BLOOMINGTON - Route 66 stretches 2,448 miles through eight states, but the historic road's influence reaches much further.

The world promotes the historic highway and the tourism it brings to Central Illinois.

Canada, Norway, France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands, for example, all have Route 66 associations, offering foreigners a detailed guide to the attractions along "The Mother Road" or "The Main Street of America."

"Route 66 is probably more popular in Europe than it is here. Our international tourism is huge," said Patty Ambrose, executive director of the Illinois Route 66 Heritage Project, based in Springfield. "(Last week) I was traveling with a British film crew for a program on Route 66 and the (Disney/Pixar) film ‘Cars.'"

Just stop by Funks Grove Pure Maple Sirup and ask owner Glaida Funk to show you her book of signatures. Over the past 59 years, she's been asking every tourist who passes through the store to sign a book.

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"At first we used to see a lot of Germans. We've had people from all over the world," Funk said.

There are too many names to count at this point, but she keeps adding names and remembering the stories that cling to them.

For some reason, she said, people always ask if she's seen infamous Chicago mobster Al Capone. She hasn't.

When starting to keep track of names, Funk noticed the accents of the visitors to her store, so she always asks where people live and asks them to circle their home cities on a map.

The map is two-sided now. On the front, foreigners have circled the various cities they came from throughout Europe. On the back, Funk's customers have drawn sketches of the countries and continents that aren't listed on her map - places like Nigeria, Thailand, Egypt, Czechoslovakia and others.

"We don't get the map out too much anymore. If they're from a big city, it's already been circled on the map," she said.