The Launching Pad

The Launching Pad The Launching Pad is the original home of The Iconic Gemini Giant. The Gemini Giant was moved Spring of 2024
Six blocks West to South Island Park.
(1678)

The restaurant was established back to 1956 and continued to do business up through July 2022. Welcome to the iconic Launching Pad Drive-In and the Gemini Giant on Route 66 page! Follow us on our journey to restore this wonderful piece of Americana!

09/27/2026

Have 27 seconds?

How do I forget to post this TIME LAPSE sunrise video this morning?

No words needed…

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Tully 🚀🚀🚀

09/27/2026

Six Minutes

Time is relative.

Six minutes on a clock will always be six minutes.

But your soul knows better. Six minutes is never just six minutes. It all depends on where you are, and who you get to be while you're there.

Six minutes can be a thief.

You have lived those minutes.

Three red lights. A sea of brake lights stretching farther than your patience. Exhaust in the air. The static and noise of the world pressing through your windows. Jaw clenched. Shoulders up around your ears. And when that light finally turns green, you are six minutes closer to the end of it all, and you can feel it in your chest.

Time did not pass. It was taken from you.

Or six minutes can be a gift.

Sunday morning. You wake up and the whole day is already holding its breath for you. That great first cup of coffee, steam rising like a small prayer. And instead of the intersections and the stress and the noise, you get this: an open road, a quiet town, and the few cars out there drifting slow toward church, everybody moving in the same direction, toward the same light.

So come on.

Slide into the passenger seat.

All five minutes and fifty-eight seconds of this morning are yours, and we are going for a drive.

Roll the window down.

The air is clean enough to drink.

The hills are doing that soft green thing Tennessee does at daybreak, mist lifting off the fields like the whole state is exhaling after a long, good sleep.

Somewhere off in the distance, a church bell. The world is not asking a single thing of you right now.

Not one thing.

And this is Tennessee doing what Tennessee always does: wrapping you in that gentle, familiar hug, the one that tells you you are exactly where you were always meant to be.

Here is the miracle nobody talks about.

These six minutes do not take a single thing from you. They add. They add years.

Every unhurried mile, every easy breath, every quiet piece of beauty just sitting there asking nothing of you, it all goes into the account.

Stress spends your life.

Stillness compounds it.

So stay in the car a while. Let the morning take its time with you.

Because on a morning like this, six minutes is not six minutes at all.

It is forever, for a little while.

I'm easy like a Sunday morning. Bear paws up, sun burning bright. Taking it all in from my favorite couch as the sun lif...
09/27/2026

I'm easy like a Sunday morning. Bear paws up, sun burning bright. Taking it all in from my favorite couch as the sun lifts the day into place, while the quiet says everything worth hearing.

09/26/2026

I found myself having to make an unexpected trip to the house in middle Tennessee and this morning this is the beauty I woke up to.

I woke up early and watched the dark sky slowly illuminate with an after glow.

First just a soft blush, a pale rose bleeding over the ridge behind the mountains, then peach, then amber, then fire, all that technicolor spilling across the sky like the Lord was painting it just for me.

The air in the great room was still cool. That crisp, clean, early fall cool that sits on your bare arms and makes you pull your shirt a little closer. So quiet you can hear the ceiling fan turning slow. So still you can hear your own heart.

I had the front door open.

And down in the valley, across the street and the little stream, you could hear them. The cows weren't moving. They were just mooing. That long, low, sleepy morning mooooo that rolls up the hollow and hangs in the cool air.

And then my favorite donkey right on top of it. Oh he was singing. He was putting on a whole show like he knew I was home and wanted to be seen and heard.

Moo, then HEE HAW, then moo again. Poetic and comical and perfect. My morning choir with four legs.

Then the sun crested.

It crested over the mountains in the distance and just started burning. Burning right through that low early morning fog hanging in the hollows. You could literally watch it lift and dissolve and disappear into heaven.

And then the rays came.

Long, endless rays of sunshine streaking across the rolling hillsides for miles. Not one color. Layers and layers of living color. Honey gold and white gold and deep amber and pure light cutting through the mist. So vivid you can see it. So warm you can feel it on your skin.

Beautiful middle Tennessee light that makes you feel like you are standing on top of the world.

Inside, that same heaven poured through all eight windows at once.

Up high the four big ones full of that clear, deep, endless blue, light pouring straight down the vaulted ceiling like the gates of heaven were open just an arm's length away where you could reach out and touch them.

Down low the lower windows full of green trees and the deck rail and the hills rolling forever beyond.

I sat in the middle of it and let it come over me. And you don't just see it, you feel every bit of it in your body and your soul.

Cool air on your shoulders and warm living sun on your face at the exact same time. Warm on your arms, warm on your legs, warm soaking right through your chest.

Long shadows cutting straight across the floor and laying warm across the loveseats. The light has weight. It has energy. It has presence. You can feel it fill up the room.

I forgot to videotape this part this morning, but every morning when the sun comes up this way on a clear morning with an abundance of sunshine, because of the way these windows were designed, it leaves a big massive cross of light across the back wall of the great room.

A cross. Full and bright and perfect. Light laid down like a blessing.

