Road Trip April - Day 29
- Fred & Em
- Apr 10
- 4 min read
April 10th 2026 (Friday)
Well after a relatively quiet night, this morning was met with frustration as we tried to get our technology to log in to pay some bills that had become due. Not the best way to start the day but a necessary requirement! Technology wrestled, bills paid, it was back on the road to our next destination.
Macomb, Illinois, is the home town of Elizabeth "Lizzie" Magie, the inventor of The Landlord's Game, the precursor to Monopoly, the world famous board game that we all know and love. My youngest son was crazy about the game in his youth so it seemed only right to go have a look and dedicate this visit to him.
The old town district is where they have put the Monopoly pieces around the square, they are nicely done and you can play the Macombopoly game if you scan the QR codes - we unfortunately didn't do this as we weren't planning on staying too long. So we just walked round the square, taking in the game pieces and enjoying the fun vibe of the place.
Whilst exploring, we ended up in a second hand book store in the town square, and Oh my!! It was like a tardis, my Dad would have been in absolute book heaven here!! Fred ended up buying a few 'must haves' and all very reasonably priced, before it was back on the road to get to our next night spot at another Love's.....but then....
I saw another quick detour, not only to get fuel - which might I say, OMG! Fuel prices have gone mad, cheapest we managed to get today was at Walmart $4.27. Luckily Fred gets an extra 10 cents a gallon discount with the Walmart+ subscription, so a 'bargain price' of just $4.17 but every little helps (yes, I know that's Tescos UK strapline)!! With the ongoing Iran war prices are only going to get a lot worse, sadly.
But back to our quick detour which was to Alton, Illinois to visit the statue of the tallest man who ever lived, located on the former grounds of Shurtleff College (now the SIU School of Dental Medicine). Robert Wadlow, an American man officially recognized as the tallest person in recorded history. Known as the "Alton Giant" or the "Gentle Giant", he reached a staggering height of 8ft 11.1in (2.72 meters) before his premature death peacefully in his sleep at just 22 years old, caused by a septic blister on his right ankle.
It's scary to imagine that at age 5 he was the same height as Em is now and wore clothes that would fit a 17 year old. By aged 10 he was 6ft 5in that's 3in taller than Fred is now! At aged 13, he became the world's tallest Boy Scout, standing 7 feet 4 inches. At his death, he wore size 37 shoes, specially made for him by the International Shoe Company of Sweet Springs, who he worked for a promotional representative from the age of 20.
His coffin measured 10ft 9in (3.28 m) long by 2ft 8in (0.81 m) wide by 2ft 6in (0.76 m) deep, weighed over 1,000 lb (450 kg), and was carried by twelve pallbearers and eight assistants!
Although he died at a young age, he lived an active and dignified life, and is much revered in the town of Alton.
It was fascinating to see and read about his history, plus a great excuse to stretch our legs before we finally reached our nightspot, yet another Love's Truck Stop forecourt. They are becoming a firm favourite, especially when we can't find a reasonably local campsite to book that's not too far off our route. This one is situated just outside of St Louis in a place called Sauget.
On a side note the roads in Illinois are, not to put too fine a point on it, utterly sh*t, bumpy as heck, have loads of potholes in them, there's alot of missing tarmac and generally they are just awful!! The only consolation is your chance of falling asleep at the wheel is dramatically reduced as you have to concentrate so hard to not hit the potholes. Even passengers won't be nodding off either!! (lol)
Injured finger update for those who are interested, and as it has been a few days... it's still, in simple terms, a bit of a mess! Still hurts like mad and in certain places particularly, along the side and front it is numb in a couple of places. Plus, I still can't bend/use it properly either, though there is improvement as trying to bend it isn't as painful as it was. The wound itself is healing nicely, but I think the internal damage is going to take some time to heal.
Road Trip Day 29 - we've driven approximately
255 Miles today!
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