more tourist-y small towns with a lot to see. This museum is among its newest attractions. The last time I rolled through town, it wasn’t open yet. I now have this place planned during a still-to-be-mapped-out road trip through central Illinois.

Another suggestion came out of the blue. The marketing manager at the Wheels O’Time Museum in Dunlap (next to Peoria) personally invited me to come there. I think my posts about cars – 80s ones and Pontiacs – may have made this happen. Wheels O’Time has been on my Peoria “to do” list for some time.

The central Illinois and Peoria trips now move to the forefront of my travel goals, now that Pontiac and Waterloo have been check-marked.

The end of my second day of my recent trip actually was planned to involve a couple of outdoor stops in Dubuque. However, I had a hard time dealing with the heat and have decided to postpone those stops until cooler weather.

If you go to the front page of this website, you’ll see only the most recent road trips on it. This is a technological situation; if I left every road trip on there, it would take forever for the page to load, and lead to a challenging browsing experience. Older road trips are archived in a simple format on a page called Road trip locations in ALPHA order. Another good thing about this list is that you can find out if I visited a certain town that you are thinking of. This list is updated with each new post I make. Illinois towns are listed first, followed by others throughout the Midwest.

Something else totally random from traveling: I somehow made renewed use out of my old Olympus handheld audio recorder (those candy bar-looking types). It had been collecting dust in my camera case, as I set it aside for when my phone breaks down (I record interviews with my phone). I started to use it as a “reminder” recorder for small things that I need to remember for writing these entries. I used to take pictures of signs and stuff like that, but I would never get around to deleting those photos, and they’d take up space on my flash drive. Using this recorder also reminded me that I needed to make updates to a couple of past entries (as mentioned above), and to also remind myself to write THIS update!

And as far as videos are concerned? Ones with my voice or head? There’s way too much to work on. I’m trying. I inadvertently ended one video I tried taking with a “thank you” like I was leaving a voice message. Yikes!

Thank you, always, for your support, interest and for reading. It is my hope that this website puts you in the shotgun seat (since I travel solo) for all of the neat places that I like to share. As always, you are welcome to give suggestions and feedback.

And, of course, SUBSCRIBE to my newsletter for new website updates.

Happy travels!
Cody