It's Scenic Byway Week in Illinois--but drive the Ronald Reagan Trail

Ohio, IL

Scenic Byway Week in the Prairie State starts today.

Illinois has six designated scenic byways. I've driven on most of them, but one road that needs to be among them is the Ronald Reagan Trail. The northwestern Illinois roadway covers all of the towns--except Chicago--where the 40th president grew up, including Tampico, where he was born, and Dixon, which he considered his hometown.

A four year-old "Dutch" lived in a Chicago apartment, which the boneheaded University of Chicago razed this spring.

As for Illinois' official scenic byways, part of the Illinois River Road north of Peoria is also on the Reagan Trail.

Ronald Reagan Trail posts:

• Monmouth
• Wyatt Earp
• Galesburg
• Carl Sandburg
• Eureka College
• Returning to Eureka College and the 1982 address
• Eureka College's Reagan Museum
• The town of Eureka
• Washington, Illinois
• Peoria Heights
• Chillicothe

  

  On the Illinois River Road and the
  Ronald Reagan Trail in Putnam County

• Henry
• Princeton
• Ohio, Illinois
• Walnut
• Hennepin Feeder Canal
• Chicago and the likely demolition of the Reagan apartment
• Tampico
• Fulton and the Reagan graves
• Fulton
• Dixon
• Lowell Park and 78 lives saved
• Conclusion