And in that moment it just humbles you. It leaves you appreciative and tearful and so thankful for every single given moment the Lord has given me to stand here and feel this and hear those cows mooing and that donkey hollering down in the valley like he is leading the choir. (Video posted in the comments of the cows, putting on a performance this morning)-

I always come in, open the door, and it feels like I've never left.

It is Home.

Dozens of cool cars would be streaming every day to get pictures in front of the Giant!This one was the beauty…🚀🚀🚀
09/25/2026

Dozens of cool cars would be streaming every day to get pictures in front of the Giant!

This one was the beauty…

🚀🚀🚀

ELVIS IS IN THE BUILDING!If you've known me for more than five minutes, you know I've been a Big Elvis fan my whole life...
09/24/2026

ELVIS IS IN THE BUILDING!

If you've known me for more than five minutes, you know I've been a Big Elvis fan my whole life.

I was there on DAY TWO when they first opened Graceland in Memphis. They had his cars parked out back under a carport in those days — Dino Ferrari, Stutz Bearcat, and THE Pink Cadillac. I got to actually SIT in them. As a little kid, I thought I WAS Elvis.

The next year you couldn't do that anymore because people were snapping the k***s and buttons right off the cars. I wonder why they stopped letting us sit in them...

I've been back to Graceland a half-dozen times since, but nothing tops that first time.

Feels like yesterday.

About 15+ years ago, my Aunt Cindy — who lived in Memphis her whole life — called me. She said, "Tully, you are not going to believe this."

Her best girlfriend Ellen Mink and her had been at one of the most famous early Elvis concerts ever — September 26, 1956 at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair & Dairy Show in Tupelo. Elvis did TWO shows that day, afternoon and evening.

My Aunt Cindy was at BOTH.

Ellen's brother-in-law, Jim Agnew, was with the Mississippi National Guard. That day the Guard and the Mississippi Highway Patrol were assigned to guard Elvis.

Between shows, Jim was able to go backstage and get FOUR never-before-published photos of Elvis, plus get his autograph on a little envelope.

He gifted them to Ellen, and she kept that autograph in her wallet every single day since 1956.

You can read her whole story in the newspaper article I included here from August 9, 1992 — "Autograph a constant treasure." She cherished it her whole life.
About 15 years ago, Ellen reached out knowing what a nut I am for Elvis and sold the whole collection to me.

And then — in classic Tully fashion — I carried it around with me for YEARS.

Lost it a couple of times. Yes, I lost a one-of-a-kind Elvis autograph. Twice. Don't ask.

Last year I finally did what I should have done a long time ago and had it properly preserved.

Matted in blue velvet to match that iconic blue velvet shirt he wore that day at the fair. Archival, acid-free, the real deal.

The centerpiece is that legendary photo of Elvis reaching out to the crowd — that moment at Tupelo that became one of the most famous images ever taken. That print in my frame is signed by Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana — his original band — numbered by the artist.

And then there's the kicker.

I always thought, "Could you ever find a ticket stub from 1956? Nobody saved that stuff back then."

My late wife Nancy spent almost 10 years scouring the internet looking for one. Never could find it.

Then, one Christmas — a month before she passed — she said, "I know I won't be here for Christmas, so I want to give you your gift early."

It was an original ticket from that exact September 26, 1956 show. She finally found one. After 10 years. That ticket is now matted right into this collage. Every time I look at it, I think of her. She passed away a month after giving me the ticket stub and it became the greatest Christmas gift I have ever received in my life.

I finally had the entire piece authenticated and appraised by one of the world's most renowned Elvis experts. Not only is it 100% authentic — as we knew — but because we can prove it was signed BETWEEN shows that day, with the unpublished photos to back it up, he told me it's truly one-of-a-kind. The holy grail of my collection.

Yes, it's locked, secured, and under 24-hour surveillance. Fort Knox has nothing on this frame.

This is something I will pass down to my kids and grandkids. Generational history.

Over the years I was lucky enough to become friends with the Lansky Brothers — the clothiers to The King himself. A lot of my clothes come from Lansky's, and I'm planning a Christmas dinner with Hal Lansky in Memphis this year. From sitting in Elvis's Cadillac as a kid to wearing his clothier's clothes — full circle.

I included a picture of me and my Aunt Cindy too, because without her, none of this happens. Love you to the high heavens, Aunt Cindy.

Sometimes you get to hold a little piece of history in your hands. If you take care of it, preserve it, and remember the people who made it possible — it becomes so much more than memorabilia. It becomes family.

Long live the King.

T-C-B

Some of of us die at 30.Not our body. Our spirit.Men and women both. We get hurt, we get tired, we get busy raising ever...
09/24/2026

Some of of us die at 30.

Not our body. Our spirit.

Men and women both.

We get hurt, we get tired, we get busy raising everybody else, paying for everything else, and somewhere in there we just quietly disappear.

We stop laughing the way we used to. We stop dreaming out loud.

And if we're lucky, if God is really good to us, we don't get buried till our 80s, 90s, close to 100.

That means we spend 50, 60 years walking around here, breathing, but not really alive.

