As summer comes to an end I feel autumn grab me by my feet pulling me while I cling desperately to the passing season until I can’t hold on anymore.   I have even found myself a smidge bitter at all the fall posts for the last few weeks on social media, and all the decorations out in the stores.   I do love fall –it is winter I am really starting to strongly dislike.  At the start of summer everything is bright green and smells new, the scent of flowers and fresh cut grass fills the air.  As the season goes on everything starts to darken a bit-become a deeper darker green and the grass becomes brown.  I haven’t mowed in 3 weeks now, big difference from the two or three times a week I was mowing at the beginning of summer.

I was walking the dog-taking in everything around me while we were strolling along.  This is not a weekly occurrence, usually I have my 4 year old Grandson with me and the walks are never quiet.  They are filled with a million questions and stories, there is pulling and tugging and picking up of sticks, acorns, bark, and whatever looks interesting to him on the side of the road.  I love those walks, but when I am alone with Mya it is Zen.  I take in all the scents around me and on this particular day I noticed the scent of the end of summer, it is no longer the smell of fresh cut grass, I now notice the slight scent of decay in the air, everything is slowing down.  The leaves are a deep dark green –some are brown and occasionally I am noticing a colored leaf here or there.  The acorns are abundant –the squirrels are hustling and bustling about hiding theses treasures.

The older I get the more I dread the upcoming winter, and the faster the seasons fly by.  I don’t know if it is because I feel that I myself am in the Autumn of life- or it is just how I perceive time now.  This week is the Autumnal equinox- fall will be arriving.  We finished out our summer this weekend with a gig at a private party on a beautiful lake.  It was for a friend and it was relaxing to say the least, the rain broke just in time and the evening was perfect.  We were far enough out of town that the night sky was pretty impressive.  The cool night air and the huge bonfire was the perfect way to say goodbye to summer.  

After we left Dwight, Illinois we continued on down Route 66 our next big stop was the city of Pontiac, Illinois.  In Pontiac is a fantastic route 66 museum and one of the best military museums I have seen.  The museum itself wasn’t busy at the time we stopped –it was a Sunday afternoon.  We were pretty excited it was open.  The museum was free, which was a nice bonus.  As we meandered through the museum we walked into the Livingston County War Museum-they are all sort of connected so it is easy to wander from one part to the other.  The room we walked in to was filled with mannequins that were brought to life with descriptive tags on each one.  The mannequins were clothed in uniforms of soldiers throughout the years.  Each descriptive tag had a name and story about the person that wore the uniform.   We spent a bit of time in that room reading those tags –in silence- and thinking of those who had served.

Pontiac seemed like a pretty cool little town, another thing we did there was walk across the swinging bridges.  It is always good to get out and stretch the legs a bit when traveling so stretching our legs on some swinging bridges sounded fun.  I really want to go back to Pontiac when we have a little more time and really check out the city.  Mr. Trent might just have to book a gig there so we have another reason to go back.

Route 66 seems to just wind in and out of these delightful little towns-I wish we had the time to really explore all these places but unfortunately we had to keep moving.  We have regular jobs too that we have to get back to so it was time to move on.  After Pontiac we found ourselves arriving just in time-and at the end of the season –at Funk’s Grove.  Funk’s Grove is an absolute must visit.  They have been making maple sirup since 1824-and yes I spelled sirup correctly, it is spelled this way to distinguish it as a product made by boiling sap vs syrup which is technically adding sugar to fruit juice.  This was a treat and I mean that in every sense of the word.  This maple sirup business has been in the Funk family for years-check out the link to the history.  Mr. Trent and I were given a little taste of this delectable liquid-I could have drank a whole bottle-WOW.  I can’t even do justice to the wonderful flavor of the sirup.  Needless to say we bought some and have been savoring it-and I might add hiding it from the Grandson. 

I had a little incident where I spilled a bit on the floor and I almost got on my hands and knees and licked it up, that is just how good it is.  They are out of sirup for this season, but will reopen in the Spring.  We will be making Funk’s Grove a regular stop.

The ride down this very small portion of route 66 needed to come to an end.  Of course there is no better way to wrap up the journey and head towards home then a muffler man and giant Abe Lincoln.  The muffler man was holding a hot dog and had been relocated to a street in the town of Atlanta, Illinois.  Now Atlanta was a bit of a ghost town by this time on Sunday, there were just a few people and not really any businesses open it was a bit of an eerie silence.  We took some photos and moved on to the final stop  “The Railsplitter”  Which is a giant covered wagon being driven by Abe Lincoln-who happens to be reading a book.  What a way to finish off this whirlwind adventure.