One of my more recent goals during traveling is to photograph the sign at all of the major U.S. colleges and universities. That is around 250 of them. To get all of them in a 300-mile radius of Kansas City, several weekend trips were taken. This is to record the results of those weekend trips with the colleges in Illinois.

The Baymont hotel I stayed at in Jacksonville started out pretty good. The desk staff, Jeremy, had my room card and paperwork already ready for me when I arrived. I told him I have probably checked into over 500 hotels during the past 45 years and that this was the first time that my paperwork was ready before I arrived. He replied "Really? That's bad" as if he assumed that it was always done everywhere. Jeremy said he always tries to have everything set up before guests arrive. Ah. Service. The hotel went downhill from there, especially in the morning. I could not get any warm water from the shower, just barely above cold. Then, I noticed a bug of some type crawling across the pillow of my second-floor room. And as I went to check out, there was no one at the front desk to give me my receipt. I dropped off the key and left and said: I need to remember this for my online review of this hotel.

The Chicago area has several well-known universities. Some I visited during a rainy previous trip. Beyond the Chicago area, Illinois has two major universities. Both are in the northern half of the state. And both were able to easily be visited in one weekend trip. I recall that the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign was the first major university I visited outside of my own home state. That visit was in the early 1980's. What I recall is a restaurant there that served peanuts in the shell. I made a little pile of my shells on the table. The waitress came by and swept them all off the table and onto the floor. She said throwing the shells on the floor is the tradition at that restaurant.

I wanted to be at the University of Chicago just before sunrise so I could get an early start to the long day of driving. Fortunately, I left plenty early from the hotel because as I got to the point where I-94 turns northward where it meets I-294, a monster wreck had occurred. It shut down northbound so that only the right shoulder could move. At this point, there was 5 or 6 lanes of traffic merging into one. I was surprised how much traffic was out early on a Sunday morning. It caused me a 30-minute delay. Debris from several vehicles were scattered across the interstate as I finally got to go past the wreck. Must have been 20 emergency vehicles there too including some heavy-duty ones.

Chicago, like Philadelphia, has one sign that is quite popular and is everywhere: No Turn on Red. Like I got to a few years earlier, I got to drive along the Lake Shore road. What a breautiful place. Too bad it was 100% cloudy and light rain. But despite that, many were out walking and biking along the lake shore. I noticed two adjacent exit signs, one said Wilson Road and the next said Lawrence Road. So, I have streets there named for me. Cool!

As I was leaving Chicago heading towards Milwaukee I had to take a non-interstate highway for the rest of the way in Illinois because the highway is toll and I try to avoid tolls, as a principle. The highway reminded me of the highway from New York City to Princeton: two lanes each way with a concrete barricade between the two direction. Go 55 mph for a mile then stop at the next traffic light.

Northwestern is a tough campus to figure out where things are. Two of the four signs I thought were there were no where to be seen. I was unable to find one of the three signs at the University of Chicago. And I only found one of three signs at DePaul (although it was a double).

Dixon IL was the childhood home of President Reagan. A visit there was warranted so as to cover all libraries/museums/memorials/etc. of the U.S. Presidents. Presumably the library of President Obama will be in the Chicago area in the near future. It was raining when I got there and the place looked closed and had signs about it being rennovated. So, only photos from the outside front.