August was a busy month, as I look back on it now it's hard to believe all that happened. Now that it's September that means a few things, Ice Hockey and High School football games begin. In July I had some minor problems with one of my camera bodies, at least I thought it was minor at the time - I sent the camera body into Canon and they informed me that the shutter needed to be replaced. Luckily I get a discount being a Canon Professional member! After that I decided to send in every lens and camera body into Canon for maintenance and calibration. Let's just say the FedEx driver knows my address very well now - plus all of my Canon gear is fine tuned and working well now.

Individuals who follow me on Social Media know the first week of August was a road trip, it was a fun trip that I would be willing to bet most people never think about. Normally we think about driving from point A to point B as fast as we can legally go, this road trip was the complete opposite. One week to drive from Chicago to St.Louis on Route 66 while attempting to stay on the original route as much as possible, easier said than done. The trip started real early on Monday morning, the car was parked downtown before 9am for a little adventure around Grant and Millenimum Parks with a short walk to Willis Tower. First half of the day was spent around Chicago and mid-day the drive on Route 66 began.

There are numerous books and websites providing instructions for driving Route 66, when reviewing them it sounds easy to follow until you actually get on the road and you find road names changed or sections of roads closed. Adding to the challenge are the official Route 66 signs that do not always show the various sections of the route. Some area's post signs indicating sections from various years, so you may have three(3) different driving options around a town. One other rule for this trip - no four lane interstate driving, which is not always possible based on the original route; so over the next few days less than 4 miles were driven on Interstate 55 - the highway that replaced Route 66 in Illinois.

I suspect some of the readers are wondering how fast or slow can this trip be done - if you make stops at every museum and historical site, you will need a few weeks to drive Route 66 in Illinois. The first day took us about 6.5 hours of driving and stopping at various sites, on the Interstate we could drive the same distance in 45 minutes! Chicago to St.Louis is about 300 miles driving on Interstate 55, about 4.5 hours - this road trip required over 3 days to reach the Mississippi River. While I read various Social Media feeds about people doing this trip, the biggest shock was the number of Europeans doing the complete Route 66 trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. Mostly the travellers were couples but even a few families of parents and kids following the Mother Road. Now I guess there will be a longer trip in my future, Cali here I come (some day).

The first image this month represents a small slice of the sights found along the road in Illinois, with a mixture of historical, abandoned and newer views. The background image is a section of Route 66 that is still paved with bricks. I don't recommend laying on the road to obtain shots like this, the road is still very busy and it's not the main road in the area - guess everyone likes to drive on a little history! Hopefully this collage image gives you a small taste and you plan a future road trip, if not just do a little research on the history of the road way. From some of the first four(4) lane roadways in the US, some of which are still visible, an underground subway walkway for students to cross the road to school since the route was so busy and numerous gas stations with original tools and equipment.

While the first week was slow, there were a few other weekends of fast paced action. I was able to attend the Indianapolis Motor Speedway round of the MotoGP road race series, AMA Pro Flat Track series in Peoria Illinois and finally AMA Pro Motocross in Crawfordsville Indiana. Lot's of wind-shield time for myself, which is relaxing - most people would go crazy with the drive time I had. If you have ever watched outdoor Pro Motocross on TV, let me tell you it does not accurately show what these guys and girls are doing. The riders are flying half a football field off some of the bigger jumps and making bike adjustments while floating in the air. The second image shows Ryan Dungey, rider for Red Bull KTM, reaching back for the handlebar after pulling a tearoff strip from his helmet. Ryan won the 2015 Lucas Oil 450 title this year, so congrats to his team.

If you want to see more images from the AMA Pro racing series, follow these links: Flat Trak - https://www.flickr.com/photos/timlester/albums/72157657478269132 Motocross - https://www.flickr.com/photos/timlester/albums/72157655431971834

Sorry for the long post this month but hopefully you enjoy the images and send me any comments or questions.

Here's a link to download the appropriate version of this month's image for your desktop, one for standard screens and one for wide-screens. Right click on the text for the format you need and select Save As, save to a location on your computer that you can remember and change the background as needed for your OS.

http://www.timlesterimages.com/calendar/september.html

Tim

Tim Lester 10129 North Voorhees Road Edwards, IL 61528

Phone - 309-243-9280

Webpage - http://www.timlesterimages.com

Additional Images - http://www.flickr.com/photos/timlester and http://www.sportsshooter.com/timlester

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