Severe storms, including a tornado, struck several Route 66 towns in Illinois. Here's the caption for Nancy Saul's photo above for the Lincoln Courier:

AmerenCilco employees set up roadblocks and assess damage along the southbound lane of Old Route 66 on Lincoln's north side. High winds snapped power poles and bent metal light standards to the ground from just north of the Moose Lodge to Krueger Elevator. The southbound lane of the route, which was draped with hot wires, was closed.

And here's an excerpt from the Lincoln paper's story:

The winds shortly after midnight snapped power poles and bent metal light poles on Old Route 66, leaving them and hot wires lying on the southbound section of the highway just north of the Moose Lodge on North Kickapoo Street all the way to Kruger Elevator.

"We had a nice light show in our back yard," said Linda Aper, who lives nearby in Mayfair subdivision.

There also were power outages in the Route 66 towns of McLean and Atlanta.

Here is the Springfield Journal-Register's story on the storms. Here is the Peoria Journal-Star's.

This showed up on Dennis Kinch's Web site for the National Pain Foundation:

For those of you tracking Dennis' progress, he has made it to Sanders, Arizona. He has not been 'holed' up in Gallup, New Mexico as some of you were wondering, but he is taking a few days off the road so he can attend his daughter's wedding in South Carolina over Easter weekend. 

Once he gets back on the road, we'll let you know. Way to go, Dennis — you've got less than 700 miles to go!

Before embarking on their Route 66 trip, the Geezer Riders from Japan toured the Harley-Davidson factory in Milwaukee. It sounds like they were impressed by what they'll be riding on the Mother Road. The Mainichi Daily News has the report.