My one tip is to be sure to watch the other driver coming at you. A lot of drivers cross the middle line here so you have to be careful on sharp turns on the two way roads. Even in the city people cross over the middle line and it doesn't matter if they are parallel to you, they will still cross the center line if they see something they need to avoid.

When searching for a car in this area you need to consider the weather here. In the winters there is a high likelihood of snow and ice. Having said that, your car/truck needs to have front-wheel or all-wheel drive. The second thing here is there are not as many services as in a bigger city. For example, leaf and trash removal. Some of these items are not picked up by the small towns surrounding Peoria area. This almost requires you to have a vehicle that is a hatchback, truck, or van so that you can haul these things yourself. There are a lot of dealers around if you are wanting to purchase a new vehicle.

I really enjoy driving in the springtime and fall in this area. This is when the farmers are out either plowing the fields or harvesting their crops. For a city boy such as myself, it's a treat to see the big farm machinery working in the fields. It's also very cool to see the harvests at night time with the lights on the tractors and combines.

Hwy 150. I like this route because it goes through farm country, the cornfields and soy bean fields. During the winter, you can see for miles across the flat land and realize how immense the acreage is for some of these farms. In the summer, you are surrounded by a wall of corn stalks. It's like driving through a tunnel. It's amazing to me to drive around this area and see hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm equipment sitting next to an old farm house. When the fields are harvested and bare, I imagine that I'd like to take a remote control plane out and fly as far as the eye can see.

To go through Peoria it is quicker to take I-74 than it is to take the loop around.

There are a lot of car dealers in Peoria. I think that looking on the internet helped a lot for me to find the car that I wanted. I could type what car I was looking for find all the cars that matched the description from all the dealerships in Peoria. Then I was able to find out that the one I got was a better deal than any of the ones at the other dealers without having to stop at each one in person.

Last December we took the kids to the parade of lights in Peoria, IL. It was a wintry day and we went at night. We drove all the curvy and hilly roads and then we waited in the line to get into the park. The road was a bit icy and I was afraid we may back into the other cars on the hill. The line of cars to get into the parade of lights was on a steep hill, so every time we started to drive again the car would roll back first. It took about an hour until we were able to enter the park. Then we drove through the park looking at the floats all lit up. The kids had a very good time.

Washington st. This road takes you through the downtown district which I think is cute and looks kind of like an old town. It also follows the Illinois River which is nice to see.