When I'm gone, don't make it a big tragedy. Don't stand over me and say what a shame it was.

The real tragedy was all those years I was right here, sitting in the next room, feeling invisible while I was still alive.

And I didn't need you to mourn me later. I didn't need flowers or a perfect speech.

I just needed you to sit by my side and listen. Right now. While I can still look you in the eye.

Just pull up a chair. Stay a while. Hold my hand if you want to.

Tell me how your day really was, the good and the heavy part. Let me tell you how mine was. Let us both cry if we need to. No fixing. No judging. Just two people finally not disappearing on each other.

If you disappeared back in your 30s too and you've been gone a long time, brother, sister, I see you. I was gone too.

Come sit by me. It's not too late to come back to life. We still have time.

If you've been feeling alone, please don't carry it alone anymore. My door is open. My chair is open. Come sit.

And maybe that's the truth of it.

Maybe we had to live through all those bad years, all those long nights, those trials and tribulations, just to finally know how to hold the good times when they come.

To finally embrace what we once let slip by.

If you come to this page to see the history of the restaurant or the giant- or simply come to smile and hide from all the negativity and enjoy the positivity… welcome home. You have found your place.

So come what may, come joy, come sorrow, I will take it one day at a time, a little wiser, a little stronger, learning to thank God for both the breaking and the becoming.

Tully

Good evening friendsIf you're not happy yourself, you can't make anyone else happy.I had to learn that one the hard way....
09/23/2026

Good evening friends

If you're not happy yourself, you can't make anyone else happy.

I had to learn that one the hard way.

So tonight — you first.

Take care of your own heart first. The rest will fall in line by design, the way it should.

If yesterday kicked your butt or today just felt heavy, let it go right here.

Give yourself some grace. We're all out here just trying our best.

I took this picture tonight on the way home and it stopped me cold.

Look at it — everybody on the same road, in their own lane, just trying to get home. White trucks, blue trucks, beat-up work trucks, cars with tired eyes behind the wheel. Different lanes, same highway, same sunset, all just trying to get through the day.

And I know some of you are reading this tonight with tired eyes and a tired heart, bills due on the counter, trying to figure out how you're going to hold it all together again tomorrow.

I want you to hear me — I'm right there in the trenches with you. Not up here talking down to you. Down there, shoulder to shoulder, mud on the boots with you.

If you're feeling that tonight, you are not alone.

I'm pulling for you and I'm pulling for me.

Just remember to keep pulling yourself up.

Even an inch. Even on your knees. And when you can — reach back and pull another one up along the way. That's how we all win.

If today was a mess, hey — you made it.

You made it to the couch.

You made it to tonight.

That counts as a big win in my book.

Some days that best looks beautiful, some days it's just barely holding on — and both still count. Both still matter!

Rest easy tonight.

We'll make tomorrow good together, one sunrise at a time.

Tully

I had a breakfast date this morning.Just me, myself and I.My life’s been moving so fast lately I haven’t been able to ca...
09/23/2026

I had a breakfast date this morning.

Just me, myself and I.

My life’s been moving so fast lately I haven’t been able to catch up with myself — so I thought I’d sit down and see how I’m doing.

I came to my favorite little place in New Lenox — Country Charm Restaurant.

For over 20 years this has been my go-to.

When Nancy was alive, we broke bread here so many times. Breakfasts. Lunches. Life happening in between bites of coffee and conversation.

Over the years I’ve broken bread here with so many of you. Friends, family, strangers who became friends. And the staff is still the same after 20+ years. In a world where everything changes, that tells you something.

I rolled in a little after 8 AM. This place is usually packed from 6 AM to 3 PM. Today, my whole section was empty. Just me.
I’ve never seen that in all the years I’ve lived here.

I ordered my traditional — a bowl of oatmeal with raisins, fruit, coffee, and dry wheat toast — and I looked around at the wood paneling, the familiar tables, the quiet, and I just sat with it.

It was so quiet... like a confessional booth.
And in that quiet, I realized it was a gift. A sign from above. A moment carved out just for me.

My days here in Illinois are numbered now, and I know in my heart this is one of those places I’m going to miss more than words can say.

Not just for the food — which is quality, presented well, always generous — but for what it held. The memories. Nancy’s laugh across the table. The hands I’ve held here. The stories.

The only thing I had to settle in that quiet was the dry wheat toast — which I shouldn’t have ordered, but I guess it’s better than biscuits and gravy and bacon. Well, it’s not tastier, that’s for sure. Some habits we keep for the heart, not the taste.

We all have one, don’t we?

That one little favorite place. That restaurant, that bar, that booth that feels like home. That place that saw us through different chapters and still remembers our name.

Today, my little favorite is the old Country Charm Cafe.

If you have one — go.

Soon.

Don’t wait for life to slow down.

Go sit.

Order your usual. Look around slowly.

Let it speak to you.

You might find you’ve been needing that conversation with yourself more than you knew.

And if you’re missing someone who used to sit across from you — bring them with you in your heart.

I did today.

📸 My table this morning.

With gratitude,

Tully




Address

Route 66
Wilmington, IL
60481

Telephone

+18154766535

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