Day 49 -- Nashville, Indiana to Springfield, Illinois -- 238 Miles

Okay, I can already hear your first question: "why so many miles today?" Well, the answer is that we had no intention of driving that far. We just started out from Nashville, Indiana, and the road was so enticing, and the weather was so beautiful and bright, that we weren't aware that we'd drive that far until we got to Decatur, Illinois on Route 36.

Our main objective after leaving camp this morning was to avoid, if possible, the heavy traffic in St. Louis. Studying the map, I saw that we had reached our camp in Nashville, Indiana, by driving west on Route 36 from Columbus. This same Route 36 basically goes straight west all the way to Denver. We just had to stay the course and enjoy the ride.

What the map doesn't tell you, and we only guessed at, is that Route 36 bisects thousands of acres of corn and soybeans and not much else. Yes, you occasionally come across the town that time forgot, but most times you just have to be content with wide-open vistas and a whole lot of farm equipment.

Personally, I love farms and fields and farm equipment. You could plunk me down in any average farm and I'd be content for hours -- provided my allergies would allow it. But for Concetta, we had the story of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims in America on the Disk player. I was mostly able to follow the story, but there were a lot of Indian names that I wish had been Bill or George.

We didn't find a lot or reasons to stop today, but we did stop near the Indiana border town of "Dana" that was totally unexpected. You see, the town of Dana, current population around 575, is the home of that most famous of war correspondents, Ernie Pyle. Unfortunately, though I think I own a biographical book on Ernie, I have not read it as yet. Therefore, I know almost nothing about him except Burgess Meredith played him in a movie.

So, to bring us all up to date on Ernie's life, here's what I learned from Wikipedia: "Ernest Taylor Pyle (August 3, 1900 – April 18, 1945) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning American journalist and war correspondent who is best known for his stories about ordinary American soldiers during World War II."

"Pyle is also notable for the columns he wrote as a roving, human-interest reporter from 1935 through 1941 for the Scripps-Howard newspaper syndicate that earned him wide acclaim for his simple accounts of ordinary people across North America. When the United States entered World War II, he lent the same distinctive, folksy style of human-interest stories to his wartime reports from the European theater (1942–44) and Pacific theater (1945). Pyle won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his newspaper accounts of "dogface" infantry soldiers from a first-person perspective."

"He was killed by enemy fire on Iejima (then known as Ie Shima) during the Battle of Okinawa. At the time of his death in 1945, Pyle was among the best-known American war correspondents. His syndicated column was published in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers nationwide. President Harry Truman was among those who paid tribute to Pyle: "No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen."

If you stop at Ernie's memorial park just to the east of Dana, the surroundings won't tell you much about Ernie. But the wonderful serenity you experience will, we're sure, speak volumes about the man, who he was, and who he might have been in later years had he lived. In addition to the stone monuments that you might expect, there has also been erected a magnificent covered bridge that hearkens back to simpler times and simpler values.

Back on the highway, our hopes were that we would find a nice camp in Decatur, Illinois, which was situated right on Route 36. So when we reached town, we pulled into what looked like a shopping center parking lot so that we might study our map and consult our camp directory.

But as we rolled to a stop, the very first thing I saw was a sign over the nearest building that said, "Chevrolet Hall of Fame Museum." Well, I decided, I DID have to spend a few moments exercising my legs from the long drive, didn't I? I asked Concetta if she'd like to visit a Chevy museum, but she said she'd stay back and research possible camps.

So, for the "small" sum of twelve dollars, I got to spend a pleasant half hour walking among the rows of mirror-polished Chevrolets and chatting with the manager about the collection. There was no one else in the building, and he and I had a very good time talking about our car hobby and about all the wonderful cars on display.

As an added bonus to the Chevrolet Museum, I was privileged to experience a rarity: an entire room full of nothing but Corvairs. That's right, they haven't all been melted and formed into dishwashers and refrigerators thanks to Ralph Nader. This Decatur museum has a good dozen of them in all body styles on display, some of which I had never seen in person.

I must admit that most of the cars on display in the museum proper do not fall into my areas of interest. Pace cars were especially well represented, as well as Corvettes and Camaros. But there were enough cool Chevies to excite my interest. I especially liked the 1933 Chevy sedan in a forest green color, and the 1927 Utility-body Chevrolet that reminded me of a truck you might see in an safari African movie.

Though I haven't been a fan of Corvettes for many years, I did see a couple from the early years that I wouldn't mind making garage space for. I think they even had a white one from the first year or two of production, as well as a cute red one from 1958.

At any rate, I thought the museum was a fair buy for my twelve dollars, and I would probably go again if I'm ever in the area.

Once I got back to the rig, I found that Decatur had no nearby RV camps, so we had no choice but to continue driving to Springfield, the one-time home of Abraham Lincoln. I'm not sure if we'll do any Lincoln-related activities while we're here. We've done the Lincoln Library, the Lincoln Law Office, and the Lincoln village where he lived. We've also done the Lincoln tomb, which is without a doubt one of our most memorable visits ever.

The bottom line is that we're not sure where we're going tomorrow, or what we'll see along the way, but stick with us as we meander our way on the two-lanes toward Nevada. And if you venture out this fall to explore those magic highways in your area, The Happy Wanderers wish you happy travels and exciting adventures.